The Document Center Incident

I had a lot of angst, for many years, regarding document centers, and this was the pinnacle. I always felt stuck, rather than having made a career choice. I'm over that now, and don't feel like venting about it.  But this is still a great story. Probably happened to everyone at some point in their lives.
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“THE DOCUMENT CENTER INCIDENT”

The following took place 4 days, Monday through Thursday, in June 1995, when I worked in the Document Processing Center (“DPC”) at M and P. This is a letter I sent to a co-worker, Pete, who was away when these events happened. I've edited it as best I could to hopefully be understood by an average reader, and changed the real names.

Letter to Pete, July 4, 1995 

You actually missed me?? Aww. Hugh Kahn [an associate] emailed me “you really must miss Paula and Pete,” [my co-workers who were out] and I emailed him back, “Paula and Pete who?” He made a point of telling me in person how much that cracked him up. He has been added to my list of special people, ever since “The Incident.” Which I’ve been dying to tell you about.

This is what happened: Boy Wonder [a fellow co-worker who still works there today] was working on one of Joe's [partner's] documents. One of Joe's requested revisions was: “no romans, goddamit,” and Boy Wonder jokingly said, “I’m highly offended.” I emailed Joe's & Boy Wonder's comments to Lenny [another partner], who forwarded it to Joe, as well as new associate Sherry Koch, joking that the firm could be sued for discrimination against Romans. Normally Lenny cc’s me when he forwards my mail, but for some reason he failed to this time. So it came as a complete surprise when Sherry Koch came giggling into DPC to apologize for offending anyone in DPC.

Unfortunately, Hippo [DPC co-ordinator] was in there taking it all very seriously, but Sherry and I were all giggles. Sherry kept looking at her, then back at me. I told Sherry nobody was offended, but then Sherry would look at Hippo and apologize again. Hippo asked how she even knew, and she mentioned email from Lenny and like an idiot I admitted sending it to Lenny.

You are probably wondering why I’m telling you all this. You are probably wondering what this has to do with anything. I’ll tell you, everyone involved is still wondering. But the above-described was “The Incident”, and all there was to it. Wait til you hear what happens next.

To backtrack for a moment, earlier that day I had emailed Lenny, “Bored to death. Send poems.” He emailed back that I should ask Hugh for poems because he likes to write them. So I emailed Lenny, “I like your poems.” Lenny responded by sending a file of silly email he had gotten at different times from Hugh, including poems about “don’t touch that door!” and something about a $25.39 suit. So I emailed Lenny, with a cc to Hugh asking what those were about?

So, back to the story, just as Sherry was leaving DPC, an email arrived from Hugh to Lenny with a cc to me, “Why does this make me nervous?”

I emailed Hugh back:  “You have reason to be nervous after the stunt he just pulled on me!” with cc to Lenny.

Hugh: “what did the scoundrel do now?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer Hugh at this point, because I received an email from Sherry at that moment: “Boy, Hippo didn’t crack a smile,” and it took several emails back and forth with her to explain that Hippo has no sense of humor and that Sherry unfortunately blew my cover by coming in to apologize, with Sherry responding back that she was sorry for blowing my cover, but it was nice to meet all these fun people who had senses of humor, and she hoped I was having a good day. I responded it was an ok day so far - Lenny sent me poems. She sent back, “I didn’t know he wrote poems,” to which I replied, actually this time he sent Hugh’s poems. She responded, “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a talented attorney,” which I forwarded to Lenny who replied with cc’s to me and Hugh, “There is no such thing as a talented attorney, just talented people who have made career mistakes.” At one point I was emailing Sherry, Hugh and Lenny all at once and copying all of them, and somewhere during all these exchanges I wrote on one of them, “P.S. Hugh, I’m getting to you,” to which Lenny responded to Hugh, with cc’s to me and Sherry, “she’s getting to you, too, huh?” Basically, we were having a lot of fun. And it was heartwarming to get mail from Sherry saying how glad she was to have made new friends.

