Why I am superior to my male counterparts...

Because I can see the future.

Well, not really. But I can anticipate what might happen in the future and then plan my life so that if the possible becomes reality I don't have my ass in a sling. I can foresee a giant ice storm (especially when the weather guys tell us a week ahead of time that its coming) or that I might have a sick kid in the middle of flu season. I can foresee that one of these things (or any other random event) might occur on the day I have a deadline in a major case. And so I make sure that I do whatever I need to do before the day of the deadline in case one of these random events actually happens.

But the men I work with are absolutely incapable of doing this. I don't think it has ever crossed their minds to serve a document before the deadline--or to at least have it 100% ready to be served.

Last week I asked Partner at least 5 times, "We have a designation deadline next Tuesday, what do you want me to do?" And every single time his response was "I don't have time to think about that right now. We'll talk about it next week." And I said, "OK, but I am in depos all day Monday, so if you need my help, I won't be around."

And also last week I went to Big Boss and said, "We have a meeting on Tuesday with X. What do you need to to prepare for that meeting?" His response: "Nothing, just send the pleadings to X for his review before the meeting."

So guess what happens on Tuesday? At 9:30, Partner finally gives me the designations that need to be served. But this is a case where we represent 10 parties--so I have to prepare 10 distinct designations. Oh, and we have to file exhibit lists, too. So I have to prepare 10 distinct exhibit lists.

And then at 10:00 Big Boss starts preparing for the meeting with X. And comes barrelling into my office every 10 minutes asking me where such-and-such document is. And informs me that I need to re-read all of the memos that I have drafted for this case--(which includes at least a dozen highly pointed and lengthy memos).

And so this continues until 1:00 when the meeting actually starts and where I am held captive for the next three hours.

And then I resume preparation of my exhibit lists (which I had thankfully handed off to my fabulous paralegal before the meeting.) And Partner says, "why are you doing the exhibit lists first, the designations are the most important." To which I calmly reply, "Because the exhibit lists have to be filed and the designations do not. So the secretary can start efiling while I am finishing up the designations, and I won't have to stay here an extra hour waiting for her to file while leaving her twiddling her thumbs right now."

Yeah, the guys have tunnel vision. They work on one task at a time. Layering tasks to promote the most efficient use of time is not on their agendas.

I also gave the secretary a heads up about what we were serving, how big the mailing would be and who it was going to so that she could prepare her cover letters and have her envelopes ready to go. So that the second I had my documents ready, they could be compiled and mailed. I'm 99% sure none of the guys in my office have ever done this.

And so, we got it all done and secretary and I left the office by 9:00 pm. But I really hate scrambling at the last minute, and it all could have been completely avoided if either Partner or Big Boss had let me get started on these tasks last week. I swear they are in a competition to see who can kill me first.