Long week
Man, it's been a long week. One of our clients lost a big deal for which I had already put in about 100 hours of work and cancelled a vacation, so that made me feel great. Then I had to spend the better part of two days reviewing a complete piece of shit document that a rival firm had drafted based on a precedent out of our Amsterdam office. After about five minutes of reading, it was clear that the precedent was fine but that the mark-up was terrible, so I worked until about 1:00 a.m. the other night marking it up for an 8:00 a.m. meeting.
Rather than send my exhaustive mark-up, though, I decided that it would be more polite and less embarassing for my counterparts to send them an e-mail with a list of global points (things like "Restore all deleted definitions used in the document"). I was too tired and frustrated after an hour of drafting this e-mail to use the uber-polite French flowery style, so I just listed my comments out in bullet points. In response, the partner on the other side (who happens to be the older brother of my office-mate's fiance) wrote me a curt e-mail (copying his client) in which he said that he would appreciate it if I wouldn't use that "tone" in our future correspondence.
I had half a mind to tell this prima donna that I would appreciate it if he didn't send me half-baked turds instead of the documents I'm supposed to review, either, but I didn't. And you want to know why? Because I'm a professional. I'm also an undercover ninja and part-time underwear model, and even though that doesn't really have anything to do with the earlier story, it's way more interesting so I thought I should mention it.
6 comments:
ahhh.. I miss practicing law.
What ninja isn't undercover, Lee? What ninja?
Ok Derek, put down the coffee, close the history book and step away from the computer.
Nik, I'm sure you still have some files in the trunk of your car that you never returned to your firm. You can pretend practice.
When Lee decided to finish collage in three years and move out of the dorm room we shared I was upset. Than I realized his moving out meant my self-esteem wouldn’t be crushed each day when I saw Lee's ripped abs and compared them to my beer gut. This revelation made me feel a little better.
I hear ya about the long week. FDA just gave us a slap-down and we can't start our trial in the US now. Dammit. I guess we'll have to expand into France, instead. I wish I was an undercover ninja. Ninjas are better than pirates -- except for the rum-drinking. Damn I need a drink.
Post a Comment