In Twilight Regalia

Spent the last week and a half ill. It happens as a factor of my worklife.

The worst of it was that this coincided with the culmination of a giant settlement my attorney has been working toward for the last … oh I don’t know…. four years. So there was no bowing out of the preparations for the actual meetings and paperwork that would allow the Great Settlement to take place.

That meant up at 5:00 or even 4:30 instead of 6:30, and finish work at 6:30 or later, instead of 5:30, and 15 minute lunches instead of an hour. It meant running at full speed and full thinking power and guessing ability. (I say guessing ability because that’s largely what one does as a secretary to an attorney. They don’t have time or brain to spare on your being apprised of plans, so you spend most of your time planning and working double-schemed, so you can be ready for either the left or the right choice, the pink or blue sugar substitute, the 15th floor conference rooms or the offsite reservation.) This all sounds so easy in print…..

PHONE!
May I help you? … I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting at the moment, would you like voicemail?

Where was I? Blink. Oh.

Most law firms make things work properly. They hire staff to do cleanup, setup of meals, etc., and they order enough supplies for their meetings, and they don’t make everyone wear three hats. Mine is a company, not a law firm, and setup is a nightmare of taking a secretary (who should be in planning and manning the battlestation) out of her desk and into the kitchens (perhaps looking through three of them on various floors) having her hunt for something as important as an ice bucket.

PHONE!
Yes? What kind? I think there are more on 10th floor. On the back wall by the printers. Ok.

Most law firms buy and use appropriate software for high volume document production. My company by contrast is replete with luddites who routinely veto ideas such as document management software that will automatically number your documents and give you searchable profiles. Instead we are working off the old Internet Explorer tree-branching folders system. Which means if you wanted to name a document to accurately find it again, you’d have to include in your document something like:

S://olafwupy/Lgl/wfdata/Legalapps/legal/attorney
initials/project/subfolder/documentname.

So of course they don’t include the name of a document. When you need to find it again, you just…. need to know what, where, and which version it was. Which in a fast-paced agenda of changes passed between parties again and again creates complete chaos.

PHONE!
Hi Dee. Nope he’s not up here. Ok I’ll let him know.

Fee Fie Fo…. here he comes.

You are told to find the last changes BEFORE the last version of the Confidential Insurance Release Agreement.
Ok.
PHONE!
No, sorry he’s unavailable at the moment, would you like voicemail? Thank you, one moment.

What was it now?
Oh.
This one is called Confidential Insurance Release-clean.doc, It’s too old.
This one is called Confidential Insurance Release-clean2.doc It’s too old.
This one is called Confidential Insurance Release-changesaccepted.doc, Uh maybe.
This one is called Confidential Insurance Release-clean2changes.doc, Wait…..
This one is called Release-clean2-07-07.doc, ok that’s definitely yesterday…
This one is called Release-clean2-07-07PM.doc, um ….
This one is called Release-clean2-07-07PMv2.doc. ……ok so is this one latest or Confidential Insurance Release-changesaccepted.doc?
Who did this? You didn’t name them. Someone else has. You’ve no idea.

ROAR: HAVE YOU GOT IT????

Looking! you say cheerfully. (Never let them know they’re in danger of never finding it again…they’d only blow a gasket…)

This is where after a morning sprint of three floors from an hour less of sleep and a panic attack or two just build up into cortisol and pour into your system like tar on hot asphalt and suddenly you are
sick
sick
sick… oh ick. Euh. Gotta leave. Can’t.
Histamine gone wild.
–ATTACK OF THE GIANT SINUS–

PHONE!
May I helb you? Oh yes, thanckyou. Just a cold. Yeah. Alright, I’ll tell him you called. You might try e-bail, he adswers that a bit more quickly with his blueberry. Ok. Thanks. [Blow]

[Visions begin of a window shattering and wind coming in blowing pounds and pounds of hand-typed contract in a sudden whooshing stream out through the jagged glass edges and wafting down to the sidewalk 32 floors below -- OH NO!!! THE BUMSTEAD CONTRACT!!] [You would laugh, but no one gets this but you and one other person and they're not here.] [OUch my hEad HuRts]

HAVE YOU GOT IT YET????????

Release-clean2-07-07.doc, ok that’s definitely yesterday…
This one is called Release-clean2-07-07PM.doc, um ….
This one is called Release-clean2-07-07PMv2.doc. ……ok

You hand them both, and hope they can actually tell the difference between the two documents at all, and hope they won’t scream any louder. Sometimes they do. They march off to the beat of their own upset stomachs.

PHONE!
Hi, yes they’re in the Large. No not 3C, the Large. Yes. Bye.

You pull out the Emergen-C vitamin packets, but they do no good. It’s too late…. you’re Siiiiiiiiiiick……. and suddenly everything slows down into fog mode and every panic is just more smoke in the eyes and you correct and print and print and print until the recycling basket is full and it goes on even when you get home because you know you’ve another meeting in the morning and they work you through your dinnertime and it’s finally over and you’re a limp rag. And traffic stop. and traffic, stop. And traffic, stop.
And stop.
And stop.
And STOP. Wow he almost hit me.
And stop.

And you arrive home to a mess, a sick husband — You too? — and wonder how others do it with kids as well.

If they want to end my life, this is how they’d do it.

The strange thing is,
I’ll not let them, on the off-chance that at some point, I’ll have more of a chance to actually say what I need to say as a human being.

But first I need to grab the phone, until they pay for my retirement.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.