Making the Job Sweeter

On Monday I started temping at a new law firm. It's a real shock to go from a well-oiled machine, where there's a form for everything and a department that handles every issue that comes up, to one where you are introduced to someone and told he is both the IT guy and the paralegal, introduced to someone else only to find out she is both an associate and the billing coordinator.

When I asked which attorneys I work for, nobody could tell me. When I asked for a list of clients, people gave me blank looks. When I pointed out that there are no name plates outside of people's offices, people shrugged. Four people had to work on getting me a map of the office so I have a way of finding people. It's a very disorganized firm. I've been having a hard time this week. By today at lunch time I had saved three documents to the system and entered one person's time. Since starting there Monday morning. Um yeah - that should have taken me a half hour in a normal place.

Yesterday the HR guy pulled me aside and told me flat-out that the partnership will never pay the recruiter's fee (20% of my yearly salary) so they never hire anyone temp to perm, and he just wanted to let me know up front. But none of the other office staff know this, and they're all talking to me as if I'll be there forevermore. Meanwhile, I have a "I'm just filling in for now" attitude.

This morning I had a meeting with the HR guy and the one permanent secretary and at one point, the secretary got so upset she had to leave the room. It was a bit awkward. I can not get enough information to do any one task through to completion on my own. So I told the secretary maybe it'd work best if we proceed as if I'm her assistant, and she can just send me off to scan documents or research judge's standing orders or whatever.

That did not work for her - she wants me to act like I'm in this mess with her and instead of saying, "What can I do to help you?" she'd rather I say, "Let's figure out together how we can get this done." Okay. So even though I don't know what it IS that needs to be done, I tried to do that. Not just because she asked, but also because she was literally vibrating with frustration during our meeting, and that scared me a little bit.

By the afternoon we'd gotten some objectives laid out and I was able to electronically file one pleading and arrange a service to file another. The HR guy came by on his way home to check on our progress, and gave each of us a fancy chocolate bar for perseverence. I think he spent his own money to get them. I was really touched.

As an aside, you know how people always have little tricks for remembering things about people's names? Like Messy Meredith or Sweaty Scott? Well, one of the attorneys stood right near my desk and talked about his new baby to someone. Later I got told to ask him about a letter for a pro bono case but I wasn't sure of his name, and asked, "The new baby lawyer?" Well, now everyone is calling him New Baby.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: I am not even kidding you - was just handed ANOTHER chocolate bar from the same company! This time it comes from a vendor trying to get us to use their services, but who ever gets fancy chocolate twice in two days?