Revolving Door

Well, it's been quite a month, and it's not even half over.

We have our office Jennifer Aniston back from overseas, where she spent about a week with this guy she barely knows but got engaged to after a whirlwind courtship of maybe three dates in the US before he had to fly home (and she's pissed that everyone thinks she's a colossal idiot for throwing away her entire life for some guy who could turn out to be the next Scott Peterson).

Then we have a true sweetheart of a guy who has some serious problems and we had to let him go b/c he screwed up everything he touched to a fare-thee-well. This was difficult, not from the business point of view (we had no choice, really) but from a personal one -- he's a good person, and he knows he fucked up and takes full responsibility for it, and everyone loves him to death. As a human being, you can't not feel for the guy. I just hope he gets the help he needs and is able to get his life back on track, sooner rather than later.

And then we have the Diva de tutti Divas, who finally got the axe (long, long overdue) and seemed to be shocked that no one wanted her back from her interminable maternity leave. All sorts of stories about her lies, backbiting, and general bitchiness have been coming out of the woodwork. She seriously thought the place would fall apart without her, but had zero problem taking month after month off, not returning e-mails or phone calls, and then all of a sudden doing her Sarah Bernhardt routine when her feet were finally held to the fire, her bluff was called, and, as one co-worker said, she was given enough rope to hang herself with.

Payback's a bitch, bitch.

A good receptionist is worth his/her weight in gold

We had a receptionist who was quite the beauty -- and did a pretty decent job, too. But she was a massive time and attendance problem, and, sadly, lied her way into getting fired. So the hunt for a new one commenced, and someone much older was hired. She's terrified of her own shadow, and while people like her, she may not be long for this world if she can't get her act together. How come it's harder to find someone to answer the phones than it is to find a decent trial lawyer???

In the your-tax-dollars-at-work department . . . someone from our office went to pick up a file from a municipal agency that we've done work for for years. The file wasn't where it was supposed to be, so they went up to the office of the person from whom the assignment came. Naturally, that individual was not in their office, but the file was -- with a page on top of it stating that it was to be picked up by us.

However, since it was NOT in the usual pick-up location, a team of six civil servants stood around debating for nearly an hour whether or not it was OK for our people to remove the file; the person who assigned us the case eventually returned and said "Oh, of course you can take it -- it's meant for you." Hilariously typical.

Baby Shower Bullshit

I've said for years that my office is a sitcom waiting to happen. The latest installment in the insanity was a baby shower for a secretary who's been a pure, unadulterated bitch for the past 8 months (as opposed to the 99% pure shit-stirrer she is the rest of the time).

This one expected to be paid a full-time salary to work part-time at home (leaving aside the issue that she only works part time in the office anyway . . . personal phone calls in another language on her cell don't really constitute "work," in my opinion) and threw a hissy fit of epic proportions when this proposition was shot down. Bitched and moaned constantly, to the point where even her office friends were fed up; and refused to speak with half the office (then wondered why she was being shunned by those same people).

Other assorted insanity includes a file clerk who is terminally weird and has a huge crush on one of the guys in the office (who in all likelihood would rather open a vein than do her); she's been coming into work in evening attire, reeking of some kind of perfume (to use the term loosely) that makes everyone else in the place gag, in an effort to win him over. Everyone knows about this crush, but she is blissfully unaware of that fact, which is a blessing, I suppose. A girl can dream, can't she?

Today we gave a check to a client who, by all rights, should've gotten nothing -- in terms of stupidity, this was mind-boggling. Bought a used vehicle (for a lot of money) for cash . . . no receipt, no proof of purchase . . . left it at a garage, from whence it was promptly stolen (no doubt by one of their less-than-exemplary employees). Our intrepid client wanted his money back. Understandable, but attempts to explain to him that having some proof that he actually owned the vehicle and paid what he said he had paid might be a nice start fell on deaf ears. A young associate somehow pulled an entire herd of rabbits out of a hat and managed to finagle money out of the garage's insurance company for this guy, and today the check finally cleared in the escrow account so we were able to pay him. Why is it that the value of a case is always in inverse proportion to the amount of agita it causes?