What Was Good About Today

Okay, it's early yet, so I'll write about what was good about yesterday because what's good about right now is that I have my coffee :)

1) One of my favorite authors, Diana Gabaldon, released a new book in her long (and wonderful) Outlander series. I got a copy of the new book, An Echo in the Bone, the day before yesterday and I've started reading it during lunch. Wow. The only downside is that I hate putting the book down...but you take what you can get.

2) One of my longer fanfiction stories was posted, with its endnotes intact, on one of the main "Beauty and the Beast" fanfiction sites. The endnotes had disappeared when it was first posted and the site owner and I were trying to figure out how to get them back in. I checked this morning, and voila, endnotes. It sounds like a small thing, but there were translations in those endnotes so they were necessary. I'm just glad I won't have any confused readers now. :) (The story, if you're interested, is on my other blog.)

3) I got the project off to NA, after crossing my t's and dotting my i's a number of times. I'm crossing fingers that this particular storm has blown over (for now.)

4) Roisin is going to get her bangs trimmed today; her dad is going to take her while I'm at work. So she'll be happier not having everything in her face. :)

5) And finally...tomorrow is Friday. Whew.

Happy Friday eve, everyone :)

I'll Give That All the Consideration It's Due. Really.

This has not been one of my better days at work, though I suppose I should have seen it coming. About six weeks ago, we had a major shakeup, in which we were assigned new attorneys. No big deal, it happens periodically and while it's an adjustment, it rarely causes problems beyond the first couple of weeks.

Except I didn't get off on the right foot, somehow, with one of my new attorneys--from the start, things have been awkward and uncomfortable between us. And today, that particular chicken came home to roost. She's going into trial next week--and for those of you who don't work with attorneys, the general rule when they're in trial is to throw your work under the door, never turn your back on them, and don't feed them after midnight. (Wait, that last one is for gremlins :) At any rate, even the most even-tempered of them get touchy.

So I offered to help NA (New Attorney) with the section of her trial prep that secretaries traditionally do. She said, no, she'd handle it. Fine. It's her choice to accept the help or not. Before I left today, though, she called me into her office and basically gave me a lecture about all of the things I'd done wrong on her cases. Firstly, she is particular about how she wants things done---and when she's told me about it, I've done it. No arguments, no questions. And yes, I've made minor mistakes, but I've owned up to them and done my best not to repeat them (and at any rate, these were not earth-shaking, verdict-reversing errors.)

My main problem is that the entire speech boiled down to her talking to me like I was an incompetent four year old who'd have to "earn" the right to be given more challenging work from her. Riiigggght. I've been doing my job since she was probably in high school and I have worked for some very, very tough attorneys with extremely demanding caseloads. Not a one of them has ever complained. (Well, one maybe has, but that's Idiot Attorney, and no one takes him seriously anyway.)

So anyway, I've been given the "chance" to redeem myself by helping her with that trial prep that she originally didn't want my help on in the first place (because I was so untrustworthy, don't ya know.) And I'll do it tomorrow, because that's my job and this is one of the things I do well. But if this keeps up---I'm going to have to go to my supervisor. It's been a long time since I've dealt with an attorney that I've had this much of a conflict with (aside from IA, and everyone has a problem with IA) and I don't really want to involve my supervisor unless I have to, because the risk then is ending up on the radar. And who wants that?

Le sigh. I need a vacation.

Drama, Facebook Style, Parte the Second

Well, it finally happened. I got defriended on Facebook, by the same aunt of this post. And to be honest, I'm not quite sure what to think. It's not like we were close or anything, but it seems so immature somehow. "I don't agree with you, so I'm not going to talk to you," that sort of thing. I don't know what the final nail in the coffin was for her, but maybe we were just too different.

On my profile page, my religion is listed as Wiccan and my political leanings as "moderate liberal," neither of which is a lie, but I'm wondering if she found my liberal leanings more disturbing than my religious beliefs. ;) She and I weren't ever going to agree, and maybe that was too much.

And I guess that's my real problem with being defriended. I didn't know when she did it, so I never got a chance to have any context or explanation for why it happened. (And yes, I know why Facebook does it this way; I blocked an asshat from my past who tried to contact me, and I was relieved that Facebook would never tell him I'd done it, that I'd just disappear off his radar screen.)

So I'm perplexed and a little saddened. I would have liked to think that someone who sought me out, as my aunt did, would have been more tolerant of what she found. I would have liked to have discovered that her definition of being tolerant didn't mean agreeing with her all the time. But that isn't the reality, apparently.

So, dear aunt, I hope you stay healthy and happy on the path you've chosen. Goodbye and farewell.