Small First Steps.

I'm sure if I got home at a decent time I would have this task finished by now. Instead I'm about halfway through the task. I'm updating my resume. It should have been done a long time ago, but I've finally reached my threshold.

It is officially time to start looking for a new job.

I'm sure the job market sucks. The type of positions I'm most interested in I hear nothing but bad news about in the papers, TV, and web. I refuse to jump ship to just anything else out there. Yet I can't stand the inequity of my current job.

I can't stand the fact I have twice as many hearings as my boss. I can't stand that I put twice as much into the file before a hearing because I figure I should be professional and try to account for the most likely scenarios and questions I'll encounter at a hearing. I can't stand that I put in twice as much after a hearing before giving the file back to a clerk instead of just dumping the file into the clerks' laps. I can't stand the never ending combat with these cases. We can't fix them. We can't solve the problems. We can't make people better than what they are, and these people can't fix a thing in their lives. We can't finish a case.

I can't stand the hour long commute. I put on over 26,000 miles on my car last year. I can't stand the long hours on the job, the long hours on the road, the too few hours of sleep and the scant few hours remaining in the day. I'm tired of every Saturday wondering if I should go into the office and the Saturdays I do go down wondering why the network is only available until noon.

It may be a day or two before I get back to my resume. It might be the weekend before I start paying the legal websites to get access to any open positions listed. It might be awhile before I find a good ad to respond to. It might be awhile before my life changes, but change it must.

On Call Again.

This time I'm on-call for jury duty in Big City. I have to call a number and listen for my lottery number. If my number comes up I report for jury duty the next morning.

Given that I am an attorney I have great difficulty imagining that I'll every actually serve on a jury. What lawyer would want another lawyer in their jury?

Toying With My Prey.

He's a clueless moron. At the last hearing the judge ripped into him like polar bear. Deservedly so I might add. He's a moron that fails to realize his actions have consequences. The judge told him what conditions the moron must follow to be in the judge's good graces. I wrote that order of course and I try to use simple every day language. I even broke down the judge's conditions using the numbers 1, 2, and 3. Nothing was unreasonable or difficult to do either. We knew he had a problem with employment and money so the third condition was if you work at all that week pay something towards the obligations you owe. Even if the moron only paid $5 - $10, we could have worked with that. The second condition was if you get or lose a job just let your attorney or me know in a timely fashion. Neither of those sound unreasonable or difficult to do, right?

Over the past few months I had a few email exchanges with the moron's attorney. We could tell the moron was having trouble following the simple directions. I noted if the moron wouldn't correct the problem soon I would press the issue with the judge at the next hearing. When I prepped the file for today's hearing I discovered the attorney had withdraw. The excuse was the moron wasn't fulfilling his end of the bargain in a nutshell.

The moron walked in today. I knew I would finally have fun and hopefully make a point to this dumbass.

Me: Okay did let me or your lawyer know you had a job?
Moron: Yeah I got around to telling the lawyer I had that I was working.
Me: When did you start working?
Moron: November.
Me: November? I don't see any money till just before Christmas. Did you get paid in November and early December at all?
Moron: Yeah I signed a sheet saying it was okay to garnish my pay.
Me: So did you pay anything once you started working?
Moron: I signed the sheet saying it was okay to start garnishing my pay.
Me: No I understand you signed a paper to start the garnishment. My question is when you saw your first couple of paychecks, you saw taxes were taken out right?
Moron: Yea.
Me: And you saw that FICA was taken out for Social Security right?
Moron: Yeah they always do that right?
Me: And you noticed there wasn't any garnishment right?
Moron: Well I signed a sheet after that saying it was okay to garnish my pay.
Me: No I understand you signed the sheet. What I'm asking is you saw the garnishment didn't come out for at least a month right? Did you pay anything at all until the garnishment?
Moron: No.
Me: Do you remember what the judge said at the last hearing?
Moron: No that was a long time ago.
Me: When you got the order in the mail, did you read the part saying if you worked at all to pay something? And if you lost your job you had to tell your lawyer or me?

