I have been a legal assistant at a law office for a few months. Our legal assistant who handles personal injury cases has turned in her two-week notice, so we are now on the hunt for a personal injury paralegal. The job description specifically states that candidates must be familiar with Worker’s Compensation.

We live in a small town. There are less than five attorney offices in this town. We place the ad and get maybe ten resumes. Out of the ten, only two — both women in their forties — have that experience with Workers’ Compensation. So, we bring them both in to interview.

The attorneys ask the office manager and me to sit in on these interviews just to get a feel for the candidate.

The first candidate comes in. On her resume, she has eight years of personal injury paralegal experience with Workers Compensation. She is very personable and very sweet, with a solid work history. I feel like she could fit in perfectly with our team. The candidate is dressed professionally and is well prepared to answer the interview questions. The only thing that could be viewed as a negative is that she is slightly overweight. I do not judge candidates on their appearance as it not relevant to the job. I am looking for enthusiasm, experience, and personality. She has all of that. We speak with her for roughly forty-five minutes and thank her for coming in.

The attorney asks what we think, and we say he should hire her.

[Candidate #2] shows up for her interview. The first thing I notice is that she has so much makeup on that she would make Tammy Faye blush. You can tell she’s a very attractive lady under all that makeup. She also has a low-cut cleavage-showing blouse on and a short mini-skirt.

Her resume shows that she has six months of experience in what we are hiring for. She’s nice but not very personable, and she lacks enthusiasm. She has also had several jobs in the past few years, most recently at a relative’s company doing secretarial work.

She tells us she only wants to work three days a week. She also says she wants to do the job remotely.

None of us work from home, and we all work five days a week. In that role, she would be required to work forty hours a week as it is very fast-paced and a heavy caseload.

After the interview, the attorney asks what we think, and we say no. She was dressed unprofessionally (we couldn’t dress like that at work), she doesn’t have that much experience, she’s had too many jobs, and she wouldn’t fit in with us. We are adamant that we like [Candidate #1] the best.

A few days later, the attorney announces that he has made a decision and hired [Candidate #2].

We are shocked and upset by his decision.

She is denied the remote work and is given the three-day work week.

When [Candidate #2] comes in to work, she is terrible. She dresses like she did in the interview. She makes a lot of mistakes, and she often comes in, works for two hours, goes to lunch for an hour, comes back, works two more hours, and leaves. She is also bossy and talks way too much about her parents’ wealth.

I knew she wouldn’t last long. She quits within three months. 

I no longer work there, either.

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Death (Fish eaten by other fish)

I work in an office building that is trying desperately to appear trendy, so every floor has a floor-to-ceiling fish tank behind the reception area.

One day, our Internet goes down, and the power soon follows. Our office manager goes to the building management room to check what’s going on and comes back shaking her head.

Me: “What happened?”

Office Manager: “The fish tank on [floor] burst, and it flooded the server room below it. The whole building is out.”

As she’s explaining and we’re figuring out damage control, we see the receptionist from the flooded floor come running in. She’s carrying a bucket and looks like she’s in a panic. She pushes a chair over to our fish tank, climbs up to the top, and opens the access area.

Office Manager: “What are you doing?”

Receptionist: “Saving our fish!”

Office Manager: “No! Don’t put them in there! They’re—”

Too late. She poured her floor’s fish into our tank. Our tank that contained fish specifically chosen by our partners (a legal firm) to evoke how ravenous for winning we all were. Yup. Piranhas.

There was a feeding frenzy, and fish skeletons kept floating to the surface for the rest of the day.

A client has called and is asking for my email address to send me some documents. My last name is a very common word starting with P, but since it’s unusual for a name, let’s just say it’s Parcel. 

Me: “Okay, the email is M as in ‘Michael’, P as in ‘Papa’…”

Client: “You said B as in ‘boy’?”

Me: “No, P as in ‘Papa’. I am using the phonetic alphabet for your reference.”

Client: “C as in ‘cat’?”

Me: “No. P as in ‘Papa’. P as in ‘please’. P as in ‘parcel’.

Client: “Okay, P as in ‘parcel’. Got it.”

Me: “Okay, now let’s just try and make things easier, as my last name is just Parcel. Then it’s the ‘at’ symbol and L as in ‘lima’…”

Client: “T as in ‘Tom’?”

That phone call took over five minutes, and I wanted to bang my head on the desk afterward.

I work at a law firm. Part of my job involves responding to auditor inquiry letters. There are a few months when we’re especially swamped — eighty letters in the queue — but that doesn’t stop some auditors from thinking they’re the center of the universe. I’ve had variations on the following conversation way too often.

Auditor: “I’m calling about the letter you sent to [Auditing Firm].”

Me: “Thanks, which company are you asking about?”

Auditor: “[My Law Firm].”

Me: “No, what company is the letter discussing?”

Auditor: “[Auditing Firm].”

Me: “No, what is the name of the company you are auditing? We have eighty letters in the queue, and they’re sorted by the name of the company being audited, not the name of the auditing firm.”

The auditor finally gave me the name of the company.

This happened a long time ago, so it’s paraphrased somewhat. I work at a diner restaurant at the bottom of a tall building in Manhattan. This place has been here forever, and we have a large prestigious law firm taking up a large chunk of the building above us.

One of these lawyers has dined with us for a few years, and his behavior has been getting steadily worse during that time. It started as snide remarks and minor complaints, leading to verbal abuse, shouting, and sending meals back three times on average. Oh, and he never tips.

Today, he has used up all his tricks on a new waitress, who is holding back tears from his behavior.

Lawyer: “You seriously think you can just work in New York and treat us this way? This kind of service might be tolerable in whatever bumble-f*** town you come from, but here, we have a way of doing things! You’re lucky I’m just not tipping and not calling your manager instead!”

Manager: “No need! I’m already here. Please pay your bill and never come back.”

Lawyer: “You can’t talk to me that way!”

Manager: “I’ve been the owner and manager here for fifty years, and your law firm has been upstairs for forty. I’ve known all the partners, the secretaries, and the paralegals, and they all talk to me and my staff. I know things you wouldn’t believe, like how you haven’t closed a legal case on your own in almost a decade, and how no one likes working with you. I also know that if you didn’t have a relative whose business brought in several millions in billable hours every year to the company, they’d have let you go years ago.”

Lawyer: “That’s all bulls***! I could sue you for slander!”

Me: “Please do try. [Founding Partner] is my personal lawyer.”

This little lawyer suddenly shrinks, pays his bill, and slinks out like the slime that he is.

Me: “How did you know all that? Did you know his name?”

Manager: “When you know there’s a lawyer like that upstairs, and one of them is using a zero-tip to get some kind of sad power trip, it doesn’t take much to put two and two together.”

Me: “What if he tells all his lawyer buddies upstairs about what happened?”

Manager: “Then I expect to see an uptick in business!”

Guess what? We did! That guy must be really unliked if all his coworkers came to eat here knowing he wouldn’t be here!