Becky Says...

February 2005

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A Card Game - February 1

Today there was a lot going on at work. Kathy was out sick, Wendy had to leave the office for an errand, and I got to play cards.

No, I didn't have a client-attorney bridge game going on in the lobby. What I did have was a caller who annoyed me. The caller was not a client, but was someone who needed some information from one of our attorneys. She had called earlier and left her e-mail address, but was calling back because the attorney hadn't sent the information.

I knew the attorney in question had had a busy schedule, and was not available for telephone calls at the moment. So I told the caller he probably hadn't had a chance to respond to her earlier request. Since I truly had no knowledge of the attorney's plans with regard to getting the information to her, I fell back on my first card, the stupid one. I told her I would be glad to take a message for the attorney.

But in her mind, that he was otherwise occupied couldn't possibly be the problem. No, she was sure that her e-mail address must have been incorrectly written in her earlier message, which Wendy had taken.

Well, it wasn't. I could see the copy of the message from where I was sitting. I wouldn't have minded her asking if an error might have been made, but she conclusion-jumped and insulted one of my people with her tone of voice. Bad move on her part. That brought out card two, the bitch card.

Her next spate of words had her asking whether she should send e-mail to the attorney, "to make sure he has my address." I said no (holding my card here), she should send the e-mail to Wendy or to me. Since Wendy was going to be out of the office a few more minutes, the woman chose me.

Because I choose not to put my last name in journal entries, you may not know I share a surname with a musical group (no relation). The group is no longer performing, but they are remembered. Apparently quite well by this caller, because when I told her my work e-mail address (which includes the surname), the next thing she asked me was if I sang, too.

By this time I was waving the bitch card around freely. My reply to that remark was to very carefully tell her my e-mail address again, with emphasis on the placement of the dot, as though she could not possibly have ever heard such a thing as "dot com" before. Then I allowed as to how yes, I did sing.

Once I got her off the phone, I used an alternate meaning of "sing," that of tattle. I went to the attorney and repeated the conversation, leaving out the part about the musical group only because I forgot it.

And I won the card game. How do I know? Well, it turned out the information she wanted was not available, since it was not supposed to have been available until later in the week, anyway. The attorney pointed that out to her, in a well-crafted "fuck-you" e-mail message. I got a copy of the message, as my prize.

Text © copyright 2000-2005 Becky