#my last supervisor was so horrible to me i went on medical leave bc of how bad she was triggering my PSTD

[second-breakfast]

Got put on a PIP today for shit no one ever mentioned to me before that isn't new plus some some stuff that it is only halfway accurate

[fightmewiatch]

Every so often, I have a day, one where something happens that keeps popping up things in my head that bug tf out of me. 

Today is...one of those days. Lol. But today I’m gonna write out, hopefully throwing it out will help me clear my head. (And it’s going under a cut, because it is looooong).

So, today I got an email from my supervisor that my productivity is really too low. Which, I knew that, I knew it wouldn’t be spot on. It was only based on the last few weeks, so I did email back to let her know that the last few weeks I’ve been getting constant headaches bc of my eyes / old glasses, but I finally went to the eye doctor last week so I should be better once I get the new glasses. 

Here’s the thing about this job. We log requests for medical records that are sent to specific hospitals/doctors offices/etc into our system (requests from patients, insurance, other health facilities, law firms, etc.). (We also send out the records, but I only do the first part of the job.) Working from home, I get assigned to a bunch of different facilities - sometimes that place is in Louisiana, sometimes Florida, sometimes it’s a country-wide place. When I change facilities, I have to “transfer” on my timecard, so they can see how long I’m spending in each website (and then the physical system keeps track of how many requests I’ve put in). 

It’s pretty much become commonplace for me to run out of work LONG before the end of the day, and then I email my super (same one who sent me my productivity), & ask for work. If I’m lucky, she answers me within ten minutes with more work. More often than not, I’m waiting between 30 minutes and several hours, and by that point, I email her at least one more time, and then try to find work on my own. 

No one has ever told me otherwise, so when I run out of work, I tend to stay in the facility I was last in (so instead of 2 hours in one place, I can be shown there for 2.5 or more, even without having work). When I emailed her back, I specifically asked her if there was a different place to “Transfer” to, so I don’t throw off my numbers, considering I often have to wait a while. 

To no surprise, I answered her at least an hour before the end of the day, and she didn’t answer. 

(I’m not looking for ways to fix this, I’m just basically throwing down what sparked the day.)

I’ve worked at 2 law firms in my life. 

Law Firm #1. 

Family firm (owned & run by a husband & wife - he was the name on the door, she was his secretary / office manager). 

This place was wild. 

I worked here twice. Once for two years, before I moved for school, and then after school (and a different job), I came back for another two and a half. And let me tell you. 

The first time I worked there, as secretary:

I worked part time. There was a second secretary who had been there a LOT longer that everyone loved but she was one of those older women who was certain no one else knew what they were talking about sometimes. 

My boss (owner, lead atty) wanted a listing of Potential Clients. Since we mostly did school law, business law, estate planning, and real estate, you think we would limit to that, yes? Nooooo. I had to make an excel spreadsheet of EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the phone book. Yes, you read that right. I had to spend my downtime putting THE PHONE BOOK (you remember those, right?) into an Excel Spreadsheet, so he could organize it by: first name, last name, city, address. Didn’t have an address? Find it by any possible means so long as it doesn’t cost money. 

My boss decided he loved Spreadsheets. I then had to transfer our entire client file (which was, at the time, comprised of about...2100 clients) into Excel. Also, so he could organize it by: First Name, Last Name, Business Name, Address/City, Reason for them being a client (god help us if they were there for multiple things), OR, for the schools, who the Superintendents were.

Sounds decent. But we had three different client lists to update every single time we got new info or a new client. Two in Word (one by Last Name, and one by Client Number) (which had been printed out for a hard copy that we had to keep reprinting to update them), & the one in Excel (which I fucking refused to print out, bc we’re talking HUNDREDS of pages, and what a waste of $$ and paper). 

Each time you created a new client, you had to write the information down on a sticky note and take it upstairs to K in billing, so she could make sure the information was put into her billing system. (and then she would give it to T who did payroll & incoming payments, so when people paid, they’d know what the $$ was for.)

Overall, my first 2 years there were okay. Nothing horrible, really, it was fine.

But then, the second time I worked there (approx. 3 years between leaving & coming back), in billing:

I was the billing assistant. K was still Head Billing. I adored her, we were friends despite the 30+ year age gap. 

