I'm at the dayjob today and it's been a productive morning. Not that any fee earners have generated work for me to do but I have trawled the net and happened across people who have a similar disre..er, regard for the industry in which I am submerged. Please look to your right for further amusement.

My boss is continuing his campaign of confusion and terror by not only conversing with me now but asking how I am in the morning. Hell, he's even saying 'hello' and 'goodbye'. I've only just stopped looking over my shoulder when he does this, thinking that there is a person of seniority behind me.

I'm unsettled. And worried. What, with no schizophrenic markups to do, no impossible tasks to be set, I'm losing material. If I can't bitch about the departmental partner, what is there left for me to do?

Oh but hey I forgot! It's appraisal time! And I'm about to battle it out with the Orc (aka the secretarial co-ordinator in charge of the holiday schedule).

Unchartered waters

Something is rotten in the state of London....

Today when I went in to my boss's office to get a letter signed, he sat back in his chair and had a a5 minute conversation with me about cooking and fashion. This, from a man who can barely bring himself to say hello to me in the morning. I'm a little concerned that he's:

a) found my blog
b) about to have a breakdown
c) found out something about my health

To be fair, the conversation was 3 minutes on the topic of cooking (ie. what a great cook he is and how he does all the cooking at home, followed by a mumbled concession that 'ok, my wife cooks sometimes as well') and 2 minutes of asking why 'all you young people wear trousers that drag along the ground, I mean, is that the fashion now, why do you do it, you pick up half the street and walk around with it, and what about those people who just cut the ends off their jeans, it boggles me'

I thanked him for calling me young and told him that I liked the length of my trousers and especially liked how various parts of the street accompany me on my journeying by way of clinging to the hems of each leg.

He was still bewildered and in his befuddlement even told me I could pp the letter I'd brought in. This NEVER happens. The bewilderment was as much my answer as the fact that we'd both conversed on a non-work topic in a civilised manner.

I'm still a little confused myself. I think I need a lie down.

Who ties your shoelaces in the morning?

I have not infrequently wondered about the shelf life of my unchosen career - what with computer-savvy new generation lawyers not needing my basic computer skills to fix elementary mistakes, or their extreme dislike of dictaphones - preferring instead to type their own letters - how long will it be until the secretarial pool is decimated from lack of demand?

And then come days like yesterday when I realise that legal secretaries will never become obsolete no matter how much technology tries to force us into obscurity.

First off, I spent about half an hour this morning booking a rest room for lunch for one of the junior solicitors. She was feeling unwell, see, and rather than ring the room bookings service extension which is on a phone list in front of her on the desk, she emails me asking to 'research it' and to book for midday.

I am then accosted by another junior solicitor, this time asking that I collate and file 3 copies of witness statements and exhibits into lever arch files. Oh, and could I also number by hand each page as I do so. Sure. No, don't worry that you didn't think to number the pages before the files were copied twice and so instead of hand numbering the contents of just one folder, I have to then hand number the other two copies.

My wrist aches at your searing lack of foresight.

And to the partner, who sits in an office OPPOSITE MY DESK - even though I am not your regular secretary, who is off sick, you don't need to email another lawyer on secondment to ask her to ask me to print off an email that you have in your inbox - but if you do, then don't put on a 'what a surprise what on earth are you doing in my office' act when I walk into your office to hand you the printout.

Ta-da here I am. No, I wasn't canned in the most recent round of redundancies, more's the pity. I am lucky enough to still be employed in a job that discourages initiative, tortures and kills off my brain cells one by one and forces upon me the disturbing visual image of my boss in skintight lycra bike shorts far too early in the morning for my liking.

My boss went on a business trip to New York this week. He likes to manage his own diary (not trusting me with Microsoft Outlook or anything that requires me to do more than turn on my computer) and had blocked out Mon-Thurs as overseas meetings. He also emailed me last week saying he'd be flying back Thursday evening and in the office on Friday morning. Which means of course he was back in the office this morning (Thursday), making me look like a bad secretary to all the clients who had called in his absence and who I told to call back Friday.

Possibly to make up for it, he did bring me back something from the Big Apple: a handful of crumpled up hotel and dinner receipts and some scribbles on the back of someone else's business card which were meant to denote taxi expenses.

Thanks.