Inconsiderate attorney files
Oh, this makes me mad! I have a friend who is a secretary at a nearby firm. She has a very strict lunch hour that she has to coordinate with the woman next to her so that the various phones are covered. Her lunch hour is the earlier of the two. What this means is that any interruption to her lunch hour either results in her forfeiting part of it or having to ask the other woman to go later, which then throws that woman's attorneys off because they expect her to go during her alloted hour. For the past three days, my friend's attorneys have come to her in the 5 minutes before her lunch hour with a huge task, be it document edits, copy jobs with tons of staples/clips/flags or, today, getting them lunch. Today she's hopping mad but refuses to say anything to them. These are the same guys who will bring a ton of work out 10 minutes before she leaves for the day. It's really not fair since they are the ones insisting that she keep a strict lunch hour routine!! :(
So I figured that it was time to send an appeal out into the blogosphere. Please respect your secretary. She's not on salary and, especially if she's a working mother, she's probably trying to get a bunch of things accomplished during that hour break. If you want her to work during her lunch hour, ask her! Tell her you'll sign off on OT so she knows you know it's her lunch hour and you need her to work through. We'll do the work. Just ask, nicely, and try to remember we're people, too. We need to eat. We need to go to the bathroom.
P.S. Administrative Professionals Day is next Wednesday. 
April 20th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I used to work for an attorney who held me to a strict noon-to-one lunch hour, even though there were no phone coverage issues or anything else to support that. If I had to work through part of that timeframe, I got a short lunch. If I had to work through all of that timeframe, I got no lunch. Looking back, there’s a lot of overtime I never got paid for.
April 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I know a lady who worked for an attorney like that for 5 years. I can’t count the number of lunch dates we had made that she couldn’t keep because she had to work through her lunch hour.
She also came in early, stayed late, and sometimes came in on Saturdays. She was a member of an Advanced Litigation class I was teaching at the time. She had a horrible cough and wheeze. I finally insisted to her that she ee a doctor. Turns out she had asthma.
The attorney rewarded her loyalty by firing her the day before Thanksgiving with no notice whatsoever (after 5 years) - then tried to have her sign a contract that he could pay her all the unpaid vacation and sick leave he owed her over a 6 week period. In 5 years, she had only taken 5 vacation days.
I sent her a copy of the Labor Code and she had to threaten to take him before the Labor Commissioner to get her money in a timely manner.
I don’t know what’s happening with this profession lately.
April 29th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Wow, legalstaff… I may just show your comment to my friend so she feels a bit better. After the week before last and then Monday and Tuesday of this week being so horrible, all of her attorneys ignored her on Secretaries Day. To cap it off, she started vomiting Wednesday afternoon and spent the next two days at home sick.
Perhaps it’s the toxic environment?