So.. today was a valuable lesson in “Don’t piss off the Receptionist” for a number of people….

Newly Qualified Solicitor (aka NQS)

She wont be pissing me off any time soon again due to the fact that the MP now knows that shes refused to take any new clients for the past two weeks…

This situation is.. to coin a delightful phrase… fucking ridiculous… The Head of the Family Department (NMDP) has been away on vacation for two weeks… about one day in to his two week vacation NQS starts being a pain about taking calls.. then its…. “Don’t make any appointments for me this week..” which finally resulted in the Tuesday afternoon announcement “I can’t take any new clients for the next two weeks.”

Meh… this Firm may have its faults… as all firm’s do… but anyone working with this Firm will know one thing.. (and NQS has learnt it the hard way) you never turn away potential clients… no matter how busy you are.

The Stroppy Bitch trying to sell us the services of IT Support

Shes regretting (bearing in mind we are actually on the lookout for new IT Support) the way she spoke to me when I asked for more information before I would even consider putting her call through to the Senior Partner. When I attempted to point out to her that the SP makes none of the decisions regarding any aspect of IT and asked for more information so that I could ask NMDP to get in touch once he returned to the office she told me.. quite a number of times.. that she wasn’t going to waste her time giving me any information when I wasn’t a decision maker. In fact she said it a number of times… (wasting her time because she could have told me what it was about in a shorter space of time than it took her to tell me I’m not a decision maker). Finally.. after I had put up with her bollocks for far too long… I told her that indeed I may not be a decision maker as such.. but I was the person who decided if she spoke to anybody at the firm. I told her that company policy was that we do not take unsolicited calls (which it is) and hung up.

She called back immediately asking to be put through to the Senior Partner to make a complaint about me and I asked her if she would be so good to put me through to her supervisor as I wished to make a complaint about her second unsolicited call to the Firm in less than 2 minutes. She hung up.

The Knob from the Water Cooler Company

Do not… I repeat DO NOT… assume that because I am “Just the Receptionist” (as you so politely told me) that I will not know whether the Firm are interested in having water coolers. Do you honestly think you are the first person to call our company asking if we are interested in having water coolers??? No.. you’re not… I’ve been taking calls of that nature on an almost weekly basis for the last 7 years.. Fuck off already. And don’t think that attempting to insult me by calling me “Just the receptionist” is going to make me deal with your call next month (that you promised to make) any differently to the way I dealt with it today.

Non Typing Secretary (aka NTS)

OK.. so you haven’t actually done anything today to piss me off… but you really are getting to the top of my shit list…. because I.. more than anyone else in the Firm know..

• • that you steal stationary… (and I’m not talking paperclips here) I’m talking £15 a ream embossed paper and I saw you leaving th eother night with two reams of it…
  • take almost an hour to actually start work (because you arrive during lunchtime when I am usually the only one here and proceed to lurk by my desk and have a conversation with me until someone else comes along…
  • talk to your husband on the phone for nigh on 30 minutes every day during the lunchtime period when no-one else is around (I’m in charge of the phones dear.. it isn’t rocket science)….
  • you tell people you’ve spent 3 hours doing one job and I know for a fact you haven’t
  • and meh… you’re a secretary for Christ’s sake who can’t type!!!!! Thats enough right there…

The Twatty Delivery Guy Who Brings the Stationary

You might be cute.. you might be fit as all hell.. you might have a smile that would make any other girl feel special… you might think its macho to hurl the boxes around like they were featherweight… you might think I swoon at the sight of you wearing nothing more than your shorts and your refletive jacket… you may have guns that would make Navarone jealous.. but honey… you keep damaging my boxes of paper and envelopes so badly that half of them can’t be used and I’ll make another call the like of which I made today to your Route Manager…

OK???? Get it????

Did I mention my bonus was cool… and I should be able to fix the shower on Saturday morning cos the great lady at Triton assures me that if I can change a fuse I can change a pressure relief device….