North of the Hill South of Heaven

A K Street Paralegal's Plummet through Purgatory

  • Check Out South of Heaven's Beta Version

    • 26 Mar 2011
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    Hey there, both you Strangers and Loyal Readers. I am in the process of overhauling the blog and moving it from Posterous to WordPress. The current blog platform has just proved to be not quite what I need, so paralegalhell has been generous enough to open up some space on her domain for me to use as a sandbox and make my own awesome castle. You are cordially invited to have a look at the new blog and I encourage you to give me feedback. Since I am pretty new to Word Press, ideas are more than welcome as to what to add.

    Check it out!

    I'll keep y'all updated on what happens and catch you on the flip side.

    Cheers,

    Space Monkey

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  • And You Will Know Me By The Trail Of Dead I.T. Guys

    • 25 Mar 2011
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    I intended to continue my mini-saga of My Biggest Weekness, which I guarantee Part II will be out within the next 24 hours and all the gritty details of my toothless grin will come out into the open! (Wow, that really sounds like, "Next, on The Young and the Restless.") I also would like to announce the possibility of a complete renovation to this site. So much so, there may even be a new address! I will keep you informed. But for now, I need to get this off my chest while it's still singeing a hole in the middle of it.

    Like most of the Information Technology support staff that I've ever encountered, our IT guy at our firm is, well, cantankerous. 24/7. Not only that, but he puts us paralegals on perhaps the bottom of the priority list every single time we have an issue. This is because of three assumptions I've created in my head:

    1. The end-of-the-year performance review is essentially graded by the partners and higher level associates. Therefore, if the IT Guy is not at their beck-and-call to fix the emergency of "Why is my computer screen so dark?" ("Your monitor is off, sir.") then he doesn't get a good bonus/raise.
    2. There are ten paralegals who are constantly needing updates and having computer issues, mainly because the firm is too parsimonious to upgrade the PCs and get us AT LEAST Windows Vista. There is only one IT guy.
    3. The IT Guy used to be obese. Now he is a string bean and thinks he's hot shit.

    So, IT Guy constantly pisses me off. For one, as is true with Point #1, it takes him all day, sometimes multiple days, for him to get back to me. This complaint of mine is gimongous, because much to his own chagrin of the paralegals constantly pestering his scrawny ass, we are the ones that do ALL OF THE WORK for the attorneys! An attorney needs an ECF done? Who do they call? An attorney needs documents to be scanned and added into our terrible database client? Who do they call? An attorney needs a burrito to be ordered from Chipotle down the street? Who do they call? So, as you can see, it's the paralegals, not the attorneys, who should really have first dibs on the IT Guy's time. Somehow, this change just hasn't happened yet.

    Another thing that really chaps my khakis is that when he remotely logs into my PC (which, by itself kind of annoys me... he is too lazy to walk ten offices down to sit at my desk so I can talk to him while he's fiddling away,) without fail he will close every window I'm working on. The impetus for this post was that he logged into my computer to install Adobe Flash because I needed it ... for ... um ... YouTube research. I had been asked to research the news about Japan's nuclear infrastructure and write a memo concerning the subject. I was halfway through when IT Guy virtually pushed me aside (no pun intended) and took over my cursor. Really, all he needed to do was to type in a password into a box and hit OKAY. Instead, what does he do? Yeah, you guessed it.

    This time I actually call him at his desk and yell at him, "Why the hell did you do that??"

    "Well, didn't you save it before I logged in?"

    "No! Why would I do that?"

    "Your training instructor told you to back everything up on the server and to set every document for auto-save. Or were you just not listening?"

    Oh. My. God. Training was like a year and a half ago when I first started and was a blizzard of knowledge about the firm. My complaint to my boss didn't fly either. She just said that there must have been a reason that he needed to clear the windows. And now I get to retype this damn memo that you deleted because you wanted to see the desktop. I could be playing Desktop Tower Defense the rest of the afternoon.

    Oh, and hey, guy, I know you technogeeks love your acronyms. Well, I just printed one up and stuck it on my wall just for you:

    Effuit

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  • My Biggest Week-ness

    • 23 Mar 2011
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    Part I

    Now that everybody’s here

    Could we please have your attention?

    There is nothing left to fear

    Now that Bigfoot is captured

    But are the children really right?