The Billing Office was shared: me & K, and T had been transferred in there but she still did Payroll & Incoming. 

We were still at 4 attorneys, but 2 of the ones I used to work with were gone & 2 others were in place; and we fluctuated with other people in the building - 6 to 7 to 6 to 7. 

The secretary was the same as before, but she left about a month after I came back (she retired). They hired another woman, J. She was very experienced, very helpful, very firm, I really liked her. 

At first.

Her mom passed away (and I felt so bad, bc she hated her mom’s bf & there were a lot of issues and things), and afterwards, she wasn’t my friend anymore, she just seemed to be looking for a reason to leave. 

T was terrible with math (which is AWFUL for someone doing, you know, PAYROLL and INCOMING PAYMENTS). I mean terrible. We added up our own timecards, and I was shitty at keeping the math right, so I found a website to help (which I then shared with the paralegals who fucking loved it). But a couple times, T messed up hours for one of the paralegals, and the girl mentioned it to me bc I collected the cards (T had leg problems, so she limited herself to coming up & down the steps as much as she could - I did running for her). 

One time, when payroll got printed, and T was working from home, I checked her math, just because she wasn’t there, & I knew the boss would be leaving and if the paralegal didn’t catch it quickly, she would have to wait another day for the correct check (guys, you know how big of a pain that can be especially if you need that money). In the process, I pulled out J’s, trying to sort through them. I never just look at someone’s check stub, never ever, it is none of my business, and the only reason I was looking in the first place was hours, not pay. But J got a raise. No one in that building ever got a raise. Never. I’d worked there (at this point), a grand total of 3 years, and the only “raises” I got was a) bc they rehired me, and b) they wanted to make me a paralegal (which I didn’t want, but they let me keep the pay difference). 

The OM called me into her office a few hours later, and just ripped into me for going through payroll & telling everyone about J’s raise which is NO ONE else’s business, and I was so flustered bc I didn’t know what she was talking about. Turns out, J told the OM that I was telling everyone she got a raise, so instead of calmly asking me, she asked if I looked at payroll, and I was honest, and she just lectured me like a stern, mad, disappointed parent (you know...the tone of voice & the facial expressions that can send you into an anxiety attack). The young attorney was my friend, he actually came to my defense when he found out what happened, told the OM that I didn’t tell anyone anything, that J was bragging about her pay raise to the paralegals (and since he spent time down there working, he heard her). (I never did get an apology from J for lying about me, or from the OM for yelling at me like I was a disgrace.)

It was one of my responsibilities to go to Staples & pick up supplies with a business check. (That’s right. We didn’t order anything in, I physically drove up, shopped, paid, and hauled it back myself. In 2.5 years, I was only offered help twice. The young attorney had a perfect view of my car from his office, never came out unless I went in and asked (and I only ever asked him to carry the GIANT BOXES OF PAPER). We had a list down front of everything we needed - printer ink, paper, pens, staples, tape, etc etc etc. Sporadically, my boss would ask me to bring her the list, I’d triple check it so nothing got missed, and bring it to her, then she’d nod nod nod, hand me a signed check, and let me get it. 

One time, she told me to get everything we needed. No biggie, typically. But this rang out over $300, minimum (I’m almost blanking). I am telling you, she nearly had steam shooting out of her ears, and refused to let me go (like I’d messed up somehow) for well over a month. 

The bosses & at least one of their daughters (they had 4 kids) were Pro-Trump. (This is...this is all I need to say about this.)

J wound up showing up 2 hours late for work, going up to the boss, telling her she quits, and then leaving. (They tried to get her to stay with, you guessed it, another raise and a duty change. She still left.) We hired B, a lovely timid women. She was very, very nice, and as far as I know she’s still there. 

The two paralegals left and were replaced - one left, the 2nd trained the 1sts replacement, and then the replacement trained the 2nds replacement. (It was hilarious when the OM introduced us to the first replacement bc I knew her. I worked with her at the other law firm. We laughed, waved, smiled, good times.)

