Hey everyone. Don’t know if you remember me, but I’m the person (23F – assistant) who posted about their coworker (60’sF – paralegal) who started tracking my comings and going’s from the office. I ended up deleting the post because it gained a lot of traction, but in it, I mentioned how this had started after I brought it to my boss’ attention that she was pushing work onto me and it was started to seriously affect the sustainability of our team. Sorry if this is off-topic for the sub. If it doesn’t follow the rules, I’ll delete the post.
Many of you told me that I should take time off and let her deal with things on her own. In the comments, I had mentioned how I actually had planned to be gone a half-week later that month. I ended up taking two extra days off, meaning I was absent a full week. This also coincided with my boss being out a week as well, meaning she was the sole person in-office for our team. And boy, did some drama happen while I was gone!
This is what I was told per our coworker who is on our team (but has entirely different clients and doesn’t work directly with us): on Friday, both me and the boss were out. A client came into the office unexpectedly. While this hasn’t happened much since COVID, it’s not against the rules or prohibited. The paralegal claimed said client “came in because our boss told him to” and “he was expecting a check”. She said she had “no idea why he was here” and sent him home. Afterwards, she told coworker she was “livid”, tired of not being in the loop, called our boss “eff-ing stupid”, and was going to talk to HR about being switched to a different team.
However, upon hearing this, it raised some red flags. First of all, the day the client came to our office was the day before my boss’ wedding. There was absolutely no way my boss would have scheduled a client meeting that day. If he did, he definitely would have told someone in advance. Additionally, the client was not receiving any check, it wasn’t not planned, and the client was fully aware we were waiting on a document to come in before we could proceed with his case (this is important later).
I return to the office on Wednesday, and I have a voicemail from the client who came to the office. He said he needed to talk with me. That’s when my coworker told me the drama that happened. So, I call the client back, and he tells me that he came to the office BECAUSE HE RECEIVED THE DOCUMENT WE NEEDED and he was trying to make sure we had it. This should be obvious, but any time a client brings a document for us, we always save a copy to their file. She didn’t even look at it. I was honestly speechless. Regarding the money, he said he was taking out a loan, and they needed the attorney to approve it before they could proceed. There was no mention about settlement money. No mention of him getting a check from us.
I’m not sure if she didn’t listen or is just that out of it, but suffice to say, this basic interaction with a client caused her to have a complete meltdown to where she needed to complain to HR? I think she started to realize how little she knows and was trying to save her skin. While I was out, she didn’t handle anything. My boss asked me to set a rule on my email to forward all emails while I was out to her, and she didn’t follow up on any of them.
When my boss got back today, he told me he couldn’t say much and that things were happening in the background, but asked if I was still interested in the paralegal position. I told him yes. I have a feeling that she is about to be transferred or fired. So I just wanted to post here! Thanks for reading if you did!