I work as a legal assistant for the county’s public defender.
We’ve become short staffed at the front desk/reception. There’s usually 2 people at the front desk. One person would be in charge of opening new cases, help with filing stuff, and occasionally help the receptionist with calls. And we got the actual receptionist. They essentially back each other up. We have the worst luck in retaining a receptionist. We recently lost our receptionist. But from what I heard she was very stubborn on learning via training and felt overwhelmed with calls… but that’s a receptionist job to deal with calls.
The girl who opens cases now has to cover front desk/be receptionist. But nobody can cover her break except the assistants. We literally have to alternate covering her am and pm break. Sometimes she takes longer than our 15 minute break for no reason. This takes time away from our work. Us assistants already have enough on our plate because we have to do “errands” which is file stuff with the court and drop off mail. If we’re short staffed as LA too, how the heck can we handle all that? On top of that take client calls and us LA back each other up too if one is out. Sometimes there’s back ti back calls.
On top of that, this girl recently got promoted to be an assistant but she can’t move to her new position until our manager finds two people to fill the front desk. Even then, she would need to wait until those people are properly trained. I feel bad enough my coworker has to carry the burden including us too.
Not only that but what if this girl needs to take a day off? One of us would need to take a whole day off from our work just to be receptionist. I didn’t apply to be receptionist. I never worked a receptionist job. There’s a reason why I never did. I even got told by this girl while covering her break that I’m not bubbly enough to be receptionist. And that I’m cold. I’m like well I deal with these clients all the time and starting to set boundaries from the front line is necessary because then we get overwhelmed with people calling over and over again. And this job has the toughest clients ever. Despite being introverted and reserved, I can talk to clients well. Clients like talking to me and even at my old job i would have Google reviews saying so. I don’t need to be loud and up in peoples faces.
I personally think they should just close the front desk lobby until they find people. The prosecutors office has their lobby closed and only opens it for people with appointments and what not. I found out they used to close the lobby during COVID. Why put the burden on everyone else because they can’t retain front desk people? Let’s say we hire some folks but the problem will be retaining them. It’s a tough job and the people we’ve had care too much.
Honestly with all this added responsibility, we should get a raise? But because it’a a govt job they won’t do crap. I absolutely hate this.