For a while, I had to sit in on meetings my boss had with clients (I had to take notes). This became rare for me, because once they had the 2 paralegals, they took turns, with B. We never really conversed with the clients beyond hi, but once I managed to have a nice conversation with a couple who had a place in Florida, and we talked bc it was at a place I had been to earlier the year before for my sister’s wedding, and we were having a nice conversation. Which, as you guessed, was interrupted by my boss who looked flummoxed that I, a low billing clerk, would have anything in common with his clients that he didn’t have in common with them. (He never said that, but you could see it well enough on his face.)

They had a quirk. They kept everything. Every bill that had been printed, it was printed, then copied - clients got the original, we kept two copies, one for when they paid (we would staple either a copy of the check or the check stub to the bill, so we knew what checks paid what bills), and then a copy for Billing, with any notes, adjustments, etc etc. (I’m talking bills back at least a decade, just thrown into the back apartment.)

I should mention here? The Office Building was an old apartment building. The entire downstairs and most of the upstairs had been converted into offices, but there was 1 last apartment in the very back that had a couple broken window panes, dust, bugs, etc etc. It’s where they stored old Bills & Paid Bills (anything older than 1 year). 

We’re pretty sure it’s haunted (I say this, bc I did record the sound of a giggling little girl in that back apartment, which is upstairs, not connected to any other buildings, and there were no little girls in there at the time.)

I worked there 2013 to 2017, this time around. Around 2014, I talked to K, and the OM, and made the suggestion to get rid of those bills. But not just toss them, no. Let’s SCAN THEM IN! I was excited when they loved the idea. (My poor, poor stupid self.) I had to scan in every bill (we’re talking thousands and thousands) of bills, I scanned in every single bill that we sent out between, like...2006 and 2015, by the time I left (I left Jan of 2017, and idk if I finished scanning in 2016 before I did). 

This meant: unstapling at least a dozen pages per bill, scanning in every page of the bill, plus every page fo the last draft bill (bc of course there are multiple drafts), logging every single bill into a Spreadsheet so we knew what we had, for whom, and where. I had to set up a bunch of fucking folders - one for every year, broken down into month, broken down to Schools or Miscellaneous (Everything else), broken down to Bills and Drafts, so we didn’t mix things up. This was fine if the bill was between 1 and 10 pages, but after 2009, we had bills that were twenty, thirty, forty pages long, I am not joking, and if one page messed up, I had to scan them all in AGAIN bc I was using the free Adobe.

It was tiring, so I printed out pricing, asked the OM if we could get the monthly subscription.(This was maybe mid 2014, I think). (And then promptly watched her hum, and put it somewhere never to be seen again.) K, her gracious soul, prompted the boss a couple times, but it was brushed off every time. 

I finally paid it myself, fuck it, I’m not rescanning 80 pages bc 1 page got stuck in the scanner. 

One months before I left, the paralegals asked me about it, bc they had me fix stuff, scan stuff, bc i Had the better program, so I told them were to look. They asked the OM, who then asked me why I was paying for it myself. (I could have screamed.)

My bosses were the kind of people who went to church, and thought that made them good people. The Big Man had a library of religious DVDs, books, CDs that he loaned out to people. Asked me to, yup, make and keep the Spreadsheet of everything - one for CDs/DVDs, one for Books - and then keep the log/keep track of who borrowed what, & when it was returned. (This included tagging each item with a number. Had 6 of the same thing? Then 6 of them were given the same number). I stopped keeping such good track when he started accepting returns & not telling me who brought them back, or started loaning them without telling me what and to whom, & started adding things in without telling me so I could label them (and then loaning them out without me having numbered/logged them). 

My boss wanted me to work on the Website and their FB page. Thought we could send out an email to everyone (when I say everyone, I don’t just mean clients, I mean every person he could get an email for in the county), and when the IT guy said no, bc a mass email that size would most likely go to Spam, he said “Isn’t there a way to make sure it goes in their inbox?” and we all looked at each other as he said, “No, not unless we hack everyone’s emails, and that is very much against the law.”

I got paid mileage, because I often went to Staples, the bank, the boss’ house, two of the employees’ houses, two of the schools (who needed their bills NOW, not whenever the mail was sent out) and the Post office. One time I wrote the wrong mileage - I added going to the employees’ house, bc I did, but I did it on my way to/from lunch, so it didn’t count, but I was in a rush to write it, and I forgot until she was asking me why it was broken up. When I told her, she gave me the look, like I was trying to steal from her, and lectured me about it. (It was an accident, okay?)

