A Letter
Dear My Attorneys,
In general, you are the nicest bunch of lawyers I've ever worked with. In general, I am happy to help any and all of you, even if I don't work directly for you.
However.
You *ALL* know that your time for the month of September was supposed to be both entered and closed by this morning at 11 a.m. Although as your secretary it is my job to handle time, ultimately, it is your responsibility. If we were all being honest, I think we'd all agree that waiting until Monday morning to give me a week or more of time is not very responsible.
Tuna, I came to you on Friday after lunch to talk with you about time. You blew me off, saying it could be done Monday morning. I very sweetly and gently pointed out to you that I had to get time from two other attorneys, and you were not the only person I'd be rushing to enter time for. Again, you blew me off. This is not the first time you've been a bit of a prick lately. Why you think it's funny to see that I'm swamped and give me more work anyway is beyond me. Why you say stupid little things like "Better hurry!" when I'm rushing to close everyone's time when that's neither cute nor funny, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with you, but if this behavior continues, I'm going to change how I treat you accordingly. No more offering to get you lunch when you're too swamped to get it yourself, no more quietly warning you when Cowboy is on the warpath. You'll be on your own. The decision is yours.
Nice Partner, pleasure working with you. Thanks for seeing how swamped I was this morning and bringing your letter to Word Processing. Sorry I fucked up your time last week. I'll try not to do it again. Thanks for only needing me to enter Friday and Sunday's time. Sorry you worked Sunday. Maybe next weekend, huh?
Name Partner, this timesheet thing is not working for me, quite frankly. Your handwriting is terribly hard to decipher. You never tell me when you're in the office, get angry if you're asked, use a Daytimer instead of Outlook like everyone else and conveniently don't walk past me to get to your desk. I have to trek all the way over to your office to see if you've arrived. You never include client numbers on your time sheets, even though there's a specific space for them. You also don't let me know if I should be expecting timesheets from you or if you'll be giving them to your other secretary. I was not pleased this morning that you didn't show up until after 10:30 a.m., and then I first had to ask you for time from last week. Thanks for at least putting your call on hold when I came to your office to ask you to figure out what you'd written. I will be putting together a client list to make life easier for myself.
LEL, you fucking suck. How could you not tell the Cowboy you'd be out today? He called me at 10:45 a.m. asking me if I could enter his time. He had something like six days of time for me to enter, and it was from all over the month. Why weren't you on his case last week to get this time done?
Cowboy, you don't have to call me each time you send me an e-mail with your time. I know you think you're the most important person, but I only agree with you when it's either you or Tuna. Name Partner trumps you.
Baby Attorney (Girl) - pleasure to work with you as always. Thanks for almost only needing me to enter Friday's time. If I were you, I'd rip LEL a new one for not having noticed that you had no time entered for September 6th. It was pure luck that I noticed it. Sorry that I had to give your time to Cat Lady to do, but we were getting too close to the deadline.
Baby Attorney (Boy) - I know it's hard being secretaryless now that Drunk Granny is gone. I understand that you didn't want to bother her last week, since Kennedy was getting as much out of her as humanly possible. I hope they get you a new secretary soon. I hope it isn't me.
In closing, sorry I didn't get everyone's time closed until 11:02 a.m., but I did check with the accounting person, and everyone's time will count. I am only human. Entering weeks worth of time for six different attorneys all within two hours is difficult. Especially when you don't give it to me promptly at 9 a.m. Especially when I'm also trying to answer your phones since you're busy chatting about baseball with other attorneys (Tuna). If I'm not at work on November 1st, you'll know why.
Love,
Green Yogurt
In general, you are the nicest bunch of lawyers I've ever worked with. In general, I am happy to help any and all of you, even if I don't work directly for you.
However.
You *ALL* know that your time for the month of September was supposed to be both entered and closed by this morning at 11 a.m. Although as your secretary it is my job to handle time, ultimately, it is your responsibility. If we were all being honest, I think we'd all agree that waiting until Monday morning to give me a week or more of time is not very responsible.