But the next day Sherry told me that Hippo had asked to see copies of the email she had received from me. Sherry told her she already deleted it. (Didi [another co-worker]), who witnessed this, told me that Hippo went to the extent of explaining to her how to “undelete” email but Sherry told her it was already gone from her list. Didi also told me that Hippo pressed Sherry for details, which Sherry refused to give.) Now, of course, all Hippo knew was that I had mentioned to her that I was the one that told Lenny about the comment about Romans that he forwarded to Sherry, causing Sherry to appear in DPC to apologize. So it didn’t surprise me that Hippo approached Sherry for evidence, although it did disturb me. I really wanted to talk to Joe, as it was his document and comment about the Romans, but he was out of the office that week.

At any rate, it still came as a complete surprise when I was called in to speak with Jan [human resources] and Mary [my supervisor], in which I was asked to sign a memo that I was to receive a one-day suspension for “breaching confidentiality” and “abuse of email.” I figured Mary would be concerned and speak with me, or babble in her way, and that would be the end of it, if anything happened at all. I felt like I had been thrown into the twilight zone, sitting there in front of Jan having to “explain myself.”

At lunch when I showed the memo to Paula [aforementioned absent co-worker with whom I ate lunch every day] she pointed out that it was a suspension, meaning I wasn’t to show up Tuesday (I had read it as they were going to dock me for a day).  I went back to work after lunch in a state of shock. I emailed Hugh, Sherry and Lenny, “Am truly depressed. Send cheer.” When I didn’t get any response I felt like I didn’t have a friend in the world. I didn’t know that Hugh by this time had called Lenny up to ask him if he was aware I had lost a day’s pay (which is what I had told him before I went to lunch) and that everybody was scared to death of ever using email again. I just thought nobody cared about me. I was literally sitting at my terminal crying.

I emailed Jan and Mary that I had a headache (which I did. It’s about the third stress headache I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. I rarely get headaches) and was going home. Just then Hugh called me. When I answered he inquired as to how I was doing, and I was so relieved that somebody cared I just burst into tears. I told him, “you just made me cry again.” He was totally silent for a long time.  He just let me cry, ready to listen whenever I was ready to speak. The more I felt him just being there for me the more I cried. Finally I managed to say, “why do you ask?” which just cracked him up. Well, hearing him laughing I just started laughing, which made him laugh harder and I was laughing and crying at the same time. I thanked him for being there for me when I felt I didn’t have a friend in the world, and asked him if I could come to his office.

On the way I ran into Sherry, and invited her into his office with me. Sherry couldn’t believe this was happening (welcome to M and P), apologized over and over, repeating that the one thing she was glad about was she at least made a new friend, and gave me a big hug. The three of us discussed things for a while, after which I was greatly heartened.

I called Lenny and asked if I could see him, and that wimp actually said he was worried about anyone seeing me come to his office! I told him nobody would see me. (Note: Lynette [his secretary] later told me that actually somebody DID see me go into his office and asked her if “he and I were an item,” to which she responded in her own inimitable style, “an item of what?”) [note to reader: Lenny is gay and I was married.] I went up there and told him I was especially hurt by him not responding to my email, and thought he was suddenly cold and heartless and not my friend any more, but he said he still was and I gave him a big hug and cried all over his shirt. He just said that he had been advised by another partner (he wasn’t supposed to tell me who, but he admitted it was Rick Drimmer) that he should take it easy on email for a while. Lenny said he was going to talk to Jan and tell her he thought the whole thing was a stupid misunderstanding, but he never did.

Anyway, I was really traumatized. I never had anything on my personnel record in all my employment history. I was an emotional wreck for a week.

This occurred on Friday, so I had a miserable weekend forming a response to the memo, which I had to submit by Monday if I was to get the Tuesday suspension lifted. Lenny helped me write it, via phone Sunday night. He said that I should specifically mention the words “retaliation” on Mary’s part, and “stress”, because although Jan and Mary might be too stupid to think about lawsuits, those words would definitely trigger “lawsuit” to Fred [office manager]. He was apparently right, because for the first time in my history at M and P Fred requested a meeting with me.