T had diabetes, and after a lot of other medical issues and family issues, she had even more and they had to take her leg below the knee, and because the office wasn’t Handicapped accessible (there was some legal loophole that kept them from having to update the building), she got to work from home. The OM honest-to-god, when we were talking about how awful it was that they had to take the leg, said (summarizing) no one else has problems in comparison. ....I had to stare to try and figure out if she was serious (she was), because, yeah, it’s awful, but her problems did not negate anyone else’s, and man I feel sorry if that’s how you feel. 

The program we used for billing went down one day. We called called texted called our IT guy, but he didn’t answer, didn’t answer, didn’t answer, and then finally said he’d be there at some point but he didn’t know when (he worked 3 other jobs, and was our IT guy, it was not a good setup, I’m sorry). My entire job revolved around this program, so I couldn’t do anything, so after waiting all morning, I emailed the OM before I went to lunch that I could just take the afternoon off (I figured it was better they not pay me at all, instead of paying me to twiddle my thumbs; K agreed (and she’d been there since they pretty much opened the doors at least 20 years before)), and then clocked out and went to lunch. when I dropped my mom off after, the OM called me, screaming at me because how dare I just leave, I needed to be in that office, just made me feel about an inch tall because I did that (and reminded me I had things I could do for the website, which I swear I had forgotten about bc I was so distracted by the damn program). I had to crawl back to work for the afternoon, and listen to another lecture, basically belittling me for the choice I made, that I don’t get to make that choice (I was seriously the only person who doesn’t get to make that choice, pretty much everyone else in that office was able to work from home, leave if something at the office wasn’t working, etc). (I still hear her in my head some days, if that tells you how bad that day fucked me up.)

We had bowed windows in Billing. We also had our own furnace/ac system. The insulation was long gone, so in the summer, if the AC was on (and down to about 60/65) it was fine, but the second it kicked off, you burned up. In the winter, if the heat was on (we had it cranked to 80), it was fine, but when it kicked off, it FROZE, i had to wear sweaters and gloves while I worked. K did, too. The first time I was there, they had space heaters up there. But the bosses hired the worst construction crew ever (hired them bc they were clients, btw), who had to rewire something else, which rigged Billing so that if we tried to use a space heater, it would blow the entire breaker on our side of the building.

Despite everything K or I said, about the fact that it leaked into billing when it rained, we were ignored. Until the day it poured in on me, and two ceiling tiles fell (lucky for them, I was already leaping out of my seat from the cold water, or I’d have had a field day). The guys fixed the side of the building, but never replaced the tiles (which we knew was because, if they replaced the two that had fallen, they’d have to replace all of them, which meant they’d have to admit to knowing about the mold in the ceiling). 

I’m adding these as an after-bullet-point, because I did these both times I worked there.

This firm handled business, school, estate plans, and real estate law. This meant they wanted brochures, but not just A Brochure, with highlights for the company, no. Brochures for the general work we did, our school work, our business work, our estate plans, & our real estate work, each one with each (relevant) attorney on it (as attorneys left, they had to be removed, & as they joined, they were added - including their photograph, which they didn’t always provide and I had to dig for). Brochures were tri-fold, but at one point, we had 5 attorneys, and with the other (honest to god) bull drivel that was on these brochures, 5 did not fit in a tri-fold, meaning I had to figure out how to fit a 5th without it looking ridiculous. (And my boss was kind of...irritating, in the fact that I should show him how it would look A DOZEN TIMES, in a DOZEN WAYS, get his sign off, print 20 copies - as he told me to do - only for him to “suddenly” change his mind, meaning I wasted paper (at minimum $25 a box, and ink at minimum $25 a cartridge/$49 for black & color).

