Take your TPS Reports and Shove Them

Because I work with a bunch of lawyers who are neurotic (shocker) middle aged men, I invariably get in the middle of their ugly pissing matches. Golden showers? Not my gig people.

One partner gives me a file, and sends me to another partner to review the work product. The second partner gets offended that I'm coming to him to review work for a file that's not his. And he yells at me. "He sent you to me?! To review this??? Why?"

Well, maybe because he's basically a turnip with a pulse, and has the mental capacity of a turnip without a pulse. I don't know, that's just conjecture on my part.

And the turnip only communicates in cryptic, one word emails. He won't answer the phone for some insane reason. Sometimes, he just forgoes using actual words, and decides to only use punctuation.

"Subject: XYZ, Corp.
Text: ????"

I don't know what that means. Do you know what that means? I'm sure I can sit around and try to guess, but why not just send a coherent email? Why? Why does it have to be so weird?

And then, I'll run around the firm trying to find him, because he WON'T ANSWER THE PHONE, and discover that he took a nice mid-morning jaunt to the gym and is now in a conference room, having a leisurely lunch with a buddy.

And the second partner, who has affectionately been dubbed Eyore by his colleagues, will put himself in an early grave, with the amount of deep sighs, hair grabbing, temple rubbing and eye-rolling he does. Dude, we do transactional work. There are no court deadlines. No one is waiting for a stay on his death sentence at midnight here. CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

Nothing is the end of the world. But for him, everything is the end of the world. And everyone is a total idiot for not understanding that sentiment. I am obviously one of those idiots.

And then, there's the very nice older attorney, who is really past his prime, and should be spending his days at his lovely villa in the French Riviera. Instead, he's here, giving me angst, and sending me on wild goose chases, because he doesn't quite get the issues anymore, but insists that he's right. Until he's wrong.

Needles to say, communication is, how shall I put this delicately, well, it's at high volume. And I so badly want to tell them, "HEY, I'm not your wife, and I'm not your errant daughter smoking cigarets in the garage. YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT."

But I can't. Because I'm a girl. And girls can't yell back at their middle aged bosses. Men my age can yell back, because then they're viewed as passionate and devoted. I'll be looked at like a harridan, like some emotional lunatic.

As if my emotional lunacy has anything to do with my job. Puh-leeze. The line forms to the left gentlemen, right there, behind my mother and ex-husband.