The Work Thread
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I was told on Monday to have a draft of a federal habeas 2254 claim ready on Thursday so that it could be filed on Friday.
I have never done federal habeas work in my life.
I want to vomit.
If I am going to be able to stay in this profession, I have to learn to tell my bosses (who have also never done federal habeas work in their lives) that what they want is not possible.
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“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Things are looking up. I have a copy of an experienced attorney's memo in support for another habeas case, and last night I spoke to a partner over the phone and cried aggressively at him. He then complimented me a lot and moved back the in-house deadline from today to Tuesday.
I'm a professional
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Professionals cry and I am a supporter of their use when one is at the end of their rope.
I have loved ALL of my principals to death, but to a person they sometimes don't act until you show up sobbing in their office with the list of things you have done in hand begging for something else. Not that they don't want to act before them, but because they didn't want to undercut my authority and influence by stepping in too early. Showing up not-upset meant I wasn't totally concerned yet and just wanted to give a heads up or still had tricks to try so they trusted me.
Crying signaled 'oh shit. Okay. Yes. We will step in now.'
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@silverfox said in The Work Thread:
Crying signaled 'oh shit. Okay. Yes. We will step in now.'
No offense to your principals, but this is bullshit.
If you're a partner, owner, or firm, your job description includes being able and ready to step in at any time to assist before your staff come to you in tears. That is the price you pay for being a damn boss.
Like, I'm new at being boss, but I know what I expect. Some motherfucker put my assistant into tears and I called him immediately to terminate him as a client. He backpedaled faster than Roger Clemens at an inquest.
Everything begins and ends with the boss. That's why you get to be called bad muthafucka. You want your troops to march into battle for you? Battle for them twice as hard.
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This is me at work today.
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Had a call from my boss yesterday. I got 2 weeks vacation, she wanted to check if I could work alone on monday when I start again - usually we're 2, but if it's a normal day, one person can handle it (and I can get help from some others if it gets hairy, even if they don't do that normally they can go into the system and help out the basic stuff). So I said, sure, no problem. Short-staffed that day, and that is the first time I've had to be alone, so it's all good. I asked if she knew more about the fall since my contract only lasts till end of September. And she said right then 'Oh yes, we want to extend your contract till the end of the year - to start with.'
Freaking awesome. Three more months of work, and it looks hopeful for more after that. I love this job and I wanna stay there.
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You need to tell me if you don't understand something!
...except I thought I did, and had no way of knowing I had misunderstood you until after I'd already done it incorrectly and you said so.
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swings feet My paycheck is suspiciously high but even though I have the money in my account they haven't posted my paystub to the system yet (I'm assuming because they switched to 4 10's for the summer months already.) So I can't verify it for a bit.
I wouldn't worry - except last summer they accidentally paid me for ~two~ months at once and then just took out the extra from the NEXT paycheck. So gotta be able to budget properly if that's happened again. (We get paid on the last day of the month vs bi-weekly or something.)
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My place of employment has decided, as of 2 days ago, to pay the premium of our health insurance. As for the rent that comes out of my checks, they also chose to stop that as well. Until further notice. None of which will be required to pay back. I've never felt more grateful or fortunate to be where I am. Ever.
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My coworker doesn't think I should have to do a particular bit of work, because it's somebody foisting their work off on me and it's not fair, which I very much appreciate. He is, as such, not doing the thing that would let me do the thing. So I am incapable of doing that work. But it still needs to get done!! Argh. I have put more effort into asking to do the work than the work would be in the first place! Just let me dooooooooo et.
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So a week and a half ago my boss told me he would do a difficult and time consuming thing for the writ application I'm working on. It significantly alleviated my anxiety.
On Monday he told me he's too busy to do it and that my law clerk should send him a rough draft of facts for him to review that night.
Today he reviewed the law clerk's work, sent it to me (it wasn't good), and asked me to do the difficult and time consuming thing.
During the phone call with him today he asked "are you sure you're ok doing this?" I said "you're too busy and nobody else knows how." He said "that's true." I said "then it doesn't matter how I feel."
So now I'm back where I was a week and a half ago, with literally nothing done on this, and instead of having two weeks to do it I have two days.
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That is so fucking annoying.
I have this BWC case, and it's like:
"Well, the Ohio AG's office is defending this, so we don't have to worry about handling the heavy lifting, Employer Client!"
after reviewing draft from Ohio AG's office, two days before deadline
"Holy shitballs they can't write, so looks like we'll have to defend this after all!"
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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I'm sorry. That's miserable. This at least is just a statement of the facts, so it's less that I Can't Do It At All and more it's my first time doing it and I'm doing it in federal court AAAAA
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"Oh hey, we know you've been doing /all/ of the outreach for your office, though it's usually two of you. You've been doing really well! Here's a couple more cases from other offices on the team, so you can help them out and keep busy."
2 days later: "Hey, though you've got all those other cases, here's 60 more someone else couldn't get done, though they had all last month. You've got 3 days to get them all contacted. Twice. "
Add in anxiety and crap from the rest of my life... and I'm just exhausted.
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Federal court licks hairy goat sacks.
I swear, the memorandum looked as if a law clerk handled it, and while I like clerks and helping them write they are not great at it. Citations were all over; stated facts lacked citations to the record. I already had to put up with this looking at the plaintiff's brief.
I may be a writing snob, but that's what I'm good at and I'm compensated handsomely for putting together a brief that doesn't remind a judge of something Dan Brown'd write.
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That's every AG's office I've ever seen.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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You know what? You just hope, right? Durrrr.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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Um. What?
All I was saying is that every time I've had to work with an AG's office, they phone it in at best, and their work is a mess. I have to work with them frequently in my current position because we get sued for stupid shit all the time, and we have to defer to them for defense of state agencies. And it's always a mess. Every single time.
I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I was agreeing that it's frustrating.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@Derp said in The Work Thread:
I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I was agreeing that it's frustrating.
I wasn't fighting; I was concurring.
Like, I get it. I should have known that the AGO would spit out poor work product. But, like, maybe? You get a gem.
Their appellate work is just fine, but their litigation work is just terrible.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