Sometimes (two to three times a year, I think) they did seminars, where they would compile a binder related to the Specific Thing (estate planning, real estate, school staff training, etc), because they were going to basically hold a class, pass these binders out, teach the attendees things. It was always my responsibility to assemble these binders (which typically wound up being 1 for the file, 1 for the OM, 1 for boss, 1 for whatever attorney was presenting, and approx. 5 to 25, depending on how many people were attending). Low end, we’re talking 9, high end, 29. Before I could even begin to assemble, the boss/OM/attorney had to get the stuff together for the binder - the forms, the spreadsheets, the index, literally think of a Handbook, and that’s what we were putting together. The boss had final say on everything. This is a man who has no concept of a timeline. So the day before the presentation, he was finishing the edits. OM would give me a check (she didn’t bat an eye for this shit, ever), send me to Staples to pick up all the supplies: binders, cover stock (bc yes, I also had to print covers, and use a blank piece of matching cover stock as a “back cover”), ink, regular paper, divider pages (meaning: colored construction paper), pens & notepads (bc ofc those were included, in case they had to take notes), and brochure paper (bc those were included, too). In less than 8 hours, I had to: use my computer to print anything in color or anything on the non-regular-paper (the copy machine was only normal paper, b&w); copy everything 9-29 times in the copy machine; hole punch everything (with a hole punch that would do max 10 pages at a time, and honey, they were rarely only 10 pages); assemble in order the binders; trim the card stock covers (bc somehow, they never fucking fit otherwise); and then try to stack 9-29 uneven binders on the 2nd floor conference room table. (And sometimes? Yes. Sometimes, the boss would take one when I was half-way through (without me knowing sometimes btw), and make some changes, meaning I’d have to take them apart and redo those pages, which meant going back to the computer, editing the original document, reprinting & copying, repunching, and reindexing). Please note: yes, I said in less than 8 hours, but that is being generous, bc do you think this man was ready for me to start when I walked in? No. He’d call the office around 11 or 12 to have me start (he often “started his day” from home, a mile away), so I’d go pick up the information, get it done, and get started bc I had to get a check, shop for supplies, print, copy, punch, arrange, index 9 to 29 binders with min 10 pages in each, plus covers, plus divider pages as necessary, between 12pm and 5pm. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

(I know this is long, I’m sorry, last spot.)

My other job.

Law Firm #2

Owned by one man who was like 400 years old and half dust. (He was a piece of work. His son was also a lawyer, but he & his new wife hated his son, and he constantly tried to sue his son to keep him from using his name in his business. They...they had the same last name.)

His wife owned a dress shop that was PRICED HIGH but was not very good quality (and actually had a second shop in the City). 

They lived in a mansion. With maids. And the wife thought it appropriate to call in before we got in for the day, leave a list of things needed from the store, so one of the employees at the office (she used a couple of us as her own servants) could go to the store, get it, and bring it to the house.

I was hired as a Work Comp Clerk. Meaning I send out the subpoenas to health care facilities/doctors/etc to get bills and records for court. But the second they saw I’d been a secretary (at Firm #1) before, they took that chance. Made me secretary first thing in the morning (before the actual lady showed up), and for an hour after lunch (while the actual lady was at lunch). This was the busiest hour of the day. It was an 11 line phone, and no one else was allowed to answer it. (Firm #1? 4 lines and a fax, with 3 people as backup.) 

I did fine at first. Made friends with the girls I worked with, and the other attorneys.

The owner, and the office manager? Nope. They hated me. I hated them. They looked for anything to get mad at me for. 

I do not speak Spanish. 2 people in the office do (the secretary, and the woman who was made to do running for the wife). There was one time neither of them were in after lunch (usually 1 of them was there), while I was working the front desk, so of course someone called in that spoke Spanish. I told them, uno momento, por favor, bc I do know that much at least, put them on hold, called the OM. She raced up, started rifling the desk to tell me there was a sticky that said how to say one minute please, and I said “I know how to say that, and I did, that’s why they’re on hold. What do I do now?” And she looked at me like I’d grown a second head, before huffing and telling me to call our maintenance man (who spoke Spanish), so he could translate for me. (I think the secretary came in before I could, so she did the call for me. 

I started having trouble doing my job. I’d never get records or bills, I’d spend half the day on the phone going round & round trying to figure out what the problem was, I’d keep sending reminder requests, but some of them I just could not get. One of the attorneys I explained this too, and he took a second to realize what I meant, before saying it was fine, just try, and if I can’t, I can’t. 

Two of the attys left, and were replaced with 1 attorney who had just gotten his license, and one who had not yet taken the bar (so she legally wasn’t an attorney). They were nice, the attorneys there were (mostly) nice. 

