I haven't been in much of a blogging state of mind. I never really talk about work here at BBD, but today's going to be an exception to the rule. As some may have noticed, I've been taking a little break from focusing on politics or other worldly events. I can't really handle the aggravation at the moment and feeling a little distanced from the whole mess right now. No doubt I'll come back around on that one though, so keep your hats on. And not the tinfoil kind. Those don't work. Trust me.
Been tackling a big filing project at work that I resolved to get done before my Christmas vacation, and I'm proud to say that today our records department carted away seven boxes of meticulously organized materials and I still have another three for them to take down tomorrow. From the looks of my boss's offices, that won't be the last of the filing I'll be doing before I go away. Maybe if I'm lucky, they'll procrastinate about it until the new year...If you've never seen the office of a busy shareholder, you don't know a thing about paper. Holy criminey. I have never seen anything the likes of which tobacco and securities litigation can accumulate in the way of documentation. Both of the shareholders I work for have offices that look almost as if the windows opened up and an avalanche of paper was just dropped there behind their desks. To any passerby it just looks like a catastrophe. You can't see an inch of desk space and perhaps you could glimpse a third of the floor space if the person is somewhat organized.
But one of the guys I work for (we'll call him Mr. Green) can find anything in his office, despite the way it looks, even if he's not there to look for it. I remember a time when Mr. Green was away in Scotland and a very important client called. We represent a couple of very prominent news publications here in NY and it was the president of one of those big papers. He needed a court document from his file. I put him on hold a moment and went to look in Mr. Green's office. I knew that there was no hope in this world that I would ever find that particular document among the stacks and slopes and what looks to me like chaos. I told the VIP that I would get back to him right away. I blackberried Mr. Green and tapped my foot impatiently until I finally received a response (thank god for mobile email). He said "In the box under the window to the left of the credenza under a stack of other documents pertaining to a different matter. It is there." I was impressed. And I was able to fax it to the VIP within ten minutes.
The other one, Mr. Red we'll call him, he can't find a thing in his office. His little daughter comes in sometimes and says "daddy! Your office is a mess!" and sometimes she even helps him clean it up. She's 10. I fear she will one day become me. She will actually start to like office work. My parents ruined me by taking me to the office as a child. Being a secretary just came naturally. Oops. Sorry. Administrative Assistant. It probably also has something to do with being a perfectionist and the desire to put order to things. Of course, my true aspiration is writing, and I'm lucky enough to sometimes have time at work to do that. Anyway, I'm sure Mr. Red will send his daughter to good schools and she'll be a brain surgeon or something equally stellar. She's already getting way better grades than I ever got.
I used to work in criminal defense and matrimonial law in Meddy. It was exciting and I liked my job in Oregon. Moving to a NY firm was a lot different. The pay is incomparably better in NY, but the work was a lot more exciting in Oregon. I used to have a big office of my own, and now in NY I have a big desk out in the open for all to observe. I still can't complain about the space since I've got plenty of it where I am, but I do miss having that door to shut sometimes. In criminal and matrimonial, there is lots of client contact and a much wider range of responsibilities. Now I work in one of the top ten largest law firms in the country and I don't have to do half as much. Word processing, phones, filing, that's most of what I do now...all the little things I used to do like calendaring and court runs and bills and meeting with clients and answering their questions on the phone and making sure that all the court deadlines were being met and everyone was paying...I don't have to do any of that anymore. It might sound weird, but sometimes I miss it alot. I don't miss the paychecks though...and honestly, the people I work for are very nice and highly tolerable as far as attorneys go. Trust me on that one too.
Another thing about my job in Oregon was that it was almost impossible to get time off and when I did, I was on the phone with the office making sure that everything was still functioning. It was just me and my boss there at the office in Medford and if I was gone, it was a big deal to leave my responsibilities with someone else. Now it makes no difference. There are floaters and temps galore and anyone can take my place for a week. They won't be half the unstoppable motherfucker that I am when it comes to getting things done and undoubtedly my bosses will employ flattery by telling me how useless the temp was when I return (and will even have saved up work to prove it)...hahaa. I kid! I kid!
My dad called and offered to fly me out to Oregon for Christmas. I couldn't pass on that one so I'm taking a week off and really looking forward to spending the first Christmas in aeons with my family. Seriously. Aeons.
So I've been highly motivated to work my ass off at the office and I'll be feeling good and prepared to leave for a week for a fun and relaxing vacation. I can't wait.
Posted by Maria at December 2, 2004 08:27 PMMy secretary cleaned my office once. Sweet baby jesus. It looked real nice for about a week, but she spent so much time coming in to find things for me after she moved them that she swore she'd never do it again.
Posted by: Geoffrey at December 2, 2004 11:09 PMSo happy you're going home for X-Mas! I've always been organized at work but not around the house. I have more junk drawers than most people but damnit I know the contents of each drawer and I know where everything is. Jason freaks out, he is so "picky". Last night I was in the computer room and I was really impressed at Jason's corner, it is so tidy. I look at my desk and just crap everywhere..he's threatening that if I don't clean up I gotta move my computer to another room. Humph! A little mess is comforting, it's "lived in".
Posted by: Sandy at December 3, 2004 03:35 AMYour computer desk is REQUIRED to be messy! Where the hell are you supposed to put all the notes and crap you take? Besides, you're sitting down when you use the computer. You can't be expected to actually get up to put something away when it can be stacked next to you.
Posted by: Geoffrey at December 3, 2004 08:01 AMRequired to be clean? Thank you...I'll run with that...and inform my ogre husband of this groundbreaking news...MESS is BEST.
Posted by: Sandy at December 3, 2004 08:40 AMOh that was supposed to say required to be messy..but haha..I did just find some of Ailey's baby teeth in a sandwich bag in the file cabinet..they were in the folder marked..CAR PAYMENT..oops.