    Alright, alright, alright, alright…

    Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood”

     

    The beginning starts with family. Family and a visit to DC. My mother and my sister both fall under the same wedge on the Zodiac calendar. If I put enough stock in Astrology, I would come to know that I should stay far, far away from people like these, since the Internet experts agree we are incompatible in nearly every variable. (I should note the only reason I know of this is because my girlfriend loves this kind of stuff and to this day still enjoys reading her daily “love horoscope email.” And this is how I am so knowledgeable about the subject.) So if this is the case, that my mother and my own signs are not allowed anywhere near each other, I do not know why the great Heavens and Spirits above, between, or within would allow a family to contain such a combination of potential destruction. But thinking on it, yes, in the past, our household has been as volatile as the core of a nuclear reactor.

    However, this is family we’re talking about. We’ve lived through a lot. All families have. There's been just as much love as there has been war, and a lot more. And thankfully, I don’t believe in Astrology. In our family, we know what makes each other tick much more than some palm-reading Whoopie Goldberg-from-Ghost could ever tell us about our inner selves. (Apologies to any palm readers or crystal ball gazers out there, I mean you no offense. We all gotta eke out a living and I support any method of bending the ethics of society if it helps earn a buck!)

    In getting out to meet my mother and sister, my first mistake, perhaps one among many to come, was saying, “Hi mom! Hi sis! You guys want to read my new blog?” After three decades on this Earth, I am no closer to understanding my mother than I was when she had me. On one hand, she is extremely cautious about the decisions I may make in life. She used to openly tell me in front of my group of friends, "I don't know if you're friends are the right choice for you." She also got so nervous I would lose my clothes at summer camp, she wrote my name in every single article of clothing. Imagine wearing your name in lady's cursive written in black sharpie on both of your socks as you walk around the mess hall. My friends and family joke that I grew up like Buster Bluth from Arrested Development, (which, if you have not seen, buy a Netflix membership solely to rent this TV show. It’s one of history’s best and most underrated TV shows of all time.)

    But the Buster in me is only skin deep. My mother’s controlling demeanor caused me to start acting out at an early age. Well, it was either that or the ADD. I was the kid in the Supermarket who would have his grimy little hand in the bulk candy bin. I was the kid who hid inside the circular clothes racks at department stores. At least until a man’s voice would come over the PA: “[Little Boy,] your mother is waiting for you at the front of the store.” Yes, this would happen. Now, it wasn’t that I was necessarily bad or a devil child, although those close to me would probably say different, but I had always felt that same push that I think positive magnets feel when they come close to another positive magnet. I just always wanted "away." When I finally earned enough to get out of my parents’ nice affluent house in their nice affluent neighborhood, I didn’t think twice about moving into the toxic waste part of town. I’m not talking about the crime-ridden slums here. I’m talking about the place crime is even scared to go.

    On the other hand, she has always had my best interest at the forefront. And, as you get to know my mother, you will understand that is a ginormous understatement. I wouldn't go so far to say that she was one of those new age parents who would teach me that smooshing a roach was like killing a finger of the earth, but she did try to develop every talent she thought she saw in me at the earliest age. When I started doodling my teacher's head being torn off his stick figure's torso by a big black furry creature from Mars, she set me up with my own art classes. When she caught me rocking with my air guitar to Slash's solo on "Night Train," my Christmas present that year was a Peavey Predator EXP Guitar with a Floyd Rose double-locking tremelo. As you might be able to detect, she got a little carried away with these things. It's a pity virtually none of these 'talents' were actually realized. Whenever I travel back home and open up one of my closets, old musical instruments, easels, and maps of countries I still can't correctly pronounce look at me with the same stare of neglect as would a set of World Books.

    So, it puzzled me that when I told her about my blog, she gave me this look of ‘shame on you.’ I had in mind she would be psyched that I was using my creative skills for something (even though I am in a career that's akin to a creative black hole.) I hadn’t even given her the run-down of what it was about, or any of the possibly taken-the-wrong-way aspects of the posts. So, I asked her, "do you even know what a blog is?"

    Knowing that I had spent the last five years teaching my mom how to properly turn on and send an email from her computer (yes, it is 2011, y’all,) I assumed she had probably never even heard of a blog before I brought this up. I assumed wrong. 

