Where’s The Complaint Box?

This afternoon from about 4:15 p.m. onward has been a MISERABLE afternoon at work. Seriously. I could rip off everyone’s head right about now.

At 4:15 p.m. Mr. BIL forwards me an email with three documents that were finalized by another law firm. Asks me to run blacklines to make sure all the changes got made. I hand them to him about 4:25 p.m. I go back to my desk and proceed to create the FedEx labels needed to send the package to our client. Mr. BIL gets on the phone. At 4:55 p.m. he comes out and says we need to send another package to the client’s son and it has to go Express Mail.

Our Express Mail labels are locked up, so I quickly ran downstairs and had our facilities guy get one. Facilities Guy tells me that Express Mail has to be in the box by 5:00 p.m. It’s now 4:56 p.m. I run upstairs and call our local post office and confirm that if we get the package to their counter by 5:30 p.m. it would be guaranteed for overnight delivery. I ask Mr. BIL to review the letter, which he does. I print off a final letter, print out the attachments, and at 5:10 p.m. I call our mail guy who always makes a mail run on his way home.

“I know you are about to leave – I need you to meet me at the elevators to take a package with you. You have to take this to the post office.”

“Where is it going?” he asks me.

“To the post office, dude.”

“No, I mean where are you mailing it to?”

“Dude – are you serious? Just meet me at the elevators – who cares where it’s going!”

Meanwhile, Mr. BIL is standing right there, and as I get off the phone he says, “I don’t think it’s going to make it.”

I ran downstairs a la “Broadcast News” and get to the mail room at 5:17 p.m. Our mail guy is just putting on his coat.

“I’m serious, man, this HAS to get there by 5:30 p.m. or else it won’t go overnight.”

“Okay.”

I go back upstairs, where Mr. BIL lectures me about “getting things out earlier,” and I didn’t feel like arguing with him and saying, “Well, opposing counsel didn’t even get it to us until after 4 p.m. AND you sat on the phone for 20 minutes rather than review the changes they made.”

Thirty minutes later he comes out and says, “If it doesn’t get there tomorrow, we’ll just see if he has an email address and email it to him.”

It was at that point I felt like walking out the door forever.