When I heard Fred wanted to talk to me I called Mary and told her that I didn’t want to say anything to him that I hadn’t said to her face. I had a lot of questions. For one, I wanted to know why she didn’t come to me first? Her answer surprised me. Mary and I talked for a long time. She said she did want to talk to me first, but because of all the difficulty we had communicating in the past, she went to human resources for advice on how to talk to me. I thought this was consistent with her personality - she would feel inadequate to deal with this and would go to her superiors. What was particularly surprising, however, was she told me the suspension was Fred’s idea (and Jan had already told me that she was trying to get my “sentence” reduced to a warning but Fred didn’t agree). Mary was plain exhausted, and kept answering questions I hadn’t asked. I pieced the puzzle together from the pieces she gave me as she responded to what she thought I was asking. Through it all I gleaned that Mary really wasn’t after my butt, she just wasn’t going to go out of her way to save it. She “cares” about me in some kind of Christian way, not with any personal loyalty. But I didn’t see any maliciousness on her part. She genuinely wanted to get along, and was just too stupid to predict the effect of her actions. And I could see Jan trying her best, but being ineffective.

So after talking to Mary I suddenly grocked on Fred. He wasn’t going to be sympathetic to anything I said in the memo (which was that Mary was retaliating against me and Lenny for having complained about her) - which I no longer believed anyway. I think I truly violated Mary’s sense of moral duty to the attorneys, but I don’t think it was vindictive on her part, just idiotic. I went into the meeting armed with the knowledge that Fred’s mind was already made up about the suspension, and meeting with me was all for “show.”

I didn’t want to listen to a whole bunch of bullshit first thing about how Mary and I have to learn to get along, so the first thing I said when I went into Fred’s office was that I had a long talk with Mary and cleared things up between us. If Fred was “scared” I would sue he did not let on. He explained that the reason for my suspension was because I breached confidentiality and that credibility was lost by DPC users due to my actions, because they could no longer trust DPC to keep information about their documents within DPC.

I told him I didn’t believe that, and that in my opinion the perception of management’s heartlessness toward me had far worse ramifications for the firm in loss of camaraderie and morale than any imagined loss of confidence in DPC by my actions. I told him there were attorneys afraid to email me, or even be seen with me.

Fred made a face that he either didn’t believe me or didn’t care.

And I told him that management was viewed as heartless by the firm, without mentioning names. So Jan (who was in the meeting with us) said without names, there’s no way to explain why they think that way and I told her she didn’t need any names because about 5 years ago the firm hired an outside “analyzer” who gave the same findings, which were published in a memo to the entire firm, and the result of which were mandatory sensitivity seminars that all employees had to attend. Jan’s jaw dropped and Fred dismissed that with, “every office thinks that about their management.”

I said, No they don’t! You don’t care that you are perceived as heartless?  Apparently, he didn't.  He simply asked, “Why’d you do it?”

I said because I’m not heartless and I like to make people smile, because people are really stressed out in this place and can use a break to smile, but if you are heartless, then you’ll never understand.

Jan once again brought up the fact to Fred that I had no way of knowing that Lenny would forward my email, to which I hoped I looked sincere when I looked downcast and admitted, “That’s true...”

I had brought with me the article in last Friday's memo listing points management should keep in mind, with choice parts highlighted, such as “talk to your people first before slamming them.” Fred read it (he obviously hadn’t seen it before, which shows how much interest he has in the Friday memo), and said he agreed with all those points, so I said then how come I wasn’t talked to first?

Jan said I have a point, and Fred said something about fairness. So I asked him if he thought I had been treated fairly? Jan looked perplexed and Fred said, “yes, I do.”