    “Don’t you know that people get fired from their jobs all the time for what they write in these logs? (Yes, she did say logs.) It’s all over Fox News these days. You know, that pregnant teacher got herself fired for logging a while back. Don’t you watch the news anymore? What are you trying to do to your life?”

    I love how an almost septuagenarian asked me if I watch TV instead of read the newspaper.

    “But, Mom, this is different…”

    Fuck. I really don’t know where to go with this one. I couldn't think of how to answer my mom appropriately. I mean, I knew the hazards and risks of putting my words on the web before I typed my first word. But, how am I supposed to get my mom, who is insanely stubborn, to understand what the end purpose of my blog could be? Especially if (gasp,) I even don’t?

    It made me ask myself, what exactly am I trying to do with my life? Good question. I'll have to answer that one soon. Of course, first, I’d have to get my mom off my back.

    “Please,” My mom pleaded, “promise me you won’t do any more of this logging.”

    “Okay, Mom, I won’t. For you.”

    Maybe it was the moment I knew change was going to come. The next morning, I woke up and got ready to meet Mother and Sister for their tour of the Smithsonian. I ate my bowl of Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries perhaps a little too fast. Suddenly, it felt like a nail had just been hammered into one of my molars. The Cap’n and myself just had a big disagreement. I wouldn’t know until the weekend was over and I could finally get to a dentist just to what extent the disagreement was. Now I sit here, my friends, and my smile is shy one tooth.

     To be continued...

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  • Directions For Sticking Head In Oven

    • 14 Mar 2011
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    If you have had the chance to read back on a couple of my earlier posts, you might have come across the part where I talk about a nose hair incident. I try to play it off as if it isn't me who is the subject of the story. Well, guess the fuck what. It is me. It happened right around the time when I first became a paralegal. Before that, I had been an internal consultant for the firm, working on a pre-litigation matter for five months prior. I bitched and whined enough that they gave me a full-time job with benefits and the stellar title of "litigation paralegal." It would only take a couple of weeks for me to realize the true worth of that title.

    The first case assigned to me was where I was also introduced to my first (and, probably, last) boss. Pear Bottom.
    Pear_bottom_2a

    I worked with a pretty cool girl on this case who was a few years younger than me. Hell, everyone at that time was a few years younger than me. I felt like a complete kindergartener because every paralegal was like 3-6 years younger than me AND knew what they were doing. Anyhow, this one case was about to go to trial and there was a TON of evidence. It was ridiculous for how small a matter this was, how much each side was able to dig up during discovery. Not only that, how many copies of each binder the partners wanted us to make. I recently oversaw the off-site storage of all these files and I think I counted ten copies of each set. I think there were like, at max, four attorneys addressing this case. It still to this day beats the shit out of me why attorneys think they need all of these precautionary copies. "Look out, one of the others might without warning dissolve into the ethers!"

    Pear Bottom rode us hard in the final weeks leading up to the trial. This was still while I was actually enthusiastic about my new title and, ahem, "ready to make a difference in the work place!" Please say some of you have gotten that feeling as you start your new job... With this feeling, I really didn't notice how much of a douche bag ass Pear Bottom was being, but Team Member Paralegal was certainly pointing it out. After every call she'd get from him, she'd say, pretty audibly, "what a rancid dick!" During preparation, he would call us on our phones and ask us to trek into his office after he had received one of the 600 page binders we'd assembled for his majesty. On his desk, it is turned to page number 473 and he is squinting down at something on the perfectly printed page.

    PB (after looking up at us): "Good job on the five volumes of binders, but did you fail to pick up the enormous error on the fourth page of the table of authorities of the exhibit to the pleading for the respondent's request for motion to quash the defense of the statement for the recipient of the medal of honor?"
    US: "Ummmm... no. What did we miss?"
    PB: "Of course you didn't. [Exasperated and overly dramatic sigh.] Middle of the page. Fourth paragraph. The font seems to be smaller than the rest of the binder. You know what? Make the rest of the paragraphs that size. Yes, I like that size. Go fix it now. Please and thank you."

    So this was how it went down pretty much all the time. Thinking back and remembering how I tried so hard to please him makes me kinda chuckle now.

