Pirates and Princesses and Rodents, oh my!

Looks like we are all systems go for spending Christmas at Disney. I got the ok from my bosses, sent vacation letters to the courts and made the final payment last week. We're booked for breakfast in Cinderella's castle on Christmas morning, and I just made reservations for pirate makeovers for the girls, thanks to a 50% discount for resort guests.

I'm excited, I've been wanting to take the girls to Disney for the last 5 years, but something always came up. I wanted them to go while they were still young enough for it to be a magical experience. I have great memories of Disney--DH and I went there on our honeymoon--but I'm a little afraid I will hate it now that I'm old and curmudgeonly. Children running about everywhere and ginormous crowds (this is peak season for Disney) are not my idea of a good time. But I have employed multiple planning resources, so hopefully it will be a pleasant experience for all.

Oh and if you're just tuning in for an update with the secretary situation--well, today sucked. I spoke with the office administrator first think this morning and she told me that I needed to confront secretary and get her side of the story, and then go to Big Boss.

Speaking to secretary did not go well. She was openly hostile and refused to give me a straight answer. She started ranting, and I just said, "We're done now."

Afterward I went to Big Boss. I'm not sure I conveyed how truly dire the situation is, but he said that he would get to the bottom of the current situation. Not really sure what that means.

I am so sick of dealing with her incompetence and hostility. It is exhausting and I really don't trust her to do anything for me anymore--in fact I gave her my receipts from my business, and , of course, she missed one of the receipts and my check was short (yeah, she didn't bring it to me to sign off on either). Argh!

Yep, it's Monday

Learned first thing this morning that the other female association put in her resignation. That will definitely mean more on my plate, and I am pretty darn busy already. And that leaves just me with all the guys.

Also learned that the situation with my secretary was even worse than I thought. A couple of weeks ago she forwarded to a client a citation that she had filed with the court. Yeah, that sounds strange right? The court issues the citation--you file the return of citation with the court. The return of citation includes the process server's statement of the time and place that the petition was served.

So I asked her for an explanation. She assured me that she had in fact filed the return with the court, but that it was on the back of the citation and that she simply hadn't bothered to copy the side with the return--only the front side with the citation.

I explained that I needed copies of the full document in the future so that I could verify that service was properly effected and that the return was in order in cases I needed to prove up a default judgment. I also explained that a savvy client would be wondering why we were filing the citation, just like I had.

The day before I left for my business trip, she brought me a file-stamped copy of the citation with the return attached to the back. The citation had two file stamps with two different dates--one of which had been crossed out by the clerk. This seemed odd, but I was wrapping things up before leaving town, so I simply set it aside.

This morning I took another look at the double-stamped citation and then at the return. The first file-stamp was Oct. 27. The second was Nov. 3. When I turned to the return, it was not sworn to until Oct. 29.

There is absolutely no way that secretary could have filed the return with the citation on the 27th--as she swore she had. The return wasn't sworn until 2 days later. She did exactly what I thought she did and then lied and tried to cover her tracks.

I am furious. Lying and hiding things are not ok. If it were solely up to me I would fire her tomorrow. I understand mistakes--and her original mistake would not have been a big deal if she were a new secretary and fessed up. But she constantly reminds me that she has 20 years' experience and that I should quit questioning her competence. And this went further than a mistake--it was outright lying.

I basically avoided secretary all day for fear of what I might say. Tact isn't one of my virtues, and I wanted to speak with the office administrator before I confronted her on this issue. Unfortunately the office administrator was out today, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I keep thinking that maybe I am being overly harsh--and then I get smacked int he face with something like this.

Mommy Fail

Last night at dinner I accidentally sent a naughty text intended for DH to PS. Oops. Fortunately I immediately realized my mistake and demanded her phone to delete the message. And it was more innuendo than overt, so hopefully she won't be scarred for life if she manages to pull the deleted message out of the trash can.

Glad crazy week is done, but it has led to a busy weekend. The girls signed up for a fun run Saturday morning, so we had to be out of the house by 7:30. And all three kids have school projects due next week. Since our weeknight time is so limited, we have to do these things on the weekends.

