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.