March 7th . . .

is my four-year blogiversary. Or birthblogday. Yep, I think it's my birthblogday--because you know I always like to be different, right? I wanted to celebrate with a little giveaway, but I haven't had a chance to come up with a prize idea these last few days. Well, I'll give it some thought this weekend and we'll see what happens.

So, I guess you know that my work has been crazy. I brought my camera to work to take a photo of the big stack of papers we finally sent off today, but I couldn't figure out how to take a photo without breaching confidentiality, so you'll just have to imagine.

My boss uses a voice dictation system that types as she speaks, and it's kind of cool, but it's far from perfect, and that's where I come in. My job often seems more like that of an editor than a typist because I'm usually proofreading and correcting documents. (Sometimes the dictation program comes up with the funniest things!) We then revise documents several times, adding in and taking out and tweeking them until they're either perfect or we're out of time. (Mostly we just run out of time, but I think they're pretty good.)

This particular project required around 70 pages of typed legal argument and analysis along with a stack of exhibits--A through N--that was about an inch and a half thick and was taken from all of the different written evidence in the case so far.

As it turned out, my boss and I were at the office until 2 a.m. on Thursday night (actually Friday morning, I guess) before we figured we were far enough along to be able to meet the noon deadline. After going home and sleeping for a few hours (and doing laundry, in my case, so I'd have clean pants to wear), we were back at work at 9 a.m. on Friday. My plan was to get off work early, around mid-afternoon, and come home and take a nice nap but because I really needed to get a jump on next week's deadlines, I ended up staying until 7 p.m. And you know what? I guess 7 p.m. IS early compared to what the rest of the week was like!

There was one kind of funny thing that happened when we were working Thursday night. Around 10 p.m., my boss could see flashing police lights in the parking lot not too far outside her office window. (We're in a one-story, somewhat sprawling building, and the whole building is ours.) There's a courtyard between her office and the parking lot, and a fence obscures her view, so we decided to move to another office with a clear view to see what was going on. Just as we were standing there, looking out and trying to see what the cop was doing, a second police car pulled into the parking lot, sweeping the building--and US standing at the window--with a spot light. My boss panicked and said something like, "Oh my God, they can see us!," and started to run out of the office until I pointed out that she was making us look like fugitives, hiding from the law; so then she decided we should turn on the office light to let the police see what obviously upstanding citizens we were. Anyway, nothing really came of the whole incident except for our enjoyment of a rather goofy interlude, but it felt kind of funny (as things often do when you're beyond tired). As far as we can figure, the first cop may have turned on his lights so the second cop could find him more easily because they certainly didn't have anyone in custody nor did we see any suspicious characters lurking around the building (except us).

Now the weekend's here and I need to catch up on a little sleep. It's only around 9:30 p.m., but I'm going to take a bath, put on my jammies, and go to bed and read. Yep, I need to do some serious relaxing. Because next week will probably be crazy at work too. Next week we have an appellate brief due. And a whole bunch of other things that need to be filed with the court in a case with a trial starting the week after next. I'm telling you, being a legal secretary is just filled with never ending glamour and excitement.