Wow, it's good to get that off my chest.
I'm creating this blog because, honestly, I am fairly certain this entire experience for the last year and a half has made me certifiably insane.
I'm not particularly in the mood to recap "up to this point" at the moment; maybe soon, but not right now. Generally I'll probably use this space to rant out into the ether. Rage at my fate. Etc.
The things most likely to appear in my blog will consist of my experiences as a law student, a law clerk for a small divorce firm I'm currently working for, a married woman, and a generally crazy person.
Currently, what's on my mind is... state employees.
I. Hate. State. Employees.
And I have to deal with them every single time I'm at work.
Don't get me wrong - there are good ones. Just like any profession, there are state employees I look forward to seeing, who are friendly and good at their jobs. But for some reason, the state sector seems to attract an inordinate number of a particular breed of individual that, for some reason, thinks s/he is entitled to work in a semi-customer service position and yet not practice any form of common courtesy. In fact, many of them are downright rude - for no reason. And somehow they can't be fired. Please explain to me how this makes sense.
Example 1:
I occasionally cover hearings for work where we just have to go in and enter agreed orders to get a continuance. Not a big deal - you explain to the judge what is going on in the case and then get a date, usually 30 to 45 days out, to meet up again, pretty much until the case settles or goes to trial. This happens many times throughout the life of your average dissolution case.
One judge's assistant in particular, for some reason unbeknownst to me, has it out for me. I don't know why. I have been in this judge's courtroom approximately 3 times in 7 months - there is no reason this assistant should know me from Eve. Despite my problems with state employees, I am undeservingly polite to each and every one of them - I say please and thank you and wish them a nice day at the close of every interaction. It's won me some favor with a few of them, but somehow this individual seems to find me grossly inconvenient and/or offensive despite my exceedingly limited contact with him.
After a hearing with the judge, I must approach this assistant in order to schedule the next hearing date for my case. Typically the interaction goes something like this:
(I approach the assistant, who is jotting things down on pieces of paper at his desk; I wait to be acknowledged - I consider this the polite thing to do, rather than interrupt him in the middle of whatever he is doing)
(He continues writing things down on paper; he shuffles the paper around; pretty soon it is apparent that he's not really doing anything, he's just making me wait. He's aware of my presence but, for some reason, has decided to ignore me.)
(I wait still to be acknowledged, feeling that I am just being polite; other clerks and attorneys are starting to line up behind me to get dates. Everyone is getting impatient.)
(Finally I give up waiting.)
"Excuse me, could I please get a date the week of XYZ for case number #?"
(He responds with stony silence, as if I have just said something horribly offensive. I wait, knowing that he, like other judge's assistants, is supposed to check the availability of that week before giving me an exact date.)
(I wait some more. People are still impatient behind me.)
"What date you want?" he finally asks, not even bothering to look at me.
I tell him.
"Yeah sure fine."
I jot it down on my order, give it to him for approval, it goes to the judge's clerk, and then I'm out.
I turn to observe on my way out. No one else seems to be having this problem. He is giving out dates in a perfectly polite manner to each person that approaches.
This causes me no end of confusion. As I said, I am a non-entity to this individual - he has never really met me before, I am just one of a hundred anonymous individuals he will meet that morning. Yes, there are regulars that he does know. But there are people like me, all the time, that are there only sparingly, forgettably.
Yet it has been the same every single time when I do this. I have gone to drop off courtesy copies for the judge and been standing there for literally a minute and a half waiting for this person to acknowledge me so I could ask who to give them to so they don't get lost in the shuffle.
Am I off-base here? Isn't it normal for someone to wait politely until they are acknowledged before speaking? Isn't it normal to acknowledge someone?
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