    Time for trial finally comes. Pear Bottom and Team Member Paralegal are preparing to fly off to Blankity-Blank for the trial. I'm to "man the forts," which later meant do absolutely nothing, since they would have all one gazillion binders with them. We are all meeting in Team Member Paralegal's office before their flight getting the logistics down and I ask, "So, PB, what is the time frame I would expect for you guys to call if you need me?"

    He looks at me, hesitantly, and then gives me that kind of slow pat on the shoulder that has enough force to let you know to move out the room with him.

    "Let me talk to you for a minute."

    Outside in the hall, he looks at me very seriously. I mean, very seriously, and says, "You have a hair coming out of your nose that's almost down to your upper lip."

    My eyes could not have gotten wider. No one in my entire life has ever told me something like that, much less a boss I barely knew. And not only that, but I've never had a nose hair come blatantly out of my nose. Not that I know of...

    PB: "I swear, you need to go to the bathroom and fix it."

    So, I walk-run to the nearest men's room to scope it out. Guess what, there is no nose hair. This, I swear. I feel like I had been punk'd or something. But by a District of Columbia bar certified attorney?? Is that some sort of sick joke? I even asked Team Member Paralegal and she told me there was none. If there was, she would have noticed. So, still to this day, I have no clue why Pear Bottom decided to pull this weird prank on me. Or even if it was a prank. Hazing maybe? I don't know. Do I really want to spend that much energy on figuring out 'office comedy?'
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  • Spam A Lot

    • 14 Mar 2011
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    This week is gonna be busy. I can't really get into the nitty gritty details of why, but there's a lot of shifting. People shifting places, offices switching hands and entire stacks of casework that have become part of the native landscape, dare I say even office landmarks, are being displaced and/or condensed. I am one of the lucky ones who gets to move. They called us volunteers in a recent meeting and applauded how we stepped forth, like we were going to the frontlines of a world catastrophe to help out. I really can't remember whether I can call my move voluntary or involuntary, though.  I remember I had an alterior motive. Which, of course, is the important part.

    I have been hawking to get my old office back. When I say office, yes, I mean four full walls, attached to a ceiling and a floor, with a door. Before you go any further in thinking I'm a complete asshole because you may work in a bullpen and have to not only listen to the people around you but also look at them while they look back at you, I do want to say that the office does come with a few issues:

    1. It is down the hall from Pear Bottom and Mr. Clean. Like screaming distance. Although I can't imagine Mr. Clean to scream.
    2. It is right next to the Lunch Room. That means from the hours of noon to about four, there is no silence to be found. At least it's a good way to catch up on what's going on with Administrative Assistant A's cat, Boopsie. But, the worst is that all the food filters and STAYS in that office all day long. People really like curry, too.
    3. Added to this, the vending machine runs right up against the wall where my back is. This is especially thrilling when a candy bar gets stuck. You can guess what happens to the particular project I'm working on, though.
    4. When I have a coworker working with me in that office, there is NO space. I need a lot of space for my, uh, shit. Unfortunately, Cohabitation Mate and myself are going to run into some issues with this.
    That's just a few off the top of my head. I think it also floods when it torrentially rains. But, I did have an alterior motive to being a volunteer. I was hoping, since Cohabitation Mate is now on a part-time basis, I could have him moved out to my current cage. So, essentially, we would swap out. Did I mention I am pure evil? Really, I just miss having a door. But, moreso than that, I will again be within the orbit of the rest of the paralegals, so I won't feel so... out of place.

    So, I am currently getting ready for my move. I am organizing my file folders on my computer. Which is very important, I think. I just peeked inside our firm's spam folder and was surprised to even find one email. Evidently, our office has one of the best blockers out there, because it knows to throw out the Monster.com emails blanketing lawyers, suggesting they throw their current occupation away for something much more extravagent. Perhaps a potential opportunity as a Rite-Aid cashier? Or how about a career changer like a Janitor at Sign Engineering Corp? Well, only if you're a Spanish-speaking attorney, my friend! Or, how about Miss Cleo arising out of obscurity to offer her psychic abilities to help the courtroom counsel? Okay, I made that one up, but you get the point. I'm obviously very busy getting ready for this move. So, I'd better get back to it.

    DAILY REASON FOR LIVING RATIO: 5.4
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  • Oh, Silly People

    • 11 Mar 2011
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    It baffles me sometimes the lack of common sense that people maintain professionally. Not like I'm Mr. Serious or even take my job seriously, but still.

