The contrary paralegal manages a two-office law firm in the southwest, as well as her young family, which consists of ‘the man’ and her three ‘dramas’ whose names are 17 (or VT = vile teenager), 11 and 8. For 15 years she has worked in almost every area of the law – seen everything, mentored plenty, done a lot, learned more, and pretty much made herself irreplaceable. She is writing for WWDS when the mood strikes her. She’s irreverent, hilarious even, and very real. She might be EveryWoman, but she goes by UsedToBeMe. She blogs often at whyrustalkingme.

BY UsedToBeMe, the contrary paralegal exclusively for WWDS

The halls are alive with the sound of YELLING. Lots and lots of YELLING. Some angry and some I’m too lazy to get out of my chair and walk five feet yelling. Damn I missed her!

The boss is back from vacation. Gone 10 days. Ten. Working. Days. Do you know what that means? Gone are the days of peace and quiet. Gone are the days of getting a project done uninterrupted. Gone are coming to the office in jeans and flip flops.

It also means a review of each and every case we’ve ever worked on during the past year to make sure nothing happened in the past Ten. Working. Days. That means plenty of “did so and so do such and such?” Asking me. Like I know what so and so does during the day. Like they check in with me. They show me their work product every day for some type of quasi approval.

It also means a lot of “get me this” and “get me that” yelled through the halls and around the corners.

Lots of “where is this? Did you give it to me already? What did I do with it?”

Have you seen The Devil Wears Prada? I work for her. It is not uncommon for my boss to ask me “where is the paper I was holding yesterday.” Like it is MY job to walk around grabbing the papers they drop so as to keep track of them and have the ability to pull them from thin air when requested.

Gone are the days of organized chaos. Here again are the days of “this stack is what you need to review. This stack is what you need to review AND bill for. This stack is the mail. Each is labeled with a sticky note containing the date it came in.”

Five minutes later: “hey, where is the mail from Tuesday? Did you bill it? Do I need to bill it? What are these stacks of paper you put on my floor? Do I need to look at them? Where is the mail?

Yes, the halls are alive with the sounds of yelling and paper pushing and people scrambling to get their shit in gear and look like they’ve been productive the past two weeks. Yes. Things are back to normal.