About halfway through the time I worked there (8 months. I was there 8 months), someone started calling, leaving threatening messages at night on the voicemail. It got to the point that one night, the secretary asked me to cover the front desk a little bit before I went home bc she had to go in with the boss and the OM, and a cop, so they could play the messages and figure out what to do. She didn’t mention there was a cop coming, no one did, so when he showed up, I did what I’m trained to do (write down his name, what he wants, etc) and went back to the boss’ office to ask him. “Well who is it?” “Officer XX.” “...is his first name Officer?!” “...well, no.” “Go find out what his name is!” He actually even called me an idiot, in the loudest possible voice, and kicked me out of his office. I was shaking, I was so angry, and I went up front, and whipped the notepad to the desk (it’s funny now bc the young atty was coming out of his office, saw me throw the notepad, and turned back and went into his office lol). The cop asked me if he could go in and I said no, he wasn’t ready yet, and the cop sighed, said he had a job to do, and they called him, and I got short with him and basically told him they’d call up when they were ready, so SIT DOWN. (Thankfully, they called up for him, so I walked him back and then just sat at the front desk, seething.)

Honestly, that was the downfall. That was when I started looking for a job, but considering I’ve got anxiety and a fear of public speaking and all that non-fun stuff, it isn’t easy (and I never know how to answer interview questions, which genuinely makes them think I’m stupid, I’ve seen their faces). 

Just over a month before my birthday, I walked into work (on Monday), and went to put my bag at my desk. I got confused, seeing someone in my chair, but I just figured it was so she could train with the lady in the next desk, and I didn’t care bc I was working the front desk for that first hour. But just before the hour was up, the OM came up to me, asked me to come see her when I was done up there. Okay. Told me to bring my purse. ...o...okay. Finished the hour, grabbed my purse, went back. SURPRISE. That new girl was my replacement, and I was being demoted, which came with a pay decrease, as well as an hour decrease (although I was still expected to have lunch at the same time, and cover the front for the same time frames, even though they were taking 2 hours off my schedule every single day and over a dollar off my pay), and I was the runner. Because I wasn’t doing my job to their standards (they never told me that, they never gave me a warning, they never gave me a head’s up. Just BAM you’re fucked). I worked until 3 (per my new schedule), walked into her office, said “I’m not coming back, I can’t do this job anymore.” She shrugged, and turned away from me. I quit. (I had called my mom around lunch and her first words were “Fuck them, you quit & come home right now.” I just told her I needed to finish the day.)

I filed unemployment.

We did the hearing: one of the attorneys I liked was representing them, with the OM as one witness, and my closest coworker as the other. I felt awful and betrayed because we’d kept in touch (this was a month after I left, ish), but here she was telling them all my negative traits - including that I would stare out the window for periods of time. I explained to them (as I did while I worked there) that it helped my eyes, and helped me think, when I couldn’t remember my Next Step. After a little while of them talking shit about me, talking about how terrible I was, and all that stuff to make them file against me so I don’t get anything. And after hearing me say I had no warning, the hearing officer interrupted me and said “So...OM, you never gave her warning.” “Nope.” “You didn’t give her a head’s up, didn’t give her a chance to correct her problems, just expected her to keep working for you after cutting her hours, and her pay, and changing her responsibilities. With no warning.” “Right.” “Are you crazy?” I won. I laughed maniacally. 

When the following year’s W-2′s came out (i worked for them a few months the year they were for, so I needed theirs), mine didn’t show when it was supposed to, so I called. New girl, said she got hers, put me on hold, “called the OM”, who told her to tell me that yes, they were sent. I got it 3 days later (postmarked the day I called. Mailed mine out my fucking ass). 

added: Oh yeah. Someone had called at one point, & there was A Thing I was supposed to do, but no one had ever told me about it, never mentioned it, etc etc, so I didn’t know it existed, meaning I didn’t know there was something I didn’t know (following me?). I asked the OM. She said “well, if you didn’t know, you should have asked.” “...I...didn’t know. Like, in any capacity. How do I ask about something I don’t know exists? It’s not that I didn’t know how to do it, I didn’t know it was a thing.” “You should have asked.” 

Yeah.

I think that’s it.