Coal for Christmas

There is cheap and then there is law firm cheap. Then there is the law firm that I work for. My employer, the law firm also known as Labatory Suckaroo, is starting to explore new boundaries in the realm of law firm cheapness, by, among other things, threatening to cut off our internet access, delaying our right to receive benefits, refusing to pay overtime, and cutting off our heat on the weekends. Ah...the christmas spirit is alive and well at this place...

To bring you up to speed, I'm still (for the time being) in charge of the document review project which is going strong and heading towards trial. However, we are still knee deep in documents to review. Depositions are coming up so we have to work weekends in order to review all the docs before then. Weekend work is generally a good thing in the temp world - it means more hours which means more pay. Remember that we don't get sick days, vacation days, etc., so weekend work is a good chance to make some extra dough. So last week, when I had my sit-down with the CFO of the firm, (an italian-american who bears an extraordinary likeness to Joe Pesci and answers the question: what would happen if Nicky Santoro decided to stop being a Las Vegas gangster and become a corporate tool), I was delighed to learn that weekend work would be available. However, Joey Fish make it clear to me that it was a privilege to get weekend work and he wanted to see some results (or else?) from the firm granting highly educated and trained attorneys the privilege to tool away for them at $32 an hour. (We also had a "discussion" about how to improve productivity, since Mr. Pesci/Santoro had concerns about the number of documents we were reviewing per hour. I asked whether it would be appropriate for me to bring a whip to work. Mr. Pesci/Santoro didn't think this was funny and for a second, I think I saw him consider the idea).

OK, so anyway, we have weekend work. While I would rather be at home, I'm glad to be given the opportunity to make some extra money. So, when I came in to the office on Saturday morning, I was generally in a good mood despite missing the extra sleep. The other attorneys on my team who also decided to come in were also happy to get the extra hours. However, we soon learned that the extra hours would come at a cost: our extremities. Our wonderfully generous law firm had forgotten to mention that they wouldn't be paying to heat our room for the weekend. Last saturday, if you remember was the day it rained and was about 40 degree - eventually it snowed. We showed up to work wet and then had to spend the rest of the day in a freezing room. Literally, people were shivering at their desks. One attorney stayed in her winter jacket all day and typed with gloves on. By 3 pm, when the sun started to go down, it started becoming unbearably cold. I was wearing my sweater, a coat, and a hoodie sweatshirt and still was freezing because the room was probably in the lows 50s/high 40s. In order to work, I had to continually blow on my hands or they went numb. In short, it wasn't a fun time.....I'm lucky I didn't get terribly sick.

Now, you may be asking; why didn't you say anything J-dawg? Why didn't you complain or ask for heat? These are all good questions and in a world where people treated their workers with dignity and respect, such questions would be rightly brought. Why didn't I bring up the issue? Well, I'll tell you why. As I said, by around 4 pm, it started to get unbearable - no one could work. One of my team members posted something on facebook about freezing her ass off at work and a paralegal who is actually one of the few decent human beings at the firm, responded by asking what she could do to help. She also asked why I didn't ask to do anything about it. A reasonable question since I am technically in charge.

Spurred on by the paralegal, I finally took the plunge into the insanity that is Suckoroo's HR/Short term attorney department and emailed first the facilities person (out of office reply message) then the assistant HR person (another out of office reply), then the head HR person. I knew I was starting up a shitstorm asking for a basic necessity such as heat, but what could i do? We had to come in tomorrow and face this cold and something had to be done.

So, anyway, after I sent out the email requesting some heat, I didn't get a response right away. At 6 am the next day, I got a response from the head of HR saying that she was sorry but she couldn't get us heat "because high rises like this one turn off the heat on the weekend". What a bullshit answer. Yes, I know high rises turn off the heat on the weekend, but you pay rent, you can ask them to turn on the heat and fucking pay the extra $200/300 to heat the space. But, no, you don't want to do that. You don't want to spend the money to treat your workers like human beings - you'd rather let them freeze and be uncomfortable than spend the money to heat the space. OK, fine, I said. Why fight this battle? I'll just suck it up and come in and suffer for a few hours. I knew it wasn't worth the fight. So, Sunday was spent the same way as Saturday; sitting at our desks in the cold (luckily it wasn't as bad) blowing on our hands and wearing our winter coats while trying to get our feet from freezing up......

Flashforward to today. More weekend work coming up. I hadn't even really bothered to pursue the heat thing, hoping that maybe it would work itself out. Then the temperature starting dropping thursday night - and it got colder and colder - tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day of the year. Still, I did nothing - I'm so beaten down by these people that I just accepted my fate and started to plan what I could wear to stay warm. The paralegal, god bless her soul, decided to fight and what a battle she had. After some scathing emails and getting cursed out and yelled at by HR, the paralegal finally got us heat. I heard the story second hand from her but apparently, it was a pitched battle to get us the heat. After numerous conference calls and emails back and forth, the firm relented and spent the extra couple hundred dollars to heat the room. So, bottom line, we will have heat tomorrow, which is good because it's supposed to be like 20 degrees...the firm is not happy about having to pay for heat and sees it like they are giving us something extra; the paralegal in question had to spend some important bargaining chips to get us the heat and is now wary of going to battle for us in the future so in some ways, it's a loss. Really, it's just absurdthe way this firm operates and they ought to feel shame about this entire thing. For me, it's just another day in Shit Law. At least I don't have to wear my hat, scarf, and gloves at my desk tomorrow though, so I got that going for me.