PS has to build an accurate 3-D atom model. And she picked gold, which is heavy and has about a zillion particles. We bought rubber tubing into which she will insert tiny pompoms to make electron orbitals, and she will glue larger pompoms to popsicle-stick base make the nucleus. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

TT and SS have to disguise turkeys. SS is covering hers in silk flowers and hiding it in a field of grass. TT's turkey is becoming an astronaut. It is covered in aluminum foil, and we went to the dollar store just to buy a vending-machine toy so that we could get the plastic case to use as an astronaut helmet. DH thinks I'm nuts for making a special trip to buy a $.50 toy just to get the plastic shell it comes it. I think my astronaut helmet is genius!

Also have horseback riding lessons for the twins today, need to help PS practice for all-city orchestra auditions, need to work on my pro bono case, and DH needs to work on our fence before it falls into the neighbor's yard. He has replaced 60% of the wooden posts with steel ones, but every time we get a storm the remaining wooden ones start leaning. I keep trying to convince him to pay someone to take care of it, but he is stubborn and his blue-collar roots won't allow him to pay someone to do something he thinks he is capable of (even if it means he will be complaining about his back for the next week.)

Crazy Week

We've known for weeks that this week would be crazy, and it has lived up to the hype. DH left on Sunday for a conference--which left me playing the part of the single parent for the first half of the week. I have to say kudos to the single and military moms out there--I'm found it exhausting for only two days, and I have a nanny/housekeeper to help out.

He returned today--but I left for a conference in Denver and won't be home until Friday. So DH will get a taste of the craziness I have been dealing with.

I couldn't get out of the office until after 6:30 on Monday, talking PS through her homework on my commute home. (Thankfully it was English. Her math homework is killing me, but I can diagram the hell out of a sentence!) I got home in time for dinner together, homework folders and bedtime snuggles and that was about it. Fell into bed about an hour after I got the girls down.

Tuesday night I got out of the office earlier, but had to run errands to pick up some stuff for my trip. So I got home, grabbed the girls, ran our errands, back home and straight to bed for them while I did my packing.

This morning I had a site inspection, back to the office for a couple of hours, and then off to the airport. I had a raging headache by the time I landed, but some aspirin, yummy cookies and a big comfy bed at my hotel have made it all better. This is the most down time I've had all week. I guess I should enjoy it, but I really miss DH and I'd rather be home with my kiddos--even with all the crazy.

Frustration

So the problems with my secretary have continued this week, culminating in a Friday afternoon showdown where she informed me that I was "condescending and micromanaging." I responded that I would absolutely continue to micromanage her because she had made several calendaring errors, even when I had given her explicit instructions, and that it was ultimately my responsibility to ensure that all matters are calendared correctly. She continued to be very defensive, even when faced with undeniable proof of her errors.

And Friday's issues began with me simply asking for an update. As in an email that said, "Hey Thelma, can you please give me an update on the status of 1) [issue 1], and 2) [issue two]." Yep, that is totally micromanaging.

Instead of actually giving me an update, she gave me a snarky non-response to issue 1 and and told me to make sure that had all of my revisions exactly correct as to issue #2, because it was an unsaveable pdf and she had to retype the 1 page document every time I made a change (umm, hello, if you had typed it accurately the last time, it wouldn't have needed to be revised a second time).

Issue #1 had to do with entering my time. When she finally got it done, she had lost more than $3000 of my time and had billed several entries to the wrong client. But I was micromanaging again when I asked to see my time before the final deadline when prebills went to the partners.

I'm at my wit's end. I don't think that I handled things on Friday quite as professionally as I would have preferred. And I'm concerned that, since I'm the new girl in the office, I'm going to come off looking like I can't get along with the staff. And I don't know how this has happened, because I got along very well with the staff at my last firm. I don't generally have a problem getting along with people, but I am absolutely not going to let this secretary roll over me.

There is a review process in place. We had fall staff reviews and the consensus was that since she was so new she needs a little more time, but she will have to show improvement before spring reviews. In the meantime, I have been encouraged to take a firm hand to encourage her to work to her perceived potential (instead of getting frustrated and doing it myself, which is the much easier route.) That is clearly going well.

