No matter what things I said about her – screwing up so many times, having the most ridiculous short-term memory of anyone I’ve ever met, not being able to multi-task if her life depended on it – she was a thousand times better than the assistant that replaced her. At least she cared about her job, she wanted to learn as much as she could and would work overtime almost every day (and come in on weekends) to catch up on work that she wasn’t able to get done. At least she recognized her shortcomings and tried. She tried so hard.

The new assistant who replaced her, whom I shall call ABB, is the opposite. She does not care about this job at all. She is chatting on the phone, as I speak, with a client, bad-mouthing other clients¹. This is what she does. She just chats all day, with her friends, with clients, with whoever she can drag into a conversation. Including me, when I’m not on the phone².
She is ridiculous. She doesn’t know how to do anything, she has loads of work to do on the cases that she took over from the previous assistant, and she spends all day chatting. When she’s not chatting, she tries to get up in my business, bossing me around despite not knowing anything. I am now carrying the weight of this office, and yet she treats me as if I’m her assistant.
God, I hate her.

When you talk like a bitch, walk like a bitch, and smell like a bitch, you know you’re a bitch.

She is a bitch.

1. Which is completely unprofessional and downright unethical.
2. And I have loads of work to do, let me tell you.

Summary of my week:

• Writing 25 post-it notes in one day, and only resolving 5 of them.
• Being sent on multiple errands to the post office.
• Using said errands as an opportunity to buy candy/chocolate/snacks¹, which I then stashed into my bottom left drawer, officially dubbed Candy Drawer.
• Giving myself sugar highs to get through the workday, along with pumping myself full of caffeine and Advil.
• Spending a total of 18 hours commuting to and from work. Which resulted in losing my magazine virginity to² Cosmopolitan. Now I know how to Pleasure Him in 15 Sexy Ways, and Get Hit On in Under 2 Seconds!
• Feeling professional/useful by editing and sending out several statements of claims. Signed, sealed, and delivered baby.
• Meeting friends after-work for dinner, accompanied by wine of course.

Why do you thank God it’s Friday?

1. The convenient store near the post office has an assortment of Asian candies, surprisingly, so my Candy Drawer now contains lichee candy, mango mochi, and an assortment of chocolate.
2. I think I am the only 20-something shopaholic who has never purchased or subscribed to a beauty/lifestyle magazine.

On my way to work this morning, I heard a homeless plan singing “What a Wonderful Life” in a coarse, slightly off-tune voice, and it’s been stuck in my head all day.

“So… my fiancee called off the engagement a week before the wedding. Do I have to return the ring? He threatened to sue me if I don’t return the ring. Can he do that?”
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

“I defaulted on my loans now the bank wants to seize my assets. Can I just move away?”
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

“My wife is in the process of applying for citizenship. If I divorce her, will that affect her application? Also, will she have any rights over my assets if she is not a citizen/permanent resident?”
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you.

“I would like to remove my wife and youngest son from my will. Can you draft the changes?”
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

It was insane.

This is a one-lawyer office with two assistants, not including me. When I arrived at 8:50 this morning, the older assistant sat me in her comfy swivel chair, told me I would be using her computer, and logged me in. She shares the office with a younger assistant, but she has a much bigger desk and faces a huge window.
This was pretty sweet, or so I thought.

After I logged in and familiarized myself with their email system, the older assistant went to help the younger assistant. They spent all morning closing some deal, so I had to field all her calls and emails.
She gets a lot of fucking calls, let me tell you.

And not only did I not receive any orientation, other than being logged into her Outlook, I had to handle all these Chinese clients, because it’s a bilingual office.
Now, my Chinese is passable in conversational settings, but I don’t know any law or even professional jargon. And most of these clients were either old, or anal, or both. By my fourth phone call, I had been verbally harassed twice. There were these two particular clients who kept calling and just screaming and cursing into the phone. In Chinese! If it wasn’t so absolutely terrifying, it would have been pretty hysterical.

