Let Me Tell You About The Grandmas

Today is Come to Work With Green Yogurt Day. Join me, won't you? My desk at work is at the corner of a hallway. Along the other side of the hallway are attorney's offices. Along my side of the hallway are other legal secretaries. They are all grandmas. What do I mean by that? I mean, they are all in their late 50's or older, and all either have grandchildren or cats that they gush about to anyone who will listen. I mean, they all smell like Lysol or old-lady perfume. I mean, they share their Maalox and Tums without any shame. I mean, they talk about medical problems as if they're in training to move to Florida and sit around the pool talking about them like the real retired grandparents do. I mean, they're old, and they do old people things.

Now I have nothing against grandmas. I grew up with three myself, and loved them all. But two of these grandmas are different. Let me introduce you.

First, there's Loose Earlobe Lady (LEL). I call her that (to you) because one of her earlobes flaps back and forth wildly as her head moves. Her head moves every single time she talks. During my first two days of work, it took all I had to not laugh hysterically each time I saw her speak. You'd think she and I would get along swimmingly, because according to her grandma stats she's "a nice Jewish grandma" but you'd be wrong. She tries on old lady perfumes during her lunch hour, and this past week encouraged me to smell her as she stood over me at my desk. I leaned a half inch in her direction, pretended to inhale, and (not too dramatically) pretended to love it. But that wasn't enough for Loose Earlobe Lady. She said "No really, SMELL it!" and then did the unthinkable. Pulled the collar of her v-neck sweater FAR away from her body while leaning over towards me, essentially shoving her boobs in my face. Was I just sexually harrassed by a grandma?! GROSS!

LEL and I have different working styles. If an attorney asks me to do something, I say "sure" and walk away to get it done. If an attorney asks her to do something she asks many questions, and then says "Okay Bob, I'll get right on that. You can count on me. I'll have that for you in a jiffy." Now, Bob bills clients at $325 an hour. He doesn't want to stand there listening to Loose Earlobe Lady yammer on about how she'll get something done for him. So the attorneys in our department are starting to like me a little better than they like Loose Earlobe Lady.

Another important thing to know is that like many grandmas, LEL is losing her hearing. Yesterday one of the associates she works for (who sits right across from me) called her and asked her for a fax number of a client. She did her spiel, and right as he added, "I'll hold on" she hung up on him. Way to go, Grandma. LEL also speaks VERY LOUDLY. It's very distracting and annoying to me.

Let's talk about the food. All grandmas are required to carry gum in their purse and tissues shoved up their sleeves. It's in the Grandma Manual. Grandmas always have some good snacks lying around (never mind that they also try to offer you prunes all the time; they're projecting). Loose Earlobe Lady keeps a candy dish filled with Hershey's chocolates on her ledge. That's fine with me. Just because I'm trying to diet, it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to. I've worked at places where I kept candy on my desk. But this is not the end of the food. Loose Earlobe Lady also drinks cans of diet Coke continuously throughout the day. With ice. Which would not be a problem if she didn't spill full glasses of it once a week. LEL also snacks throughout the day. When I say "throughout" I do not really mean sporadically. I mean it's nonstop. She has bags and bags of soy crisps or some such shit in her cabinet and crinkles them all the time. Wait, that's not fair - it's not *ALL* the time. Sometimes she has granola bars instead. All day long either the sound of her loud voice is interrupting my train of thought, or the crinkling of her various snacks and munching sounds are.

Loose Earlobe Lady is very sensitive. The attorneys she works for, work for the partners I work for. When my partner called us both into his office and encouraged me to delegate to her, I don't think LEL was pleased. At all. She's older, she's been working in law firms longer than I have, and she shouldn't have to listen to a twenty-something year old asking her to help file things. Which I haven't done. Yet.