The judge ripped into the moron again and sent him to jail for contempt of the court. All too easy!

My Red Pen Ran Out Of Ink.

How's your tourney bracket looking now? While upsets are awesome to watch and it is fun to see powers go down, it does make one's bracket sheet look like it was used as gauze for treating a wound.

Wounded brackets, yeah that sounds right. Heck we still have all of Sunday's games to go through for the rest of Round 2!

Congratulations to No 1 Kansas. You are officially the biggest choke in the 2010 tourney!

Our Proper Mission Statement.

We fail to do the impossible with minimal resources.

I'm Going To Need So Many Furry Kisses Tomorrow.

This week has been hell at work. Seriously I can think of no other way to describe it. I've stayed until 6:30 p.m. twice to get ready for the next day, tonight I stayed until 6:00 p.m.. Tuesday was my early night by getting out at 5:00 p.m., by going through 30 hearings in 3 hours. What...the...hell! For the last two and a half weeks I've been dealing with either a continuous flow of hearings or needing to prep all those files for the continuous flow of hearings.

Tomorrow will be a constant flow of courtrooms. In addition to my stuff I'll have to cover some of my boss's hearings as well. When he scheduled his pretrial conferences there wasn't anything on the calendar then, but now there is. I'm sorry but when I schedule my pretrials I only schedule two in a morning, max! I do it so that I can go to some hearings if required. The boss will schedule 4 in a morning and 2 in the afternoon just so he can be finished with all pretrials in one day. I think he's nuts.

I'll be honest I'm getting resentful of having to cover for him all the damned time. I already do the work of two attornies because we're just that busy and Small Town will never hire someone to help us out. Yet I do the work of more than two attornies because I have to double check that my boss is ready for what we know about and quickly spring into action when something goes wrong and he isn't available. This morning was a perfect example. I had a 15 minute break where I wanted to type a motion I needed for tomorrow. A court calls and wonders were someone from our office is. We had hearing then? Really? When the hell did that pop onto the calendar? It wasn't even my file, but after scrounging around for the file I prepped it in about 5 minutes. I could have prepped it in 2 minutes, but the staff kept asking me what was going on. Okay I know people are trying to be helpful, but after I explain the problem once please leave me alone so I don't type in the same incorrect information four times because people keep distracting me. It isn't a good sign when I ask all the parties why are we here today.

At least tomorrow I'll visit my parents. The elderly DogHound had a decent week according to them. I shall place DogHound on my lap, explain how horrible my week was, and let his brown eyes express how much he wants me to pet him. If DogHound is feeling somewhat energetic he may even kiss me. I'm very happy DogHound has lasted this long. I'm really going to need him tomorrow just to feel human again.

I'm Going To Win This One!

One of the courts sent a note down stating I was to provide the written order from an October hearing. Oh crap, did I miss one? It happens every now and then. We have so much volume we sometimes haven't written the order yet, or the file gets into one of the clerks' hands and they forget to bring the file back.

I find the file and open it. Underneath a few pieces of paper is the written order that I typed up the day of the hearing. The judge's signature is dated 9 days later.

I'm already insanely busy and backed up with orders to write. I don't need to deal with a forgetful court as well!

Happy Birthday Chuck Norris.

Today is the 70th birthday of Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is 70? No way! In typical Chuck Norris fashion I heard he roundhouse kicked his birthday into next year.

Spring Is In The Air.

I couldn't take it anymore. The sun was out, the temperature the warmest since before Thanksgiving, and my window will open. I opened up the window in my office! Sure the temps were barely over 50, but that feels very warm compared to the winter we've had.

Fresh almost springtime air wafted into my office window. Along with the cigarette smoke from the judge by the steps. I've forgotten how far that odor will waft.

I swear nothing totally good ever occurs at work.