    I just got back from going through a fun little routine test at my doctor's office. I go in and it seems that the technician decided she wanted to memorize my entire record, including my background (eg - full name, city of origin, what I do for a living, where I work, etc.) Which was, to say the least, kind of weird. This little old lady really has nothing better to do than analyze which patient comes next as she sees them for a total of five minutes? So, as she's prepping me, she asks, "You're a paralegal at one of those big law firms downtown, right? Can you give me some legal advice?"

    I respond, "You're a medical assistant, right? Can you give me your medical opinion?"

    Of course, I wait for the expected answer of NO and tell her, "Well, there's your answer."

    Just wanted to throw that one little tid bit out there. Enjoy your common sense filled weekend!
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  • Constantly Losing Enthusiasm

    • 10 Mar 2011
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    So, what's the topic of today's lesson... Well, I guess we should talk about proactivity in the workplace. Most of you already know all about this, but it's probably worth restating. While being bored, investing in things that might help your coworkers (hell, even your evil bosses) is always a cool way to pass the time and helps you get noticed. As an example, a couple weeks ago, I got a new neighbor when a new partner (actually, our firm has some weird title for what he really is) moved here from out of town. He kind of reminds me of a rhino, so we'll call him Rhinoman. Anyways, Rhinoman is very ferocious at times. When he is frazzled or when he is in a hurry. And especially when he is talking to his wife over the phone. Thank god we are not his wife.

    One day, he is freaking out because, well, I really don't know. But he is screaming at his very nice Vietnamese administrative assistant. He wants her to fill out a PDF form on her computer. But, unfortunately, her previous boss evidently did not rely that much on computers, since her skill level puts her in critical danger of operating a can opener. Once Rhinoman had decided to stop tormenting his assistant and grump back to his messy, brief-strewn cave, I ask if she needs assistance. She happily accepts and within minutes, I had prepared the PDF for printing. She pulls the form out of the feed and hands it to her boss. Over the day, I receive about twenty emails personally thanking me for helping her coming from all these assistants I barely even knew!

    Other than feeling really good about this (and feeling like I've finally boosted my karma up just a tad,) I realized I'm "in" with the assistant circle. That's a hard one to crack too. Whenever I used to go into the lunch room to eat the lunch I brought from home and there was a crowd of them sitting around the tables, I never felt more unwelcome. I think that's the reason I now eat out every workday.

    So, you're probably wondering where the sarcastic twist is in here. Let's get back to the point of proactivity. I've always tried to be proactive in my job(s). In my eyes, I'm helping the company grow from the inside out with my own creativity and initiative. It's being (wait for the Harvard business blogger term) an "intra-preneur." God do I suck. However, trying to help a K Street firm is impossible. It's like buying the present for the person who has everything. After probably a month of considering (this is a month's worth of unbillable hours I'm talking about,) I landed on something. Seeing that my resume reflects a kind of "Jack of All Trades" aspect, I came into my current field with absolutely no prior legal experience. Now if I know next to nothing about law, I might as well try to be more useful to my bosses. Like actually be able to do things that a normal paralegal would be able to do. Such as anything that doesn't have to do with a...

    THREE-HOLE PUNCHER.

    I decided on doing a bit of CLE, which stands for Continuing Legal Education. Maybe I could get my firm to, um, sponsor me financially so I could learn from outside classes (on a conference call) and then get, **cough, cough**, 'certified.' That would help my practice immensely in the end... Or at least that's what I made everyone who's important believe. I brought it up to those in charge. The attorneys in my practice nearly fell over with approval. I guess they were really happy how much excitement I showed. I gained full approval and began my classes the next week. I've actually always liked learning. That's actually not true. I hated it in grade school through high school. I don't know my high school GPA because until recently, I didn't know it existed and I probably scored a 1.1 on my SATs. But, come college, it completely turned around. So, that's my story on that. Big nerd all of the sudden. 

