February 11, 2005
Come Monday
Nine years of grade school/junior high school, four years of high school, four years of college and three years of law school -- what does that add up to? Not much, apparently.
This week, I had to fly solo. That's right, solo. No, Archi-Sapper wasn't out of town. No, I wasn't out of town (well, I did go to Atlanta for a business meeting on Wednesday, but that was a brief sojourn). It was worse than that. My secretary and paralegal went out of town. At the same time.
When they broke the news to me that they were going to be on vacation during the same week, I made a grave miscalculation. I mistakenly thought I'd be able to manage without them. I thought to myself, "I can do this. I'm smart. I'm educated. I know how to use the computer and the phone. Sometimes even at the same time. I rock."
By hour three in the office without support staff, I was beginning to resemble one of the fledgling half-wits on The Apprentice (and while we're on the topic: can someone explain to me why Bren thought it was a good idea to shoot a pornographic commercial of gay men in order to sell body wash to women? I'm still scratching my head over that one.) I picked up my phone no fewer than three times in order to ask my secretary to type a letter for me. By phone call number three, it finally sunk in that she wasn't going to type my stinkin' letters.
I then realized I needed to send a fax to one of my local counsel. No problem -- that's a job I can handle! I tried to feed my papers into the fax machine, and it began beeping at me. Angrily. This was not a happy fax machine. Well, no problem. We have a general services department on the second floor of our building, and they can handle faxes, copy jobs, court runs, etc. I decided I'd just send it to them. Then I realized I have no idea who runs the general services department, or where they live in our building (they moved during our construction).
Ever the intrepid lawyer, I looked up their number in the company directory and called them. After they stopped laughing hysterically at me, they managed to sputter out some directions to their lair. I wandered downstairs and found myself in a construction zone. I was standing on a sawdust-filled floor, surrounded by rebar and visqueen. I finally saw a familiar face, who guided me over to the copy/fax room. I surrendered my documents to the guy working behind the counter, who asked, "Did you get these documents from Ms. Kitty?" I looked at him quizzically and said, "I am Miss Kitty." He looked surprised and said, "What are you doing down here?" to which I replied, "I've been asking myself the same question."
I made it back to my desk (without benefit of a map from the internet, thank you very much), only to discover that I had four days of mail stacked on my secretary's desk, which was about to collapse of its own weight. I sifted through it and found my ten pound stack, and settled into my office to sort through (read:pitch) half of it.
It was then that I started getting the phone calls. These are the phone calls my secretary normally screens for me. There were the typical calls -- solicitors, wanting me to change my firm's long distance service (heck, I can barely make a long distance phone call, much less change our service provider), buy books for our library or somehow spend my firm's money. Then I had the calls from debt collection companies saying certain debtors had listed me as their bankruptcy attorney -- never mind that I don't do bankruptcy work -- and they wanted to have long winded discussions about how those crazy debtors could've possibly come up with my name. And then came the legitimate calls from other law firms -- people wanting copies of pleadings I'd filed, wanting to confirm depositions, wanting documents, etc., etc.
By the time I finally got these people off the phone, had thrown out half my mail and given up on my search for a decent Diet Coke, I'd had it. I shut down my laptop, grabbed my purse and ran for the door.
If I'd only remembered to bring my cell phone with me, I would've had it made.
I don't think I'm going to make it until Monday.
Posted by Kitty at February 11, 2005 10:50 PM
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