Smackdown

So, I know that I sometimes complained about my secretary at my old firm, but today I seriously contemplated sending her a email telling her how much I under-appreciated her.

I am having major issues with my new secretary. We'll call her Thelma. She started the same week that I did and she is assigned to me and the other young, female associate. That's it. There are secretaries out there who dream of a world where they only have to support two attorneys.

Since she's new, I figured part of the problem was just an adjustment period. But it's been 3 months now. Then I started thinking that maybe she's never been a litigation secretary. Nope, apparently she has 20 years experience as a litigation secretary. But I hadn't said much about her problem areas until the other associate, Rita, came into my office one day and asked if I had been having problems. Apparently we are both having the same issues.

The biggie is attention to detail. I give her documents to be formatted and corrected and they aren't done. She has sent incorrect and incomplete sets of documents to clients and courts--or sets with the pages out of order. She mixes up exhibits for court filings. One of my petitions was left at the courthouse for 3 weeks and she ever noticed! She isn't calendering--even when I specifically tell her to calendar something. And she doesn't respond to email.

So in anticipation of upcoming staff reviews, Rita and I decided that we needed to discuss these things with Thelma. Rita met with her last Friday, and I met with her on Tuesday. She was very defensive and indignant. She said that she did not appreciate that we were questioning her competence. I listened to her side of the story and offered potential solutions to the issues that we raised. And it seemed as though we were done.

And then she sent an email demanding to meet with Rita and me together to discuss "miscommunication and competency issues". I responded that we had had an adequate opportunity to discuss these issues already and another meeting would not be a productive use of time. Also, a joint meeting with Rita and me was not necessary because we have different preferences and requirements. But, I also told her that if she had any specific issues to address with me to please see me.

Apparently Thelma did not like my response, because she next tried to circumvent me by going to the senior associate who handles all of the administrative crap. Now that just pissed me off! Thelma said that she was trying to meet with me and that I was being "uncooperative." Umm, how about the part where I said to see me if you had any specific issues?

Anyway, I met with Senior Associate this morning. She was already aware of the other issues and I told her what I had discussed with Thelma and why I had responded the way that I did. She strongly recommended that I meet with Thelma again, but to schedule the meeting for a limited amount of time to address specific issues. She agreed that this is a staff problem and that it is best if I handle Thelma to send a clear message that I am her boss.

So I told Thelma that we will meet tomorrow morning at 9 for 20 minutes and to have a list of questions prepared. Yes, I intentionally scheduled this meeting for first thing in the morning because she is frequently late. And I very tightly defined what this meeting would entail, because I suspect that what Thelma really wants is a rant session, and we are not going down that path. And she is clearly pissed at me because she didn't get what she demanded. Yea! There's nothing better than a secretary who hates you!

I do not give Thelma more than she can handle (in fact, there are days when I don't give her anything at all) and I am never disrespectful or rude to her. All I want is for her to do her job the way it is supposed to be done. And apparently I am going to have to become the Wicked Witch of the West and point out every mistake she makes to make that happen. And micromanage to ensure that my calendaring is actually done and done properly and that my citations are actually served. Because if a deadline is missed or we have a limitations issue because a petition doesn't get timely serves, it's my head that will roll.

Ugh, I hate managing people.

My brain hurts

I have spent the last two days researching issues that take me right back to 1L civ pro. In retrospect, I'm not sure that civ pro is a great first year class--or maybe its just the way it was taught to me. I mean, I know that civ pro covers fundamental issues that are relevant to every type of case, but I just did not really understand the impact back when I had absolutely no understanding of the law. I did not connect the dots and fully understand the concepts back then, and so now I am having to relearn to fundamentals to research very pointed issues. Of course the great irony is that civ pro was one of my highest grades in law school and I had one of the highest grades in our section (top 10).

On the flip side, I took state procedure classes my second and third years, when I had a better understanding of the law and some actual experience from internships. I felt like I really did understand those classes and I have a great grasp of state procedure now. Those classes were my highest grades in law school.

And for my final irony, my worst grades and most detested classes in law school were in contracts and UCC classes--and my practice now revolves around contracts.