Wait Until He Learns About Keyboard Shortcuts!

I am a paralegal. We have a new lawyer in the office on a trial basis. His common sense isn’t always there.

One day, my boss tells me that, for a case, we have to send out letters to several companies. The business we represent has already compiled all of the information, including the names, the addresses, and a list of payments and dates of invoices. All we have to do is take the same letter template, input the names and addresses, and change the numbers to reflect the amounts for each business. Then, we are to add one attachment to the letter: an Excel spreadsheet that contains the payment history.

[New Lawyer] already has a head start on me. My boss shows me what I’m doing and then gives me five letters to start on. I finish in probably fifteen minutes.

Me: “Hey, I’m ready for more. Which companies do you want me to do next?”

Boss: “Wait. You’re done already? That was surprisingly fast.”

Me: “It’s not that hard — just a lot of copying and pasting and using the ‘find and replace’ option.”

Boss: “Hey, [New Lawyer], are you almost done with your batch?”

New Lawyer: “Almost done. This one company has so many payments; it’s taking me a while.”

Boss: “Please tell me you’re not hand-typing it all in.”

Sure enough, he was retyping every entry and retyping every letter. My boss had to teach him how to use copy and paste. It’s not like this lawyer was old and not used to the technology; he was in his early thirties.

Later, when I was entering our billing time, I saw that it had taken him two and a half hours to complete six letters. For comparison, it took me an hour and a half to do fourteen.