    So, I get really psyched about taking these eight classes I somehow swindled my firm into and began the first class. Once I get through, though, I realize CLE really stands for Constantly Losing Enthusiasm. Through the entire class, the woman who is instructing is obviously doing this from her kitchen dinette. Her little labradoodle is continuously barking in the background, interrupting the flow of the show the entire time. At one point, she starts asking why she does not hear any questions from the audience. Now, one of the procedures of these classes is that we are put on mute so that WE don't interrupt the flow of the show... hmmm. Anyways, the instructor begins to get more and more annoyed that we aren't responding after each segment of her incredibly intriguing presentation of the history of law, which I believe started at Habburabi's Code of Laws and went through each decade since. We then learn during one of her spats that she doesn't believe anyone is listening to her because it's all silence to her. She finally blows her lid and barks, "If you aren't going to pay attention, I'm just going to leave this presentation!" Click.

    Suddenly, another voice comes on. It's the moderator. "[Instructor?] Umm... [Instructor?] Are you there?"

    After a few minutes, the instructor comes back on and gives the excuse, "Sorry, my portable phone died."

    Uh huh. I am so glad I get to listen in on so many more of these classes.

    DAILY REASON FOR LIVING RATIO: 1.96
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  • Your Bandwagon Parked In My Spot!

    • 8 Mar 2011
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    DC is an odd town. I do not at all want to say negative things about it, because I love it. When I lived in Baltimore for that stint and commuted down, I marveled at how absolutely clean everything was. I didn't even have this down in Atlanta! But, Baltimore? There, you get used to stepping out the door into the collection of litter from people the night before or stepping out of the vehicle into human... I won't go there today. But, man, DC? In DC, you have your own little man follow you around sweeping up the cigarette butts you toss. I mean, those guys in City Hall take pride in showing this place off!

    Which goes as no surprise that DC would also love showing off how GREEN it is. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with going green. I work in Energy and Environment law and if there wasn't an urgent need to look towards the future in this way, well, I would... just have to find another practice to be a paralegal in.  Even so, I do believe in peak oil, that we've passed the so-called "peak" and that we need to find other ways to sustain ourselves. My heart goes out to whales and to dolphins and to 80's style mullets, however I do think we take things a little too far sometimes, and DC is a great example of this.

    A few nights ago, I watched "Waiting for Superman," which if you do not know, is a documentary about how stupid we are. In the more discriminate version, it's about how our country has completely let go of our own educational system. It analyzes where we went wrong and how we may be able to fix it. One of the main plotlines showcases the District as the lowest area of the country in terms of education rate. I think they said something like 18% of 5th grade kids could pass a 3rd grade test. Yikes. Something would tell me where to put my tax dollars.

    Instead, at the beginning of last year, because of the growing concern of plastic bags floating in the Anacostia River, the town implimented a five-cent tax on every plastic and paper bag you use at any store for your groceries, beer, and personal items you would not like the public to necessarily see. Twenty percent is returned to the merchant while eighty percent goes to... no, it doesn't go to education... it goes to cleaning up one of the two rivers in DC. ONE. The problem with environmental initiatives like this is that:

    A. They pull on the heart-strings of the public, because who doesn't want a pretty planet? Therefore, they can create a huge mob of followers who you can command like mindless zombies

    2. They are able to tax the public FOREVER, because, just like the War on Drugs or the War on Terrorism, there is no definite end to pollution.

    and

    D. This tax does nothing to actually regulate the force which is creating the pollution in the first place, only those which are distributing it (ie - factory makes plastic bags and lots of pollution in its wake, but is not taxed; people throw plastic bags away and somehow the bags always end up in this same river.)

    I apologize for that somewhat weird economics tangent we just took. But, tying into this go-green craze is suddenly my firm. Yes, my big corporate law firm. The law firm which keeps every single light on in every single hallway on both of its floors turned on 24/7. The same firm which may be the sole reason the Brazilian rainforest may disappear before the glaciers atop Kilamanjaro due to the paper it wastes through shredding and NOT recycling. This firm has decided to take on a Green Initiative. It's ridiculous, really, even though it's been in effect for like a month, it still makes me laugh to think about.

    In order to spread goodwill to our clients and let them know we care about the Earth, we are now printing on both sides of the paper.

    Okay. Before you say anything, yes, that is definitely the stupidest thing, if not the laziest thing I've ever heard of. But especially for a LAW FIRM. Only Dunder Mifflin depends on more paper. The sheer amount of paper we go through in a week is staggering. And, yes, this would really make a difference if... IF... if half of things we printed didn't need to be single-sided per the rulemaking of every Federal and State governing body we apply to! Even if the Clerk at the courthouse in My Cousin Vinnie got a brief that was double-sided, he would send it back without a stamp. Who came up with this idea??? Oh well, I guess the lawyers don't have much room to complain about this... we're the ones having to print everything for them.