Then at noon, the older assistant had to leave, leaving me with the younger assistant, who admitted she’s only been here for one month and had only slightly more knowledge than I did about these clients’ cases. Soon after, the lawyer left the office too, without so much as saying goodbye. He still had three appointments in the afternoon, and you can imagine how angry the clients became when we told them they made the trip for nothing. On top of that, there were tons of angry phone calls from clients who all claimed that they have been trying to reach Mr. LawyerMan for two weeks. They seemed legitimately upset, and I started to feel like LawyerMan was either naturally irresponsible, or he was taking on too many clients. Of course, he wasn’t the one being verbally harassed every half hour.

All the while, I had not had coffee, lunch, or even a washroom break. Seriously, people in this office can apparently go eight hours without food. I cannot. So when the other assistants weren’t looking, I stuffed some leftover dim sum (that my mom had packed, bless her soul) in my mouth. The cold, greasy fried buns never tasted better.

In the meantime, I tried to take messages, but even this was hard when I didn’t understand what they were saying in Chinese, didn’t know the context of the case, and didn’t know what they needed from LawyerMan. During one call, I asked a client whether I could take down his number so we could call him back.
“Don’t you have my number?” He asked, suddenly suspicious.
Well of course we would, I thought to myself and immediately tried to correct my mistake, “Um, can I just check with you…” I quickly opened his file that I had found on the computer by doing a search with his name, and the first page contained a phone number, “is it XXX-XXX-XXXX?”
He paused. “That’s your number.”
Doh! “Oh. Of course.”

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse¹, the younger assistant had to leave to go to the bank and settle something. So I was completely deserted!

May I remind you that I was deemed grossly under-qualified for this job when I first interviewed? May I remind you that I have zero, and I mean zero, legal training, and even less knowledge of real estate transactions (which was what most of these cases were)? May I remind you that my Chinese proficiency could barely pass for conversational level?
And here I was, holding down the fort at this law office, on my first day, without knowing anything other than how to log-in to my predecessor’s email.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Typical client interaction from today:
Client: WHERE THE HELL IS LAWYERMAN, I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO REACH HIM FOR TWO WEEKS. I HAVE SENT HIM COUNTLESS EMAILS AND HE HASN’T RESPONDED TO A SINGLE ONE, I HAVE CALLED YOUR OFFICE A MILLION TIMES. ALL I WANT IS AN UPDATE! DID HE SEND THE DOCUMENT OR NOT?
Me: (silence)
Client: HELLO? ARE YOU STILL THERE?
Me: Yes… um, I don’t know what document you’re talking about. All I can tell you is that I gave him your message from this morning, and now he is not in the office.
Client: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS GUY? HOW CAN HE CONDUCT BUSINESS THIS WAY? HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR HIM TO REPLY TO MY EMAIL? THIS IS BULLSHIT!
Me: (silence)
Client hangs up.

Half an hour later, client calls again.
Client: So did he send the document?
Me: What document?
Client: Did he send it or not? I just need to know! DID HE SEND IT OR NOT?
Me: I don’t know!
Client: DID HE SEND IT, YES OR NO?
Me: Yes!
Client: What? He did? Then he lied to me! Because the other lawyer said…
Me: I don’t know anything about the other lawyer.
Client: So he lied to me?
Me: What? No, he didn’t send it.
Client: HE DIDN’T SEND IT? MOTHERFUCKER!
This time, I hung up.

Ten minutes later, a female voice calls back, I assume the client’s wife. She asks, on a slightly more normal decibel, whether LawyerMan “sent the document or not.” I still have no idea what document they were talking about, so all I could say was, “I’ll ask LawyerMan.”

Now imagine every client like this. Imagine me, being deserted in this law office with a huge desk and large window, and jumping every time the phone rings because I know, know it’s going to be bad. I even had to usher away one 60 year-old man who had biked to the office for his appointment only to find out the lawyer wasn’t there. I mean, if they weren’t swearing at the top of their lungs at me, I would feel terribly sorry for them.

How can LawyerMan be so irresponsible? He’s getting tons of money in retainer fees, and yet he’s leaving most of his clients high and dry. What a douche!

But right now, I just wish these angry Chinese people would stop yelling at me!

1. I mean, really, I had sent off three emails that morning without even knowing anything about the clients, I had hung up on two clients for being too verbally abusive – and I still did not have the faintest clue what I was supposed to do or even what these cases were about!