What can I say - DRAMA. I had lunch yesterday with Shannon and Jess, which was fabulous... we should do it again soon, but at that time I was telling them about how my boss was driving me nuts - he was annoyed and mad that we hadn't mailed out a document, our response was that we didn't know that it had been finalized - he said yes it had been. Well, I put it back on his desk to verify that fact, that was soooo obvious to him - and what do you know, he sent it back with ADDITIONAL corrections. Does this sound like finality? GRR so I was annoyed as I left for lunch. No biggie, by the time I got back to the office it had rolled off my back and wasn't bothering me.
I continued to work on my project for the day, which was putting together a slideshow presentation for a little 8 year old boy that had died in a horrible car accident (a semi truck ran into them at 45 miles an hour, without EVER breaking.) Poor kid never stood a chance. Sad times...
Well, the day progressed as normal as any other - until the phone call around 2pm - another law firm was calling to confirm an inspection for Thursday at a client's home. Heidi, who took the call was like, umm we don't have that on calendar and I don't remember notice for such a thing. She looked and looked - and could not find the original notice, nor a copy of it. Called BACK that office and said we don't have it - they respond well you signed for it. She asks Scott, who starts to look. She then calls back the lady and simply asks her to fax another copy (this is standard procedure and done all the time, no big deal.) says a few other things about what else was with it - and it turned out that it was delivered along with some discovery (all those horrifically boring questions that suck up mine and our client's time.) Well, in the search for the inspection notice - Scott finds on his desk a copy of that said discovery. I get called into the office.
Scott the proceeds to yell at me about how I need to follow protocol and whenever discovery comes in the mail it is calendar, copied twice, 1 copy to Scott, 1 copy to client, original to file. I let him yell. I couldn't get a word in edge wise and funny enough, I know it's a bad idea to yell BACK at your boss, regardless of who is in the right. So as he is yelling at me, he is also looking through this discovery and FINDS the inspection notice. He then hollers to Heidi, "I found it." So what does she do? She proceeds to call this secretary back and I quote: "You no longer need to fax that inspection notice to us, it's been on Scott's desk this whole time."
Ok, ok, wait. Now there are several things that are wrong with this statement, and several more that go wrong after this statement... but first of all... there would have been NO HARM AT ALL TO SIMPLY LET THIS WOMAN FAX OVER THE COPY THAT HAD ALREADY BEEN REQUESTED. Unfortunately - Heidi was mad that it HAD been on Scott's desk the whole time and chose to express that in a nonconstructive, passive aggressive way.
Scott hears this, in the middle of yelling at me... (although at this point his yelling at me had turned to a more Charlie Brown teacher, kind of yell...) and says "HEIDI GET OFF THE PHONE!" She puts the secretary on hold and says "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?" his response "GET OFF THE PHONE AND COME HERE!" Now Scott's office like most office only have one door - I was sorta in the middle of being reprimanded and I didn't feel that it was appropriate to make a dash for the door... So I sat. In the middle.
Heidi comes to the door - Scott asks, calmer "Why did you tell her that? That is NOT what you tell someone outside of THIS office." Her response, still more agitated: "WHY IT'S TRUE." His response, agitated again "IT DOES NOT MATTER. YOU DO NOT GO AROUND EXPOSING THIS OFFICE TO LOOK BAD." I am continuing to sit. She then goes on to say well I am tired of having to cover the ass of this office because of shit piling up your desk... etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah. At this point she moves out of Scott's doorway and so I make my mad escape because we are clearly done lecturing ME on following Discovery Protocol. Scott follows.
He then proceeds to scream something about that it is her job to cover this office's ass and to make the firm look good, no matter what is going on inside of it. She responds "DON'T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME!" His mature and professional response was "I'LL TAKE WHATEVER TONE I WANT." Sigh - and then one of them moved and I was once again literally stuck in the middle of this banter. It went on for another 4-5 minutes of Y-E-L-L-I-N-G... a couple of times Heidi screamed "STOP TALKING TO ME." Scott screamed "I'LL TALK TO YOU AS MUCH AS I WANT, YOU WORK FOR ME." -- I am standing in the middle unable to move, my only option besides standing was to shrink into a ball on the floor and hide - so I remained standing.
Ultimately, this ended with Heidi yelled at the TOP of her lungs "F--- YOU!" and stormed out of the office. Yah he kinda followed her out as she left, but then turned and just went into his office. I, who was relieved to be able to move from the spot that I had been standing in, remained there for a moment just awe-struck at what had just transpired.
A. Blatant disrespect for a superior in the office.
However.
B. Blatant lack of professionalism in handling an insubordinate act.
Which is worse, I'm not sure - I just went back to working on my presentation.
Scott went to go talk to John, who came in at the tail end of the fighting.
Heidi called John's cell phone and instructed him to let her know today if she had a job or not.
A moment or two later I call Heidi and she says she thinks she's going to quit.
Suffice it to say, I was just in awe - I had been being yelled at for something that was A. NOT MY FAULT and B. Scott had told us to break "protocol" and give HIM the client copy because the client was coming in and he could just GIVE her the documents. I knew this the entire time he was yelling at me about protocol, but he was on a soapbox - he needed to get it out. I let him and then after he finished talking to John, I pointed out that I had done as he had asked. I was not there for calendaring to take place, but that we had followed his wishes. He apologized for yelling, but still reinforcing the protocol. Fine, I already do, so no sweat to hear the procedure again, if it makes him feel better. So I felt well enough in handling MY professional berating for the day - although anyone would pat themselves on the back when the immediate comparison has a final thought of "F--- YOU!"
So that was my Tuesday.
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