Duck

For some reason everyone seemed to be having a bad day today. My goal was to avoid any badness myself.

A coworker arrived at work a half hour late, with her nine year old son in tow. Was he too sick to go to school? Has school ended and his summer program hasn't started? No. Apparently he needed a mental health day. That explained why he looked like he'd been crying or having an allergy attack.

The morning continued with a granny fight. This isn't two old ladies hitting each other with their canes at Dan's, fighting over the last box of prunes. Nothing like it. I was in the file room when I heard screaming. SCREAMING. "Don't yell at me! Who do you think you are to yell at me like that? Do you want me to yell at you?! Who the fuck do you think you are? I don't yell at you so don't yell at me! This is BULLSHIT!"

The file clerk and I turned to each other with wide eyes. I hoped there were no clients in the hallway to hear that. So unprofessional. When I walked out of the file room, the hallway was silent. All the grandmas were primly sitting at their desks. All the attorneys had their doors closed. It was a long walk down the hall to my desk.

I had been in the file room getting old pleadings. Nice Partner had given me unclear directions on what to do with them, but I knew they were needed. Basically, he inadvertently gave me the directions twice, and the first time he told me to do B, while the second time he told me to do A. I thought it made the most sense to do C, a combination of both. When I went to ask, Nice Partner was a bit snappish and told me he'd told me to do C. I showed him the e-mail he'd sent me saying to do B, he backed down, and we moved forward.

When I'd started working on that project, Nice Partner had come over to my desk and told me to continue with what I was currently doing, but to later do Project B, which he handed me. I put it on my desk, finished Project A, then went to get what I needed to do Project B.

Project B had grown legs and walked off my desk. Did somebody steal it? No, apparently Nice Partner had taken it off my desk to do himself. That pissed me off.

Loose Earlobe Lady started making noise about needing to file and serve a pleading for one of the baby attorneys she works for. She asked if I would help her prepare a Proof of Service. This is possibly the simplest document in the entire legal world to prepare. It's a document that basically says "I, Green Yogurt, am over 18 years of age, reside (or work) in San Francisco, CA and served a Request for Interrogatories upon Joe Schmoe, Esquire by putting the document in the mail/faxing it/FedExing it." Then you sign it at the bottom. Every law firm I have ever worked for has a standard form employees can use. Fill in the blanks, save it, print it, sign it, slap it on the back of the pleading, the end. Months ago I showed LEL how to do this. She asked questions, took notes, repeated things back to me, acted like the best student in the world.

If there's one thing I know how to do, it's teach. LEL is the Student From Hell. I won't bore you with the details, but I drew upon patience like I rarely have to do. She got all confused. She got so confused she managed to confuse the baby attorney and I had to straighten him out by going through who we were serving as if he hadn't been the one who'd told me that initially.

After lunch, the coworker with the son discovered she'd lost her ATM card. I lent her $20.

When I got back to my desk, LEL came over to me and told me she'd told HR about the fight that happened in the morning. "If they don't like the way you sneeze, they'll tell on you, so it was only fair." I didn't know what to say. I shrugged and gave my best "I'm not involved" smile. At this point, I was just trying to get through the rest of the day without getting sucked in to any dramas.

At 5:31 I was in the elevator. By 6:01 I was heading towards Fisherman's Wharf for a walk. I hope to hell tomorrow is a better day. For everyone.