    Daily Reason for Living Ratio: 2.45
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  • Lawfirm Dossier #52 - Mr. Clean

    • 7 Mar 2011
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    • Dossier Mr. Clean attorney
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    So, today is an excruciatingly boring day. The one thing I was excited about was the energy & environment seminar I was attending, yet it ended up having nothing to do with my practice and went over by about 45 minutes. So, I thought I might begin illustrating the characters I work for (or with.)

    Outside of Pear Bottom is another fine young chap bred from another Ivy League school, perhaps was a member of the polo league, studied the lute and performed medieval dance routines for his grade school talent show.  I may be laying the sarcasm on a little too thick, but it only comes where it is deserved. He is a first year associate and was hired late last year to our energy team (essentially taking up half of my duties.)  So, I would suppose this guy has been around for at least half a year, if not more. The reason I call him Mr. Clean is because in all of that time, he has not adorned his office with one thing. Not one helpful office organizer, not one symbolic diploma or framed map of antiquity, not one life momento that he does not prove that he plugs himself into the wall after he gets home from work. Nothing. Even his desk, when I walk in, is a barren wasteland. It's like the surface of the Moon, but without the moon rocks. I don't even know what he does when he needs to take a note.

    But, his personality is almost as strange. For one, I have actually never seen him on foot. He keeps the door shut to his office all day and then, poof!, it is magically open and he has disappeared. He is an impecible dresser, although I don't have much taste for turn of the 20th century British barrister casualwear. And strangest of all, I think his vertabrae are unified as one. When I walk into his office, he will be at his computer, but he swivels around, not moving any part of his upper torso. It's a strange thing to imagine, so I have utilized Microsoft Paintbrush to help illustrate my point.

    Please examine Exhibit A:

    Mrclean

    And, yes, he does talk like that. I also think he might be a drone from the great Attorney Queen. In any event, Mr. Clean normally does not know what to do. I've noticed on the docket of one major case I work on he has had to retract and resubmit a pleading on more than one occasion because he forgot standard points of procedure in the body of the certificate of service. But, oh well, I guess we all have to start somewhere, right, Mr. Clean? So, please stop making me come to your office so you can tell me to copy a page out of a century old book so you look as smart as you dress.
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  • Karma Police

    • 7 Mar 2011
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    I'd like to think that I am pretty efficient in my morning routine. In fact, I would go so far as to say extremely efficient. Ridonkulously efficient, even? I time every motion I make from the time I wake up and get out of bed to the time I get to my desk at work down to the minute. I am like a well-oiled machine. At least I used to be. I don't know where the sidestep was. Whether it was that I became lazy or got a girlfriend or started receiving back payments on bad karma, I can't tell you, but despite my best intentions, I CANNOT get to work on time. When I lived in Baltimore, I had no transportation of my own except my feet. This meant taking the walk to the bus, taking the bus to the train station, taking the train to DC and taking the Metro to my office. All in all a 2.5 hour trek. I timed that if I could wake up at 5:45 each morning, I could be at my desk, at the earliest by 8:30, when my bosses would arrive (that is, if I hit literally every lucky break, like the conductor forgets that he has to stop for the other stops.) This meant pour coffee and let cool down while getting ready, a 7 minute shower, get dressed in 3 minutes, eat breakfast and drink coffee in 4 minutes, put tie on in under 1 minute, grab bag and be out the door by 6 AM.

    These days, you would be shocked and awed to see me up before 7:45. Make that 8. I live literally less than 3 miles away from work, about a block away from the Metro and on one of the least crowded subway lines in the District. So, why on Earth would I be getting in LATER than I would when I had that two-and-a-half hour commute to worry about? It's one (or a combo) of three things:

    1. New girlfriend in the picture = harder to get out of bed in the morning
    2. I had no life back then
    3. The Karma Police have come gunning for me

    Now let's at least try to deconstruct the last one. The thing that motivates me to get to work in the morning more than anything else is not because I can't wait to say hello to all the attorneys and ask them how their weekend was and how much more their wives hate them. It's the digital time card. You have to sign into your computer, sign on through an Internet portal, wait for your dinosaur computer to gain speed to launch the certain Java app because Windows XP is just way too processor-intensive, and click Clock In! (Smiley Face) The program is insufferable because it counts off in incriments of fifteen minutes, but gives you a 7 minute grace period between each. That sounds great until you are at your desk at 9:37, focused so hard you could be shooting mind bullets at your screen as it attempts to load the clock in button. It finally does load, but before you can click the button, the time changes over to 9:38. (And then someone calls about the TPS Reports...)

