Friday, July 26, 2013

Rage Break

I am about to HAVE AN ANEURYSM at the document support staff at my firm.  They persecute me with their incompetence.

Why -- WHY!! -- is it so hard for people to do their jobs?  This firm rakes in something like $600 million every year and we have some of the top legal minds and most cutting-edge legal work in the country.  We go to great lengths to recruit incredibly smart, talented and competent lawyers (and somehow I managed to sneak in), but the support staff (with the exception of my own secretary and, like, two others who I know and like) is astonishingly bad. 

I mean, seriously, people.  My job, in theory, is to think and analyze and write things -- the firm pays me a lot of money to do that, and clients pay the firm even more to have me do it for them.  Also, in theory, there is a host of support staff on call to help me with all the other stuff that I need to be able to do my job efficiently -- secretaries, help-desk people, document support people.  Supposedly all the techie, computer-savvy people you could ever hope for.

So, for example, say you have a document that needs to be reformatted before it can be revised for the client.  Don't have a high-priced attorney who doesn't know the intricacies of word processing do it (or even if he does know), send it to the expert document support staff.  They'll whip it into shape in no time and at a fraction of the cost to the client.  That's how it works -- IN THEORY. 

IN REALITY, everyone's favorite lawyer knows he's going to be in a time crunch and working late through the weekend, and so he sends his document to the document support people LITERALLY DAYS IN ADVANCE with specific instructions on how to reformat the document.  They send something back, and it's wrong, so I return it with instructions to fix it.  They send something else back, and it looks fixed enough that I don't focus on it again until tonight at around 9:00pm, at which point I discover that not only is it still wrong, but IT's EVEN WORSE THAN BEFORE.  Sure, they fixed the one thing I mentioned in my first go-around, but in doing so they royally screwed up the rest of the document to the point that I have to go back, line by line, and fix everything myself.  And now it's 10:30 and on the substance of the document I'm no closer to where I need to be than I was an hour ago, and my heart is filled with rage and darkness toward everyone.  Hence my having an aneurysm at them. 

It's at moments like this when I wish I could just swear really loudly and not feel guilty about it (thanks, parents).

If this lawyer thing doesn't work out, I'm seriously going to get a job as a secretary or a help-desk person or a document support person or, heck, all three jobs at once, BECAUSE I WOULD BE A TOTAL ROCKSTAR.

Okay.  Now that I've gotten that off my chest.  Back to work.
 

4 comments:

The Atomic Mom said...

This is the conversation I have nightly with my husband. He is a world class chemist, very smart and does very important things. He works with monkeys. I wish I could help him. I wish I could help you. Just keep swimming!

Anonymous said...

I AM sooo sorry this is your situation, but can I tell you how much I laughed through your whole rant?! I understand completely and sympathize completely. That being said, this is so you! And I still think you have missed your calling as a writer! Seriously, you need to compile all your blogs and publish! I am sorry you are the victim of such incompetancy and idiocy over a weekend. Good luck. Hang in there. Lady

Anonymous said...

...and, you're welcome! Lady

chitarita said...

Make me a job offer. I'm just as anal as you when it comes to Word documents, and it shouldn't be too hard to beat my current salary.