I’ve got a Legal Assistant that has been a consistent source of problems for me. Missed assignments, blown deadlines, poor bedside manner with clients, etc. I am increasingly spending my time doing purely clerical work that he mishandled or simply did not do in the first place.
So today he brings in a document for my review, and it’s a big hot bowl of mess. I asked him if he understood generally accepted accounting principles, and he told me he did not know what that was. And I said well this document reflects that fact. So I open excel and spent two hours correcting his settlement summary sheet. It’s basically a client’s income statement that reflects all proceeds recovered, and all expenses paid, at the end of a case.
I finally have some thing that is workable. I handed it to him and said “proofread this for me and send it to the client immediately.“ Two hours later I go by his office and ask if he had sent the document as instructed, and he told me he did not, because it was all wrong. He opened my document in Excel and undid everything that I had spent two hours doing to correct the document.
Well my head exploded. Not doing your job is bad enough, but undoing my job, badly? He’s taking it to a whole nother level. I just went home early, I didn’t have time to blow a gasket and read him the riot act. It’s been one of those days.