One day last week a secretary who sits far away decided to play a little joke on Cowboy Partner. As she was setting it up, she said twice that she'd fully take any blame for it. The following day the Cowboy found the joke, laughed, and then innocently asked LEL and I who did it. It was clear he wasn't angry, just curious. I could not tell him. Why? Because I didn't know her name. I know where she sits, what she was wearing the day she came over to set up the joke, I could point her out in a lineup, but just didn't know her name. Cowboy turned his attention to Loose Earlobe Lady. Now, he used to be a prosecuting attorney. He's a smart guy. LEL kept trying to dodge the question by distracting Cowboy with tales of the Neil Diamond concert she'd gone to over the weekend, but he couldn't be shaken off. Even though the Cowboy was standing at the ledge over my desk and LEL was 4 feet from me, I ignored them after a while and went back to working at my computer. The two of them continued their verbal dance, and then all of a sudden I looked up quickly. The way Loose Earlobe Lady responded to something sounded like she was about to cry. I looked at the Cowboy to see if he'd noticed, because as much as I can't stand LEL, I truly feel nobody should be made to cry at work, and luckily he had, and he backed off. Later in the day I saw the practical joker and let her know that the Cowboy'd be putting a lot of pressure on LEL, and she went and told him what she'd done. As the Cowboy had promised, he wasn't angry. The guy has a good sense of humor. But I get the impression that LEL didn't believe me that I didn't know the practical joker's name (I have since found it out), and that I purposely threw her in front of the proverbial truck. If that were true, I could see why she'd be angry.

Because of her (can I be obnoxious enough to say) jealousy issues, LEL seems to have decided not to help me. At all. With anything. Despite the fact that she's heard the partners and the HR guy tell me to ask her any questions I might have. She has two different ways of doing this. One way is to say she doesn't know, and refer me to someone else. She always refers me to someone who wouldn't know (the copy room guys won't know how to use the billing system!) or isn't around. Now Loose Earlobe Lady has been there for about a year. I know damn well she must know when sending out a check, whether or not you are supposed to rip off the bottom. Don't lie to me, bitch. Her other way is to answer my question in such a way that doesn't actually answer my question. Here's an example:

GY: LEL, what code do I put in [billing system] to indicate the attorney couldn't bill any of his hours?
LEL: I don't understand what you're asking.
GY: Well, Cowboy Partner is teaching a seminar all day today, so he can't bill any clients. What do I put in the spot where client codes usually go?
LEL: Client codes go right underneath attorney codes.
GY: Right, but where can I find a list of codes for non-client related activities?
LEL: I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're asking. You should ask Joe.
GY: Joe? Is that the guy who changes the lightbulbs and orders office supplies?

Then there's Cat Lady. I don't think Cat Lady has any actual grandchildren. There are no pictures of any on her desk. There are no weird art projects that are usually indicative of kids, like macaroni necklaces or whatever kids make these days. I've never heard her mention a husband, children, or babies. But what she does talk about is her cat. Romeo. Who Loose Earlobe Lady apparently named for her. Cat Lady had gastric bypass a few months ago. When there are no attorneys around, she likes to flash people her scar. That's just what I want to see at 9 a.m. A fat, mushy, pale belly with a huge scar running down it. She's worked at this firm for five years. Cat Lady thinks she's the bomb. She speaks very authoritatively, and tries to make people she speaks with feel stupid. Including attorneys. Now to be honest, sometimes attorneys don't know things. Not everything in the world is taught at law school. But show a little fucking respect, huh?? And stop telling me about how you're switching your cat to a raw food diet! I don't care. I already told you twice I'm a dog person.

Despite both of these ladies being old enough to know better, they gossip like they're in sixth grade. Despite the fact that they sit next to each other (the seating arrangement is me, LEL, Cat Lady), they e-mail back and forth all day long. Sometimes Cat Lady is actually working and doesn't have time for the gossip. But don't you worry that she's missing out on anything. Oh no, Loose Earlobe Lady won't hear of that. She'll loudly stage whisper "Cat! Cat!" and then sing the word "e-mail" to her. When someone they're e-mailing about walks towards them, LEL will say "Shh, shhh, she's coming!" Often times that someone is me.

There are more grandmas in our row of legal secretaries. But they're all normal. They just do the regular grandmotherly things, like reminding me to take my sweater when I'm headed out for lunch (sometimes I do, just to make them feel good), asking if I like working there (I do, despite the gossipy grandmas), and offering me some of their precious prunes (I politely decline).