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I was angry when I left work. Today (and apparently for the whole week, although I wasn’t told until this afternoon), I was told that I’m playing temporary secretary for the one judge who doesn’t have a full time secretary. Sure, he’s the new judge in the building, but he’s been there for nearly six months and he hasn’t found the time to interview secretaries. (Rumor around the OT area is that he wants to hire from within, but since he’s been here for longer than four out of five OTs I think it’s pretty unlikely.) The one he has now has partially comes out of retirement (4-8 hours a week) one or two mornings a week and constantly gets upset at the amount of work she has to do. So, us OTs, at least four of us since one is supposed to permanently help at the front counter, are supposed to help take up slack. I didn’t find out that I was involved in this until about two this afternoon, but I’m getting a bit ahead.

At 11ish, one of the secretaries came to my desk and plopped down a pile of paper work that was about nine inches thick. She also left a thing that’s supposed to help with the alphabetizing of papers. I asked what the pile was for. “[The supervisor] will tell you all about it,” she said to me. The supervisor wasn’t at her desk, she was in a meeting with the PJ, so I couldn’t ask her then. She wasn’t at her desk at noon, when I went on my lunch. When I got back from my lunch at one, she had already left for hers. She didn’t get back until after two and I snagged her as soon as I could.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I pointed to the pile.

“Oh, you’re playing secretary this week,” she said. “If you want to,” she added with a look on her face that implied that I didn’t really have a choice.

I looked at her. I looked at the multi colored pile. I looked at her again.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” she leaned in closer, “but we need you to sort through this pile and get the papers to their proper files.” She paused. “But you don’t have to do it.”

“No, I’m willing to do it, I just don’t know my way around a judge’s area.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Just ask for help if you need it.”

Ask who for help? The judge? He had trials all afternoon and if he really felt like this stuff need to be filed, wouldn’t he have done some of it himself? I knew I could ask one of the other secretaries, but I’ve seen how exasperated they can get when they’re asked too many questions.

“We’re trying,” she said, “to get him caught up before the end of the year. If we do, it’ll keep his rating up, we don’t want it to go down, so it’s important that we help out. You don’t have to if you think you’re too busy, though, but I think it’d be a good thing for you to learn.”

“Yeah, I want to learn my way around some more,” I said. “The more I learn the farther I can go, right?”

“Exactly,” she said and then started to lecture me.

I’m a young man, she told me, who should start thinking about retirement. Thinking about my future family. Thinking about the future. She told me that she started her job with the state (about nine months ago, I found out from the one OT who has been working here for over a year) to really think about retiring with the state’s system. And she went on and on. I didn’t need a lecture, I needed to get started on the damn pile sitting there mocking me.

Eventually, she wore herself out and I got started on the papers.

About half of the papers went into files that are going in front of the judge this week. (A few should have been in front of him in the morning.) About a third of those didn’t have their files anywhere I could find them. I asked a secretary and she told me they might be in his office, but I shouldn’t go in there. Instead, I was suppose to go back to my computer and double check if they’re still going in front of the judge or if they’re somewhere else. Most of them are still supposed to seen by him, but I couldn’t find the files. The secretary who was helping me said the judge wouldn’t be happy with that.

Out of the of the other half, a quarter are going in front of the judge at some future time. A quarter of them now belong in files that have gone to other judges. And the last group went into files that the judge looked at a month ago.

When I got back to my desk at about 4:30, there was a huge pile of work for me that came in with today’s mail. So, I’m expected to help the judge all week, and still handle my normal workload. That upset me because I remember when the last two helped the judge, I was handed a large portion of their work to do so they could focus better on helping the judge.

And, apparently, the judge isn't going to be happy about the stack I couldn't file.

Let’s just hope the week gets better.