Saturday, October 27, 2007

My Week in a Nutshell (More or Less)

Things have been quite busy here, so I've been unable to blog about them. We had our orchestra concert last night. It actually didn't go as badly as I thought it would. And that Puccini mass is really quite pretty. It made me wish our conductor was a little more experience, and more able to give cues as to dynamics and such, rather than just the beat. I was a little miffed that the program didn't say I was the "section leader," but I'm sure my ego can take it!

Work has been quite strange. I seem to have my caseload pretty under control (for once). We now have fifteen licensed attorneys and I only have about seventy-five active cases. That's fewer than I can remember ever having. I still am quite busy, though. I've got three mentees now, in addition to random other people coming into my office and asking me questions. One of my mentees is getting her first felony cases, so of course she has all kinds of questions since she is no longer dealing with only dwi's and domestic violence cases. Another of my mentees seems to have two hours worth of questions every day. The strange thing is that most of her questions are repeats. So I'm not sure if she really needs help or if she just wants to chat. Because if she really needs that much help, she has the shortest attention span of anyone I know. But if she just wants to talk to me about the same cases into eternity, I really am not that interested, and have work I could be doing on my own cases. The third, I haven't figured out yet. She's actually not my mentee, she's my boss'. I don't think he realizes that even though she did graduate from an ivy-league college and practiced civil law for 2 years, it doesn't mean she understands criminal defense in New Mexico. He gave her felony cases right off the bat (a bad idea, in my opinion), and seems to expect her to know how to handle them without assistance. So, I go over all her cases with her and tell her what to expect, etc. But it is quite time consuming!

Another strangeness is that my boss seems to hold me responsible for whatever everyone else does. For example, an attorney (not my mentee) forgot to do something on one of her cases. She told the client about it, and appealed the case based on ineffective assistance. Apparently someone at the da's office did not like this, complained to their boss, who then complained to my boss. My boss then yells at me for about 20 minutes. How I came to be involved in this at all, I don't know. The gist of the conversation was that he didn't believe the attorney should have appealed (why not, I don't know) and that this makes our office look bad. I asked, "to whom," and he said to the da's! Who cares if our office looks bad to the da's? The attorney did nothing unethical or even wrong, and if the da's don't want us to appeal cases, that's their problem. And again, how is it me that he's yelling at?


Betsy's doing well. We went to the vets again for more shots, and she's up to 18 pounds now. She gained 5 pounds in 4 weeks, and is much bigger. Probably 1/3 taller and 2/3 longer than she was when I got her.


Potty-training is still improving. She goes 4 days to a week without accidents! Her genealogical makeup is still quite the mystery. My bf thinks she is part monkey, which I think might be right. She's got a prehensile tail and a knack for mischief. She's also quite the acrobat. She's a great jumper and escape artist. (I noticed this when she stole a hair-tie off the coffee table and then escaped when I went to retrieve it.) She can move! And sometimes she just runs around because it's fun. And then it's bed time...
I will really miss her when I have to go for annual training next week. (No puppies allowed at the hotel.) I was going to board her at the vets, but this shot was only the first bordatella vaccine, and she needs the second one before they'll take her. So she'll be staying with my secretary and her herd of cocker spaniels in the country. She'll like it. The secretary breeds cockers and so knows how to deal with puppies. She's going to fence Betsy away from the cockers during the day, because she's worried the cockers will pick on her. I think Betsy can hold her own with a cocker spaniel!
Oh, and I finished my tandem socks. I just need to re-bind them off because I bound off too tight.

1 comment:

Sircellan said...

Maybe your boss yells at you because you actually respond? Even if it isn't your problem, you listen and point out the other side. Perhaps it's your boss' way of saying you are appreciated (in a rather weird way).

Or maybe your boss just likes yelling at someone and thinks you can handle the yelling without having a mental breakdown.