Early To Bed, Early To Rise?

I'm so sleep deprived I'm going to try to go to bed now. It is 9:30.

I think I'm turning into an old man!

Sometimes I Just Feel Dirty.

I'm doing a little paraphrasing but it went something like this.

In the beginning A owes B a lot of money. A also owes me a little money.
Later on B should start paying A. However since A owes all that money it is decided that B should burn through all the money A owes as a credit.
I really dislike those deals as no one ever keeps track of when the credit is burned through.
Now B burned through that large credit and never bothered to start paying A when the time came.
I had to figure out all the numbers. Turns out all the money A owed me was never paid and is still owed. Call that value X. What B would owe A is 10X. B was rather shocked by this. Hello you didn't keep track of things did you?
A and B decide instead of B paying A 10X and A paying me X, that B will pay X to me and A will forgive B's debt.
Okay. I did my job and protected X. A and B got something they wanted. A forgives B's debt and resolves the debt to me. B got to settle a debt for 10 cents on the dollar. Legally it is all good and the judge signed off on the deal.
Yet I have a huge moral qualm. A is a deadbeat dirtbag and gets out of paying any money for any debts A owed. I'm a firm believer you should pay your debt. I'm hoping one day all the crap A has pulled off will someday catch up to him in a bad way. I don't have any moral qualms about that.

Not Even The Titanic Got This Swamped.

Last week was a bad week at work. By bad I mean insanely busy. I stayed in my office to well past 6:00 p.m. on both Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare for Thursday. I already knew last Thursday was going to be miserable. I was proven right in ways I didn't even expect. My boss decided to leave that afternoon on a pretty flimsy excuse after 3:00 p.m. Our 1 o'clocks didn't start on time so the 2 o'clocks didn't start on time so when the boss left at 3 o'clock I had to deal with every single hearing. I suddenly realized all the little things we do together on those Thursdays that I had to do by myself. It just slowed the court down as I couldn't multitask as much as I needed to. I got home at 7:00 p.m. that night.

Friday morning was the exhaustion hangover as I simply wasn't productive. To make matters worse I had to deal with every single hearing Friday afternoon. My boss had to leave yet again! I do recall him mentioning he had to leave early a few days earlier, but I thought he was talking about 3 in the afternoon. At least the excuse was somewhat reasonable. I dread Friday afternoons in this one court as we never get out on time. I was proven right once again as I left just after 5:00 p.m.

I hoped to make it into the office last weekend to catch up on things. I never made it down to Small Town. I didn't even wake up until 11:00 a.m. on Saturday because I was so exhausted. This week I was still exhausted and unproductive. Fighting allergies or a cold or the sniffles wasn't speeding things up either. I knew tomorrow, yet another Thursday, would be bad, but I figured I could use the afternoon to prep. Instead I spent all afternoon in my Friday court on TWO hearings! The Friday judge got two friggin' hearings done in the afternoon. After the first hearing, the other attorney and I discussed if it could have been any more disjointed. I figured a kitchen sink could have been thrown in somehow! When I finally got to my office Pushy Clerk let me know my boss wasn't happy having to cover 2 hearings of mine. Oh really. Pot, kettle, black! Besides one of mine didn't even show up.

For most people it was quiting time. For me it was just getting started! A few files I couldn't even find. I prepped the ones I had, then I noticed some cases that were in my day planner, but not on our office calendar. Most of the ones in my day planner were still valid. *Deep sigh* I think I found most of them and did some quick prep work. By 7:00 p.m. our network is shutting down so I decided to leave.

I'm just so tired now. I honestly don't know how much longer I can take this workload.

Why Even Bother?

Me *speaking with a clerk*: You know all those hearing dates you got last Thursday? The court just called down and they're going to continue all those hearings. It appears they have too many hearings that day

Clerk: If they are going to continue them why did they give us those dates?

Me: I didn't want to ask that question because then I would say something I shouldn't.