Friday, Aug 15

I only own four shirts that are appropriate for work, and only two of those are cool enough to wear when it is hot outside. Last night I walked to the vintage store that keeps strange hours and bought a frumpy number for three dollars because it a.) was short sleeved, b.) was made a very thin floaty material, and, c.) was light blue. I am still unsure what constitutes appropriate attire as far as shirts. HR wears sleeveless shirts from Ross made of a stretchy poly that are loudly patterned, but she wears them with a pants suit everyday and gets away with it. Downstairs in filing the women wear cardigans and no tights, but I have to go upstairs occasionally and feel under-dressed as it is.

//

This morning I saw A walking up Washington St. towards work. It was well ahead of me for me to be anywhere, so I got off the bus and walked over to the fabric store to peak at some prints. We walked together, talking about public transit, crying at Pixar movies, having no air conditioning, and siting around with our cats. I was wearing a black skirt with a blazer, black tights, the frumpy blouse and carrying my rectangle "briefcase" bag. She was wearing a swishier skirt with a grey pocketed cardigan, no tights, and some loafers.


//

There is no men's room. There is a women's, and there is a co-ed single stall bathroom with a latching "vacant / occupied" door.

There are two stalls in the women's bathroom, and the non-handicapped one features a creaking floorboard underneath (for me) the right foot. There is a small basket of pads and tampons underneath the shared stall wall, which I find very comforting.

//

I spent the morning helping HR set up the big Partner Meeting in the conference room. Only two student interns showed up today. I'm not sure how many interns we normally have, but judging by the level of dismay, it must be close to 50. We have one upstairs helping Ms. B, and the other cooking lunch for us and the attorneys. I wandered into the kitchen after set-up was done to help out however I could. I opened a bag of salad, cubed some chicken, moved plates. We'd set up for lunch at a 11:00 am, but after the attorneys filed into the room they came back out carrying the food, saying "no we're eating at noon".

Apparently even when there are numerous emails, memos, and an updated live company calender in the database that proclaims PARTNER MTG: LUNCH AT 11 in big red letters, the partners can decide to move it back if they want.

The intern was beside himself -- it was sauce on noodles, so there was no way to save what we'd just dished out. We put the salads in the freezer to keep them crisp, and placed the noodles in the still-warm ovens...the student interns would have to eat the resulting mush after everyone else in the building had lunch.

//

Mr. MD came up to me. Polite happiness. "I don't think I've met you yet, I'm MD."
"Hi! I'm Maggie." Perfect handshake.
"I guess they didn't give you the tour? Normally they show new people around!"
"Ah..I think they meant to, but mine was cut short. Something Happened."
"Ah well. Well, that's my office over there. Nice to meet you, Maggie!"

No quiet rage. He must be a good lion tamer.

//

At 2 I was paged to the conference room. L popped out of the conference room and said, "We need a runner. Can you do something for me?"
"Yes."
"Go upstairs into Ms. B's office. She's run off something that has something to do with 'managing difficult people'. Go find it and bring it here. Knock softly."

Had this 'something' been sitting in the printer, or sitting on top of her keyboard, no problem. But there were tons of print-offs laying around, and non of them looked right. An article about bio-chemists at the University of Oregon. A pamphlet about custody laws. A copy of an Oregonian article. And so on. Had I been told whether it was printed, or copied, or faxed would have helped. Length of the document would have helped. Was it still on her computer, not printed? Was it in a binder? Was it accidentally in the recycle bin? I asked Jane, a student intern to help, and she handed me a giant binder of financial records, probably because it wasn't usually on her desk. "This could be it maybe?"

I knew it wasn't. I went down with it and asked.

L was very annoyed. This is not it.
"I know. Tell me what it is, I need more details."
She essentially repeated when she'd told me before. "Get Jane to help you."
"She did. She handed me this."
Then she went back into the meeting.

Case closed? Not closed? Do I keep looking? What do I do?

At this point A was walking by with a cart of supplies. What was going on? I was kind of freaking out because I wasn't sure what to do.

"Well, I don't know what it is either, but maybe two sets of eyes will be better than one." So instead of taking the supplies to the basement, she pushed "1" in the elevator and we went, with her cart, upstairs to search. Eventually it was me, her, C (the admin who's in charge of the interns,) and two legal assistants scouring the office and the assistant's office for anything that could possibly be "managing difficult people." Eventually C found something.

"Is that it?" I asked.
"We're going to pretend it is. If it isn't I will take the heat."

I felt bad. I didn't want to get yelled at, but I certainly didn't want to get him in trouble.

This process was repeated about six times for me this afternoon. Someone would come out and say, "Go search [object] for [words]". R would page me and say, "ready for another impossible assignment?" Sometimes it was to the point where R would iChat, saying "okay, now when you get yelled at by Ms. B, just make sure you stand up straight and speak clearly..."

I was reminded of the story problem from math class. After reading the paragraph filled with logical holes that could not possibly add up, you were able to select "d.) not enough information to answer the question".

Later I vented a little to A who was very comforting. She was an admin for a year before going down to filing, and she's been here three years. I get the impression that hers is an unusually long tenure for this office. She told me to let it roll off, and it's hard but venting keeps you sane, and you just are thankful that you go home at night and get to leave it behind. I was very grateful to her, and wanted to say, "cool - now let's talk craft!" but shied away from actually asking for her cell number. According to the website she's into knitting and I'd like to know where she shops. Maybe next week.

//

We leave at 5 on Fridays instead of 5:30. HR poked her head out out of the meeting and advised C to leave early and avoid the verbal abuse from Ms. B. I left promptly at 5, leaving R at the reception desk even though his walk home passes my bus stop along the way. He's nice but kind of stiffly formal at work. I understand, but he's only been there a month and I view us as peers. I have already been told I do intake better than he does, and I've only been doing it a day and a half.

When he finally came out and walked past, he told me he's being moved up to a legal assistant after next week when P gets back from vacation, since another one just quit. I'm sad because he helps me out a lot and it's nice to sit next to someone when he isn't on reception. But I'm also not very broken up about it, as he hasn't expressly tried to be friendly like K from IT, or A. So what can you do. What I did was stand out in black tights and my paint-splattered under shirt for a bus. It was 103*F. I didn't know it got this hot here. I don't think the native Portlanders knew it either.