Recently, someone pointed out that I haven’t dedicated much airtime to another unique perspective: that of secretaries at law firms. It’s safe to say that no one else sits in such a prime position to observe absurd workplace antics. So today we have a list of observations from an experienced legal secretary, who also happens to be a fellow blogger:

I’ve been a legal secretary for almost a decade. Some attorneys I’ve worked with have been great, and I’ve busted my ass for them. Some have been horrible, and they’ve broken my spirit a few times. Here are some highlights from my side of the pony wall over the years:

1. The attorney is about to have lunch delivered. As I sit at my desk, working through my lunch hour and eating my salad I brought from home because I can’t afford to eat lunch out, he asks if I have change. As I think of the coins in my middle drawer, he whips out a hundred dollar bill and asks if I can break that. No fucker, I can’t break a $100 bill! I’ve never had a $100 bill in my life.

2. I’ve been called the name of every wife and former secretary the attorney has ever had.

3. You, the attorney, are hiding from a partner. That partner keeps calling me asking for you. You, are standing in front of my desk mouthing “I’m not here!” but then get angry at me when I tell the partner “I’m sorry, he’s stepped away from his desk for a moment.” What? You wanted me to say “I’m sorry, he was in a furious e-mail fight with his girlfriend, then his mom called, then he went to get coffee with the hot baby attorney who sits next to him, and when you called he was trying to figure out the formatting of a memo he was going to start drafting to you”? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

4. You give me Project #1. You interrupt Project #1 to ask me to copy a document for you. When I give you back the original and copies, you hand me Project #2. As I walk back to my desk, my phone is ringing. It’s you, asking me to find you a phone number. As I recite the phone number for you, you hang up on me to take a call from someone more important. I go back to your office to give you the phone number written on a piece of paper. You silently shove Project #3 at me. I get back to my desk and you yell for Project #1. When I tell you I’m working on it, you ask for Project #2. When I tell you it’s next in line after I complete Project #1, you ask what the hell I’ve been doing all afternoon.

5. You are paranoid, and feel what you do is nobody’s business. Therefore, even though you’re on vacation for the next two weeks, every morning I am to open your door and turn on the lights in your office. When I put your time for those vacation days into the billing system as 0/Vacation, you yell at me. I explain that Accounting needs to know this, you insist it’s nobody’s business.

6. You are scared of your clients, never take their calls, and never call them back. They yell at me, and threaten to tell on me for “obviously never giving the attorney my many messages” even though they also refuse to leave you a voice mail. I tell you this, and you tell me it’s my job to take your phone calls.

7. Your friends call for you, and tell me I sound hot, tell me I sound like I’m 12 years old, tell me weird names you used to call each other when you were drunk fraternity brothers that will make you laugh when you see the message. I’m busy, you fucker – can’t you see #4?

8. You throw files at me. Not at my desk, not into my waiting hands, but AT me.

9. Despite the fact that I go to you at 4:30 p.m. to ask what else you need to accomplish before the end of the day, invariably at 4:58 p.m. you unearth a project from the bottom of your Inbox that’s been there since the morning and decide it must be worked on Right Away. By me. Even though I told you I had plans after work.

10. You tell me you’re running out to grab a quick lunch ten minutes before you have a meeting with the managing partner, which I remind you about. You do not take your Crackberry or cell phone and are gone for over two hours.

11. You pick your nose, your wedgies, and scratch your balls in front of me.

12. You have me call the parents of every member of your son’s Little League team to tell them a practice is canceled, and then yell at me because you gave me the wrong date.

13. You interrogate me like the prosecuting attorney you are. What are you interrogating me about? Why I’ve gone to the restroom at the same time of day for the last three days. I’m not a machine dammit – I’m human, and I get my period once a month.

14. You go through my personal drawer and help yourself to my fancy Bath & Body Works lotion.

15. You don’t know how to spell demurrer.

16. You know my salary is under $30,000, and I currently don’t have health insurance even though it’s offered, because I can’t afford it. Yet you make fun of me for never having been out of the country, not knowing how first class seating in airplanes work, and other things that only someone with money would know. That’s right, the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever been to is Outback. Morton’s is where I’ll go for my 10th anniversary. Welcome to my world, where Sunday mornings really are spent cutting out coupons from the newspaper.

17. You do not pay my cell phone bill, yet get angry with me that yesterday when I was at jury duty, I did not keep my cell phone on at all times in case you had a crisis. A crisis, you know, like not being able to find the orange your wife had the housekeeper lovingly pick from your orange tree in the backyard. Because I would have known the answer to that. You, the attorney, seem to forget that cell phones MUST be turned off inside courthouses.

Love my job, can’t wait to see you Monday!