Tuna, I came to you on Friday after lunch to talk with you about time. You blew me off, saying it could be done Monday morning. I very sweetly and gently pointed out to you that I had to get time from two other attorneys, and you were not the only person I'd be rushing to enter time for. Again, you blew me off. This is not the first time you've been a bit of a prick lately. Why you think it's funny to see that I'm swamped and give me more work anyway is beyond me. Why you say stupid little things like "Better hurry!" when I'm rushing to close everyone's time when that's neither cute nor funny, I don't know. I don't know what's going on with you, but if this behavior continues, I'm going to change how I treat you accordingly. No more offering to get you lunch when you're too swamped to get it yourself, no more quietly warning you when Cowboy is on the warpath. You'll be on your own. The decision is yours.
Nice Partner, pleasure working with you. Thanks for seeing how swamped I was this morning and bringing your letter to Word Processing. Sorry I fucked up your time last week. I'll try not to do it again. Thanks for only needing me to enter Friday and Sunday's time. Sorry you worked Sunday. Maybe next weekend, huh?
Name Partner, this timesheet thing is not working for me, quite frankly. Your handwriting is terribly hard to decipher. You never tell me when you're in the office, get angry if you're asked, use a Daytimer instead of Outlook like everyone else and conveniently don't walk past me to get to your desk. I have to trek all the way over to your office to see if you've arrived. You never include client numbers on your time sheets, even though there's a specific space for them. You also don't let me know if I should be expecting timesheets from you or if you'll be giving them to your other secretary. I was not pleased this morning that you didn't show up until after 10:30 a.m., and then I first had to ask you for time from last week. Thanks for at least putting your call on hold when I came to your office to ask you to figure out what you'd written. I will be putting together a client list to make life easier for myself.
LEL, you fucking suck. How could you not tell the Cowboy you'd be out today? He called me at 10:45 a.m. asking me if I could enter his time. He had something like six days of time for me to enter, and it was from all over the month. Why weren't you on his case last week to get this time done?
Cowboy, you don't have to call me each time you send me an e-mail with your time. I know you think you're the most important person, but I only agree with you when it's either you or Tuna. Name Partner trumps you.
Baby Attorney (Girl) - pleasure to work with you as always. Thanks for almost only needing me to enter Friday's time. If I were you, I'd rip LEL a new one for not having noticed that you had no time entered for September 6th. It was pure luck that I noticed it. Sorry that I had to give your time to Cat Lady to do, but we were getting too close to the deadline.
Baby Attorney (Boy) - I know it's hard being secretaryless now that Drunk Granny is gone. I understand that you didn't want to bother her last week, since Kennedy was getting as much out of her as humanly possible. I hope they get you a new secretary soon. I hope it isn't me.
In closing, sorry I didn't get everyone's time closed until 11:02 a.m., but I did check with the accounting person, and everyone's time will count. I am only human. Entering weeks worth of time for six different attorneys all within two hours is difficult. Especially when you don't give it to me promptly at 9 a.m. Especially when I'm also trying to answer your phones since you're busy chatting about baseball with other attorneys (Tuna). If I'm not at work on November 1st, you'll know why.
Love,
Green Yogurt
posted by Green at 10/02/2006 10:32:00 PM
3 Comments:
Man, are you way too nice to them. Instead of fucking up, take your time getting it done right. If you can't get it all in, well, it's really not your fault is it? If you keep getting all the last minute stuff (time, word processing) done when it's given to you at the last minute, well, it will always be given to you at the last minute. Don't you know how the grannies survive? By not being so competent. No one wants to do this job, I know, cause I'm doin' it and it sucks. That's why the grannies keep their jobs b/c there are fewer and fewer young women who will do it. Oh, and just look like you're doing your job in an efficient and timely manner, but don't actually do it in an efficient and timely manner. You need to let the attys know who's boss.
Funny and so very true, anon. It's really hard to slack without looking like a slacker, though. Especially when you actually care about/need your job (and being liked by your bosses).
After reading your post....I am again so incredibly thankful to have a partner and two associates (one senior, one baby) that DO THEIR OWN DAMNED TIME SLIPS!!! We have a person that enters all of ours into tabs, then a bookkeeper that gives them their time recap which they have to review themselves. Getting them to file discovery responses in a timely fashion is another story. But they do their own time at least. I don't have to review calendars to figure out who did what when and where.
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