    So, this is why I try very hard to get to work promptly. It's not that I expect to DO anything for the first couple of hours. But if I get the chance, I'd like to leave before sundown. Because of the Federal Full-Time Alotment of Wage Workers Time Per Week Act, we all must work a precise amount of hours each day, even if we are way ahead of ourselves For instance, we have 90 hours by Thursday, Boss is like, "Well, I don't need you for Friday. Take off if you'd like." We'd still have to come in on Friday. Because IT'S THE LAWWWWW. I also like to sleep. I try to get as much sleep as I possibly can. The formula I use to maximize my sleep and minimize work time during the daylight period is called the Reason For Living Ratio. It is fairly simple, just figure out what is the earliest you can get to work, what is the average amount it takes to get ready, and how much you want to sleep.

    Circling back to my Karma, I am late. Sometimes purposefully, but sometimes I also just forget that I have a job. But the vast majority of the time, I am scurrying along with all the others to work. My private New Years Resolution was to never get in after 10. I've broken that 5 times so far. Four of which have been in the last two weeks. I can attest that these four instances do not reflect the possibility that I am lazy. For instance, today I wanted to get to work early. Earlier than usual actually, because I knew I'd be getting in later tomorrow because of a doctor appointment. I look up to see when the metro leaves the station so I can be there when it arrives. I leave and get to the station without a hitch. It's when I get to the escalators, it all goes to shit. DC is a tourist town. Just like NYC and San Francisco, I guess, each year trabillions come to DC, and it all starts in the spring. Well, this must be the first week. There was a grade of school kids (I'm not talking a class on field trip here, it was A GRADE) trying to walk down the single down-escalator (which of course happens to not be working today.) How I would have thought bringing 150 little kids could be at all easy if I were a teacher planning this is beyond me. So, the escalator is literally at a standstill with these kids, who are not moving. I feel like I should have brought a machete as I try to get through this jungle of little kid. One third of the way down, my train comes. I start pushing a little harder, but don't want just push these kids out of the way, because, well, I'm not that bad of a guy. The doors open for the train. Two-thirds down. Keep pushing, keep pushing. "Stand Clear Of The Doors." That's my last call, and I'm on the platform! All I have to do is make it through this last swarm of kids and... shit.

    Well, c'est la vie. I can always wait for the next train. After all, I'll definitely be ready for that one! So, I get on the next one fifteen minutes later, with the rest of the ten-year olds. I'm standing in the middle of the car, holding one of the sidebars because we are all crammed in like sardines when halfway down the tunnel we come to a complete stop. Now this is when metro train operators can get really annoying. 99% of the time they stop, it is because there is another train sharing the same track ahead of them that needs to go on. So, in order to not collide with that train, we stop somewhere in the tunnel. Now, if the operator already has this piece of information, would it be necessary to start the train back up again, go about 50 feet and then make another complete stop? I only make this point in the defense of the hundred or so people having to hold their balance on the train while the operator pumps the breaks. This happens from start to finish. Thinking I was going to somehow arrive at 9:15, I am getting in just as the grace period ends for 9:45.
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  • About

    I am a paralegal at a large undisclosed law firm in Washington, D.C. Am I lucky to be in this position? Sure, why not. Am I completely jaded? Absolutely. Do I figure that everyone else around me is, too? Abso-fuckin-lutely.

    So, I guess that touches on the first rule of NOTHSOH - This blog isn't and will never be anything less than rated R. It's not that I am by nature profane or that I want to make the populace sick, I just have a lot to get off my chest. If you don't like it, shit, there's about sixty two zillion other blogs on crocheting.

    Also, for you paralegal-hopefuls and paralegals looking for advice. Well, sorry. Unless you're really good at reading between the lines, this blog mainly consists of the absurdity I endure on an almost daily basis as a legal assistant in the nation's capital.

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