I was blessed with a really great job last year and I work from home maybe 95% of the time. My work is court-related so I'm dealing with all kinds of people. The few times I have to work in-person, it's never the same location, and more than likely, I don't have to see these people ever again after my job is complete. Currently, I am working in-person, so I'm stuck with these fuckers all week. These fuckers are a lawyer (L) and a court reporter (CR). We are working an arbitration that is taking place over zoom.
So I met these two for the first time Monday. Made some small talk, set everything up. CR is asking L for names of some people to have handy and he mentions one name, and she whispers like there's other people in the room, meanwhile it's literally just us 3, “is she black?”, met with a resounding “no”. But like … why the fuck did it matter? lol
And earlier than that, she was talking to me about some attorney on another case and how handsome and well-dressed he was
and how he has got to be gay. Even though he apparently mentioned a wife, had a ring on his finger, the whole nine yards. Okay lady lol.
And omg, the lawyer. I swear man. Since Monday I've been hearing “I don't have anything against black people/women/women-owned businesses” … proceeds to bash said groups and generalize them for the next five minutes on why he hates some weird particular thing. I just look at him, fake smile and nod the whole time. He's one of those people who loves the sound of his voice. Also, he speaks verrrryyy slowwwlyyyyy and deliberatelllyyyyyy and dragsss everyyyy worddddddd. And tbh, I don't even know what he's talking about 80% of the time because I'm just having internal dialogues with myself hoping he'll stfu soon. (As I was typing this, we went on break for 15 minutes, 10 minutes of that was him talking and me saying literally 4 words. It started about coffee, and somehow he trailed off and told about 3 different side-stories, never finished the coffee conversation lmao).
Monday, CR asked if I wanted to grab lunch with her, I obliged. We had an hour. There's a Friday's right downstairs. We walk in, bartender is by herself and she has a large party of developmentally disabled adults, looks like they were about to be done. She's taking care of the bar, that party, and like three other two-tops. So we're waiting, she sees us, “hi just gimme a moment” yadayada, kewl. CR sees one of the people from that party, he probably has the mental capacity of a child, standing up yelling nonsense and you can't make out a word. She starts to make fun of him. I remain quiet. We were probably standing at the host stand for about two minutes before CR suggests we just sit at the bar, ok. We sit down. Right away, “can we get some menus or something? We're on a time crunch”. We have like 55 minutes left. We literally just sat down here, the bartender politely told us, as well as another lady sitting at the bar, that she's by herself so just give her a moment. Took less than 5 minutes to put our order in and get our drinks and she's complaining about how slow she is.
The second, and I mean the absolute second, she puts our drinks down, she walks away and around the bar. I assumed with the speed she was going at that she was literally gonna grab our plates and shit and turn back to hand them to us. Which she was. Our drinks just touched the bar, “um we didn't get any straws!” “I'm grabbing them rn, I'm sorry”. CR says to me “I feel like I'm saying all the wrong things here” then asked me if I used to work in a restaurant. Told her yes. “Oh, that explains it”. We get our food, they finally have like two other servers by that point. Someone else brings it out. We just asked for extra dressing. I had caesar, CR had ranch. Server places our dressings directly in front of us. CR thinks she got caesar. After working in restaurants for 8 years, I think I can tell the fucking difference. Asks to switch with me, just trying to appease her, I do. I don't pour the ranch on my food 'cause I'm not a fucking idiot. “Oh ew, no, this is caesar, here”.
We got back upstairs with 15 minutes to spare lmao.
So after Monday's long-ass motherfucking day, I think I'm finally in the clear and now I can go home and take my hour drive back home, hoping I can beat some traffic. L and CR live close by and luckily don't have to worry about that. Well goddamn, as I'm walking out with L, he traps me in another conversation. Mind you, we finished up at 515. I didn't get to my car until 6. Honestly, whatever, I'm still getting paid for this conversation anyway. During one of his many side tangents, he was talking to me about his millionaire-friend and his wife and some bs, idefk. “His wife is black nervous
laughter anyway, so she's a professor…” Oh cool, what's her race have to do with the story though lol.
Cue yesterday. I set everything up again. We log onto zoom. Now, if you guys are familiar with zoom, you'll know that if another party has a bad internet connection, zoom will let you know that their bandwidth fucking sucks. It's about 30 minutes before we start, so we still have time to troubleshoot and wtf not. So an arbitrator's connection kept crapping out and L wants me to do something about it. “Can you ask the front desk if she can do something about the wifi? He keeps lagging for us”. Bro first, this lady works the front desk. You asked her for IT help the day before and she couldn't help us because that's not her forté. But I fixed Monday's issue because that's what I get paid for. She doesn't know anything about that. Second, the wifi here works surprisingly well actually, compared to most places I've worked at in the past. The guy is lagging because he has a poor connection, not us. I set up a hardwire connection just so he could shut up. Same guy still lagging. “It's still not working”. Once again my guy, it's him, not us.
I brought two of my own computers. One for L, one for CR. CR keeps pulling on my computer closer to her, extending the wires attached to it and they keep getting loose and coming out, so I keep nonchalantly moving it back like literally half an inch and replugging them.
And she keeps. Fucking. Doing it.
I have this conference mic/speaker you can plug into the PC that works really well, and I had to reconnect it twice. Once, because I had to switch some things around and plug it in the other computer, second time because CR unplugged it accidentally. Both times: “WHY ISN'T IT WORKING, I CAN'T HEAR WHAT THEY'RE SAYING”. Ma'am, it's been temporarily unplugged for quite literally two seconds, the arbitration doesn't start for another 15 minutes, and you can hear him loud and clear still from the other computer. So I don't wanna fucking hear it.
So a little while later, zoom crapped out for about 30 seconds on the PC I gave to L. Now it's actually us this time lol. Zoom for whatever reason kicked L's PC out the meeting, and signed back on within those 30 seconds. Literally nothing I could do. The conference speaker is connected to that computer, and the audio isn't connected on CR's to prevent feedback. Understandably, they start to freak out. CR has missing testimony now. When we get reconnected, we explain the situation. One of the arbitrators asks if we can phone-in instead. I unplug the conference speaker, which defaults to PC mic/speaker, and right away CR yells “THEY CAN'T HEAR ME”. Like fuck dude, first gimme a second. Second of all, they absolutely still can hear you and vice versa, so stfu and stop yelling, you're only making yourself look bad. We're off the record anyway so hakuna your tatas. I reconnected it just so can she shut up while L dials in from his cell phone separately, “it's so low now”. I raise volume in the middle of people talking as she pulls the speaker closer to her “AHHH WHY IS IT SO LOUD NOW”. Like wtf do you want lady!! We're dialed in on L's phone on the room.
CR: Now I'm not gonna be able to hear anything!!!!
literally clear-ass audio
CR: Can you plug that [my usb conference speaker] into the phone?”
Me: insert RBF Sorry, but no.
CR: Well why not!?
Okay, do you have a usb to lightning adapter?
later
CR: This isn't gonna work.
L: It works fine, relax.
An hour after this, CR asked if I could hook up the conference speaker to L's phone again
She also apologized a little later to me for being “snippy”. I wholeheartedly believe it was because of my super curt response to her earlier because I can guarantee you that she wouldn't have done that if I didn't speak to her like she does to me.
Imfao omg do I wanna go the fuck home.
If one of them leaves the room temporarily, the other will complain to me about them lmao. It's happened a dozen times already.
People, if it smells like dog shit everywhere you go, check your shoes.
…
e: She moved the computer again. Wires are literally screaming for help. They're barely attached.
e2: She just asked me to scratch her back. I cannot make this shit up.