As a paralegal at a large firm, our office gets a fair number of scam calls. I’ve learned to recognize them and can end them briskly. One day the phone rings, and when I pick up, I get the first warning. After I speak, there’s a pause and a “bloop” sound as the call is routed.

Caller: “Yes, hello, I need to speak with [Senior Attorney].”

Red Flag #2: He used their first name like they’re friends.

Me: “I’m sorry, they’re in a meeting. May I take a message?”

Caller: “No, I need to talk to them. When is a good time for me to call back?”

Red Flag #3: No message, just a demand for their time.

Me: “May I ask who you are and what matter you’re calling in reference to?”

Caller: “My name is Bob, and I’m calling about your financial assets.”

Yeah, definitely a scammer. Time to shut him down.

Me: “We work with several companies regarding our financial assets, Bob, which one are you calling from?”

Caller: “Um…”

Me: “Can’t answer that, can you? Please don’t call here again.”

I hang up. To my surprise, the same number immediately calls back.

Me: “Good morning, [Law Firm].”

Caller: “Is this how you speak to a legitimate business?”

Me: “It’s not, Bob, but I don’t think you’re legitimate at all.” *Hangs up again.*

He calls right back!

Me: “Good morning, [Law Firm].”

Caller: “I will have you fired! Your boss will want to speak to me!”

Me: “My employer doesn’t usually speak to people with no last name who won’t admit where they’re calling from. Good-bye.”

I hang up again and immediately send a message to the work channel advising not to pick up a call from [number] as it’s a persistent scammer. The call is sent to voicemail. Amazingly, Bob did not leave a message for my boss demanding that I be fired, and our firm’s financial assets are just fine.

Back in the early 2000s, I had had my cell number for about four years. One night, I got multiple calls from someone who only spoke Chinese. I kept telling them they had the wrong number, which I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand. 

These calls persisted every few weeks at all times of day and night, but most frequently between midnight and 3 AM. Eventually, after about six months, I received a call from a legal assistant to a lawyer.

Legal Assistant: “There was a typo on [Lawyer]’s business cards. Instead of a three in his phone number, it has a two, which is your number. If you receive calls, just give the person the correct number.”

Me: “99% off the calls I receive are from people who only speak Chinese. Can’t you just get new cards with the proper number on them?”

Legal Assistant: “We ordered a lot of cards, and we don’t want to order new ones. We’ll make an effort to put the correction on the current cards.”

A few months went by with no late-night calls, so I figured the problem was solved. But I was wrong because they started up again, this time more frequently, like every two to three days, multiple calls a day at all hours.

So, I called the lawyer.

Lawyer: “Sorry. I run a very small immigration law firm, and my legal assistant quit. She was the one who made the phone number correction on the card, and I’m far too busy to remember to make the correction every time I hand out my cards. Couldn’t you just give the person calling the correct number?”

Me: “That’s almost impossible because 99% of your clients don’t speak English.”

Lawyer: “Try your best.”

And he hung up.

This really frustrated me, but what could I do? For the next few months, I tried my best to correct people. But very few understood me and would repeatedly call me after I hung up on them.

At this point, I’ve been receiving calls for this guy for almost a year. Besides his name and number, I looked up his law firm’s address and email online. Because he wouldn’t take my call about my complaining, I had emailed him to get new cards and even wrote a snail mail letter to get him to fix his cards.

Then, one day, I was at the mall with friends. A lady at one of those kiosks asked if I’d like to enter a contest to win a trip to Florida or Mexico.

My Friend: “Don’t! It’s a time share scam, and as soon as they get your number, they constantly call you with ‘you won a free trip, that you have to pay fees for!'”

That’s when I had a great idea.

I entered the lawyer into the contest. In fact, there were multiple contests at the mall I entered him into, from trips to free gym memberships, and gift cards!

In my downtime at work, I started to enter him into contests online, usually five to fifteen in a day. I did this five days a week when I was at work, and anytime I was out shopping, for about eight months. 

I would have continued longer, but at about the eight-month mark, I stopped getting calls for the lawyer. Around a week after that, I looked him up online, and he had changed his cell phone number!

I work for a law firm that’s renting the Natural History Museum as a venue for its big holiday party.

Coworker: “Do we have to have it at THAT museum?”

Me: “What are you talking about? Drinking champagne under the dinosaurs will be so cool!” 

Coworker: “Yeah, but they should pick a venue that doesn’t conflict with some of their employees’ beliefs.”

Me: “Beliefs?”

Coworker: “Yeah! Dinosaurs! I just… don’t buy the idea of dinosaurs.”

Me: “You don’t have to buy it. It’s a fact they’re giving to you for free!”

This was a lawyer who has defended clients in court…

Related:
This Kind Of Thinking Needs To Go Extinct

I work on a case with people from many different areas. Most of the people on the case work in a time zone that’s three hours ahead of mine. This means that I am often in meetings or depositions that start at around 7 AM or earlier.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended several days of a deposition, starting at 5:30 (for me) each day. Those days, I left the office at around 3 PM. My manager then called me into her office.

Manager: “Why are you leaving early every day?”

Me: “I started at 5:30 AM.”

Manager: “I don’t care. This is a nine-to-five job. It doesn’t matter if you’re in earlier; you leave at five, otherwise people will think it’s okay to come in and leave whenever they want.”

Well, nine-to-five it is!

I started arriving in the office promptly at 9 AM. This unfortunately led to me skipping several meetings, but alas, it cannot be helped. One meeting I skipped, scheduled for 6 am, is an important biweekly one that my manager is also supposed to attend. She has never attended and always relies on me to prepare a report on the meeting, so she can present it to her boss.

Manager: “Where is [report]?”

Me: “I don’t have it. I wasn’t able to attend the meeting, since I work a nine-to-five job and I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression. No report, sorry!”

As I left promptly at five, I peeked through the window to her office and got a great view of her trying to explain herself to her boss.

Today, she called me and dejectedly informed me that I can leave the office whenever I want from now on.

My old boss knew when I turned down a client, it was because we charged a flat rate, and there was no way that I could resolve their case at that price, and there would be nothing left on the bone.

Me: “Hey, just looked over the intake for the new case. I’d pass on this one.”

Boss: “The usual?”

Me: “The estimation is twenty hours, but I know it’s going to take triple that, minimum. The contract language is messy, and the client’s already gone through two firms. That’s two red flags before I even open discovery.”

Boss: “All good. You don’t need to always explain to me why you do this. I trust you.”

Cue the new boss. Within the first week of his joining, we got a case that I can tell is going to be a hot mess. I tell him so at intake, the usual things I see off the bat.

Me: “So, if those are there, it will be even worse as we peel back the onion.”

New Boss: “It’s not good to turn down clients.”

Me: “We’re not exactly scraping the bottom to find cases. I strongly recommend we pass.”

New Boss: “No. We’re not going to turn down cases.”

He accepted the case. A month later, I ended up getting fired. It was all okay, though. I was on my way out already, and would have quit about a week later anyway.

In that month, I had already put in forty hours putting out fires in that case, and the other lawyer who took it over likely had another two hundred hours. My new boss ended up with a bar complaint from the client, all for about six grand.