So I asked if there was anything more to talk about and he said only to decide on when the suspension should take place, and he asked me if I knew of any reason why it shouldn’t be tomorrow? and I said, “that’s fine with me,” knowing Hippo would also be out which would give Mary a big scheduling headache.

This whole thing drained the life blood out of me. I found out I work for a vampire. My new nickname for Fred Gold is “Fred Ghoul”.

So, I was off without pay on Wednesday, and on Thursday I walked around the office asking attorneys to write complimentary memos to my personnel file. I figured if Fred was going to insist that credibility had been lost in DPC due to my actions, I was going to fill my personnel file with memos proving him wrong. I didn’t care that it looked contrived. My point was that if what Fred said was true I wouldn’t be able to get the memos, would I?

By Friday, Joe was finally back in the office. (Remember, this was Joe's document and Joe's comments about Romans). He was sickened that Administration felt they needed to take such harsh action against me and spoke to Rob Black [another partner] about getting the whole thing removed from my personnel file. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do that, the argument being that the Administration is the same entity as the partners, and one entity can’t go against itself. This makes sense legally, but not humanly, which Joe realized. I told him that my review is coming up, and I feared I wouldn’t get a raise. He said he was going to tell Fred that his personal feelings are that I did not violate the confidentiality of his document, nor in his opinion did I abuse email, but unfortunately, he can’t tell Fred what action to take. He said he would also write me a recommendation to give if I went job hunting, and would also write a generally complimentary memo to my file. At least Joe has the balls to tell Fred his opinion. Lenny the Wimp (Lynette was really angry at him. She went on and on about how Lenny should have come to my defense) just lamented the fact that the partners were powerless to go against Administration.

Interestingly, Paula told me that she ran into Grace Seeley [a former associate] in the plaza after she left M and P and Grace had told her that Administration treated them like second class citizens. Brad Mahler [another former associate] had voiced similar complaints to Paula. He told her that the attorneys were never consulted about what they wanted before any decisions were made. And Linda Mick [law librarian] told me her friend Luke worked at the firm where Fred came from before M and P and they all called him “the jerk” over there. So much for Fred.

P.S. Rick Barber and Mauricio [associates] (who are unaware of any of this), were delighted to write nice memos about me, and they did - both on the same day. Mary was delighted. She didn’t have a clue that I had asked for them (what else is new?) And I don’t think she would have cared if she did. Both memos mentioned how professionally the department was run, with specific mention of my name (and Rick even mentioned Hippo). Although I’m seething at Hippo (who told Mary and got me into this mess) I’ll be magnanimous enough to share the spotlight with her. I’m happy because if the department is so professional how can anyone say I ruined DPC’s reputation? Mary proudly displayed them on the bulletin board, bordered with positive evaluation slips. Those memos really made her day, and if it had not been for all my troubles, I would never have thought to ask for those memos. But, I intend to keep them coming. Every time I get a compliment I’m gonna ask for it in writing. Paula wants for us both to sue, and if it ever comes to that, I want my personnel file fat with good memos discrediting Fred’s accusation.

So everything’s changed. We don’t email like we used to. Work is super boring. After making up a slew of nicknames for Nate Wilke (which Nate totally got into the spirit of) Boy Wonder has taken to finding nicknames for all the attorneys. (I told him my nickname for him was Boy Wonder, and would you believe he loves it?! I can call him Boy Wonder to his face now. He says, “just call me Robin.”) However, Hippo nipped his little game in the bud. After Sam Jarrod made a big scene about putting slash marks in his document, Boy Wonder dubbed him “the Slasher” but Hippo intervened because it isn’t proper to give the attorneys nicknames, and it was not to be tolerated. So we have to do it in secret.

Whew. So that’s the whole gory story of my recent M and P misadventure...

Prologue August 16, 1995: The happy ending is that I got a great review and raise despite all this. I also found out that Lenny had emailed Fred to express his opinion that he didn’t think I breached confidentiality, to which Fred responded, “I think she did.” Even though he got nowhere with Fred, I was relieved to hear that Lenny had come to my defense after all!!