Friday, February 24, 2006

Lawyer gripe ahead. You’ve been warned.

So I got a call yesterday about a civil legal matter that lawyers for a party in another state would like to have dealt with here in Virginia. No problem. Except that they wanted us to take care of it today.

*insert evil laugh here*

No chance, brutha. I explained our policy and procedures for this particular kind of civil process, I got a lot of “uh huh"s in response, and was informed that they would FEDEX the kit-n-kaboodle to me to be received today.

No FEDEXes arrived for me today. Not that we didn’t get any FEDEX packages, but none had my lovely name.

So I get a phone call from my nice USMS counterpart in the other state - the lawyers have a conference call scheduled and want to know the status of their legal matter. I informed her that I didn’t get the paperwork and we do nothing without paperwork.

Just got off the phone with one of the attorneys in the other state. They are displeased that FEDEX had a mechanical problem with the plane that was carrying their package (*insert evil laugh here*), can they courier the paperwork to our office?

ME: It wouldn’t do you any good, nothing will be done with it today.

I then explained that the operations folks are involved in a Big Trial (aka The Circus), we’re short-staffed, and there was no way anyone would start working on that near the close of business on a Friday. Monday is the earliest it could be worked on.

LAWYER: What’s the chance that we could move forward on Tuesday?

*insert evil laugh here*

ME: Not likely. *I wondered if he hadn’t heard what I said about being short-staffed and dealing with The Circus. Really.*  But I will put the bug in the supervisor’s ear so that when we receive the paperwork he’ll be aware of what’s going on. If your order doesn’t specify that it needs to be executed by our agency, then you may want to contact the locals - they might be better able to help you in your timeframe.

Lawyer sighed, thanked me, and hung up.

See, if you want your legal documents processed in a timely manner then you need to process your legal documents in a timely manner. Asking someone to do something with a day’s notice is a little rude.

UPDATE 4:10pm: I did give the ops supervisor the heads up as promised. He rolled his eyes and laughed in disbelief. So I wasn’t just being a pain in the tuckus to the demanding lawyer. Our guy said doing it next week at all was unlikely. I told him he was going to have to tell the lawyer that - I don’t think the lawyer will listen to me say NO WAY anymore. It’s going to have to come from one of the guys who carries a gun and has “deputy” in front of his name.