Administration and the art of passive-aggressive behaviour

For every reasonable fee earner who treats you like the equal you are, there is an equal number of fee earners who like to play the power game, to various extents. When I was a mere paperclip in terms of admin importance, I used to suffer at the hands of these fools - now, at 30, with years of life experience and manipulative romantic behaviour under my belt, I am the counter-attack queen and a formidable player in office politics.

Following are details of office parlour games I have played and won in recent years:

Speakerphone Speakeasy: This is where you receive/make a phone call of minor importance and the person on the other end conducts the call on speakerphone - which, for all who have been subject to this, is REALLY fucking annoying.

Suitable for: Senior lawyers, Partners, sometimes less-than-senior lawyers with an attitude problem. I also once played this game with Jeffrey Archer (Lord) when I was working at The Times. And won.

How to win: Pretend not to understand what they are saying and keep asking them to repeat themselves until they pick up the handset and conclude the phone call like a normal person.

Shoot the messenger: A very manipulative game where your fee earner permanently forwards their extension to your phone. This means that EVERY single call to them is routed to you first and you then exercise redunancy by re-routing the call back to the extension they were calling in the first place.

Suitable for: 2nd year solicitors who want to make their clients think they have their very own PA rather than a shared group secretary.

How to win: Don't forward the calls. Always take a message, even if the solicitor is in the office and preferably don't note the phone number on which to call back so the solicitor has to look it up her/himself.

Photocopy Priority Proximity (PPP): A game in which the main player (yourself) must be seated further away from the photocopier than your junior fee earner. The fee earner then approaches you and asks you to make a single copy of one sheet of paper and bring it back to their office.

Suitable for: Only junior solicitors as they are the only ones dumb enough to play this game and not realise you can never win. ACs sometimes try it but it's too easy to tell them to do it themselves and it's no fun without being passive/aggressive.

How to win: Take the single sheet and say you'll drop it back to them soon. Leave it on your desk. Go and have a coffee. Leave it on your desk. If it's lunchtime, have lunch at your desk. When they stop by to ask if you've done it, say you'll do it after lunch. This is usually the point where they'll take it back and say they'll do it themselves. It's a lovely moment because at this point it's an unspoken truth that it would take you less than a second to do this but the solicitor also knows that if they mentioned this to you, then your retort would be 'well then why don't you do it'. If lunchtime passes, then make sure you do it but only give it back to them at 5.15pm as you leave for the day. If you really don't like them, then do it and leave it on your desk and pass their office on your way out to tell them that the work is done and they can collect it from your desk.

Anonymous Lawyer: The most classic of the passive-aggressive behaviour games in which you leave your desk and return to find some form of work (usually document amendments) thrust on your chair with a request to complete yet no indication as to who set this task for you.

Suitable for: Only 1st and 2nd year lawyers. They do this because they think that if they don't reveal who requested the work you may think it was a partner and do it immediately. Little do they realise that they are the ONLY type who leave anonymous work. Think about it - if you've worked your arse off to become a partner in a law firm, you want everyone to know it. Everything you do will be initialled by you just so people know who the hell you are.

How to win: Put it aside on your desk in a conspicuous manner. When the (junior) fee earner eventually sidles by to check on the progress, say innocently 'oh I didn't know whose this was.' Make them explain it to you even though the instructions are most likely already written down on the document. Then say you've got some work but will do it when you're free. Say this even if you are in the middle of watching a Jackass clip on Youtube. If it is a document amendment, send it to WP and make the fee earner chase it up.

There are many variations on the games above but I have listed the most popular ones for your edification. Partner parlour games are of a different level and will be deconstructed in another lesson.

Play nice!

It's been a bit of a laugh riot in the office of late, what with the warmer weather and proximity of serious holiday time. So much so that I wondered if there would be anything left to bitch about between the dirty jokes and coffee runs and complete disregard of corporate process in our department. Would this blog become redundant in the face of a bearable work environment? Would I no longer have reason to bitch about anything and have to resort to watching crap tv shows in order to have something to complain about? Did the partners suddenly wake up one day and acquire LOGIC and A SENSE OF HUMOUR???

I shouldn't have worried too much.

I walked into my boss's office yesterday to find a small yellow book sitting on his desk and was informed that this was for me to read to help improve my productivity. Every support staff member in the firm has been given this book.

Welcome to the latest motivational cult called 'Fish'.

Bitching will commence upon conclusion of reading this vile filth. A book review is being written for your pleasure.

I am purchasing a bottle of wine tonight, for nothing else will help digest this patronising piece of literary offal.

Performance Review Redux

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse.

Not only did I have to endure the abysmal joke that was my Performance Review back in July or whenever, I discover today that my performance review was only a rung on the ladder of 'A Waste of my Fucking Time'

I received an email from someone in HR to alert me to the fact that I now need to make an appointment with my fee earners and office administrator to discuss whether I have achieved the goals I set out in my PEP. Whether they are still relevant and what steps I will be taking in the coming months to achieve these goals.

Since my last Performance Review and this ridiculous email, I have been working in that department a total of two days.

Two. Days.

My goal of working less than one day a fortnight has thus been achieved.

Can I go now?

Pressure

When I become too busy at work to actually spare a minute to bitch about work on this blog, that's when I lose my sense of humour.

More later, if I'm not interrupted by 'urgent' photocopying requests which then sit on a solicitor's desk for 4 hours.

And just a note here: if you want me to do a shit job and to drop everything I'm doing in order to complete it immediately, don't use babytalk to get me on side. Otherwise I will force a very large spoonful of Heinz Junior down your throat and you will choke on your own stupid request.

Thank you.

The cards reveal all

For those who work in corporate law offices, you are familiar with the pain/privilege of the company credit card. The privilege of being given one, should you happen to be a lawyer. The pain of dealing with chasing receipts and inputting details if you happen to work for a lawyer.

Partners are the worst. They spend the most, put EVERYTHING on the company credit card, and then after a week of nagging they will come along and shit their wallet full of crumpled up, smudged receipts all over your in-tray and not see anything wrong in doing so.

Partners are the worst as they are so predictable and boring. There will always be the plane ticket, there will always be the stay at the 4 star hotel and there will never be an extra charge for a porn film on the hotel invoice.

Junior solicitors are more fun. For starters, they are usually younger than me which means I pull rank and they actually listen to me when I say that I need their receipts in by a particular date.

For seconds, junior solicitors haven't achieved the stable family life that is the realm of partners in the firm. Which means that although the firm pays for taxis home after 8pm, their cab receipts vary wildly in price, depending on whether they actually take the cab home, or go to their girlfriend's house in Brunswick, or go to a St Kilda address once in a while where you know they don't live.

Sometimes you just have to take your fun where you can get it. I mean, of course, me but this also pertains to well-travelled junior solicitors.