assembly line
my dept is like a factory of sorts. (won't go into too much detail for fear of boring those who have no notion of how the admin side of law firms work...) chug-chug-chug paperwork in, paperwork out, paperwork back in and then off to me to process. this is the way things have always been run, at least as long as i have worked here. i think at some point maybe two or three people did every step from beginning to end, but i don't think that sounds very efficient.
sometimes i feel guilty about being the person on the end because i get MUCH LOVE. the rest of the folks in my dept don't get the same kind of treatment because they get involved somewhere other than at the end of the process. i am a goal. hearing from me means that the finish line has been crossed (for the most part). they are an obstacle. so there it goes.
i hear a lot of complaints -- not all the time, mind you, because of my still crazed office arrangements -- about this person and that person from the folks in my dept, and while i may shake my head in mock disbelief and smile knowingly ("yes, she is a crackwhore. and she can't spell for shit."), i'm sometimes astonished because i hardly recognize the people they're talking about. someone may be as sweet as pie to me and a raving lunatic bitch to my coworkers -- all in the very same breath.
the nicer part of me wishes that my dept-mates got to see the kinder, gentler side of the firm, but the hag part (the one that shrieks, "ha!") is perfectly content with the situation.