Posted by: Sandy at December 3, 2004 09:02 AMHooray for organized OA's (that's what we call them at my work - office administrators). A good one is invaluable. Absolutely essential. They are the third leg of the stool - A good office cannot stand without them. Their time may be unbillable but you can't accomplish a thing without them and they are worth every penny. I'm one of those terrible bosses that forgets all the important dates (secretary day, anniversaries, birthdays). Call me the nutty professor. That stuff just isn't important to me. I stay on task, I get today done today, I return calls, I even get clients a Nextel so I can quickly talk to them during a project. I direct all my attention towards the customer which means I forget my colleagues birthday. To make up for it I give great bonuses. I just throw money at them. All of them loved the job and the money. But they hated the pace. I've been through eight OA's in 20 years. Three have returned to work for me part-time, and I still hire one who went off for marriage and babies as a special project OA because She is Superwoman. She can do all her work from home on the phone and across the network with the occasional personal visit to access paper files. So, if you are good at all, never ever ever feel like you are just a secretary. You are a skilled trade in my book combining personality, intelligence, organization, and energy into a single purpose of keeping the business running. Good for you for accepting that career Maria. I can see where you would be huge at it.
Posted by: 403 at December 3, 2004 09:38 AMMaria- I am sure they appreciate your work more than you know. Doesn't it feel nice to have it cleaned up if not for just a brief moment?
Sandy- my hubby tried that too. I moved his computer to another room and when he came home, he got the message and I didn't need to e-mail it to him:).
Posted by: pam at December 3, 2004 11:42 AMI'm an organized chaos kinda girl, don't fuck with my mess, it's mine and it makes sense to me, kinda. :S ;)
Posted by: Cupie at December 3, 2004 02:29 PMI consider what I do to be an extremely valuable service. The truth is that there are a lot of shitty, incompetent and sometimes downright lazy legal assistants out there. Almost everyone I've ever worked for had gone through a revolving door of assistants until I came around. I even worked for a woman who insisted that I got a new chair because she said the old one was "cursed." HAHA. When it really comes down to it, a person who is very skillful as a legal assistant will never have trouble finding a job. That is one of the reasons I am happy that I fell into this line of work. I can always get a job no matter where I am and if I go to the right place, as I did when I came to NY, I'll always be able to make a decent living doing it.
I take a lot of pride in my abilities. I consider myself a far above average legal assistant when it comes to my skill level and attitude, and luckily, all of my references reflect that. I have never worked for an attorney who wasn't more than happy to give me a glowing recommendation and I still keep in contact with almost every one. When I worked in Medford, my boss couldn't have survived without someone like me around to keep it all together. He was a great lawyer, but he would have had quite a time trying to remember to do all the things that I did every day.
I am very happy in this profession. Though I do one day aspire to stay home, pounding out novels and essays well into my old age. But as far as careers go, legal assistant is nothing to shake a stick at!
At home, my documents could use a little bit more organization, but I cannot tolerate a messy desk. Not at home and not at work. I've got to have it clean. I am religious about clearing up my workspace before I leave every day. Call me a virgo. I can't help it. Messes hurt my brain and make me anxious, while for many others, mess creates a sense of calm and security.
Posted by: Maria at December 3, 2004 04:13 PMMy wife and I share the computer desk and she's only concerned that her 'shit' isn't messed with and I don't.
I saw a mouse get swallowed by a stack of papers on her side of the desk.....
Posted by: Mad Mikey at December 3, 2004 04:38 PMThat's funny Mickey:)
Posted by: pam at December 3, 2004 06:01 PMI love your new masthead.
Posted by: Darcie at December 3, 2004 06:44 PMI'm with Cupie. I may look like a disorganized slob, but I know where my shit is. whenever Boy "cleans up" (throws all of my shit into bags and tosses it into the bedroom) around here, I can't find a damn thing. it drives me nuts!
Posted by: girl at December 3, 2004 07:38 PMDarcie, guess who made it for me? Eric Boyd. Weird huh?
Girl, oh you're one of THOSE people. Boy "cleans up" but you don't like it that he throws all your shit into bags and puts it in the bedroom? If you cleaned up after yourself in the first place, he wouldn't HAVE to put your shit in bags, nor would you be driven crazy wondering where everything went. Why should anyone else be forced to live with your mess? And why should anyone else be forced to clean it up? Putting it in bags and throwing it in the bedroom for you to deal with is the fairest resolution to the problem.
I have a boyfriend who leaves his shit everywhere. Boxers on the bathroom floor, miscellaneous belongings everywhere...What that tells me is 1) you have no respect for the fact that I am the one who cleans this house; and 2) you think it's my responsibility to clean up after you if I'm unhappy with your mess. Either way, NO. Don't expect others to tolerate your lack of neatness. If you put your stuff away, you'll always know where it is.
Obviously you hit on a huge pet peeve of mine. Of course, it doesn't make you a bad person, but I view it as a slight character flaw. That could just be my hypercritical nature emerging though...Sorry if that seems harsh, but I find myself picking up after others a lot and it makes ME crazy! I'm sure boy can probably relate...
Posted by: Maria at December 4, 2004 12:34 AMMine too!!!
I hate messes. I used to put my hubby's shit in bags and now I give him a 20 minute warning, then I throw his shit in the trash. After 9 years, I don't have the patience for sloppy or lazy.
He gets pissed occasionally but I tell him this: Why should I care about your stuff when it is obvious that you don't.
Posted by: Rosemary the Queen of All Evil at December 4, 2004 11:43 AM.
LET'S GET READY TO RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's the Anal Retentives versus the Anal Compulsives!
Who knew toilet-training could last THIS long?
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