After working at this place for my 3rd summer in a row, plus the one summer in high school, I have accumulated a lot of things for this list.

Like

• Bernice's life lessons/hilarity
  • Favorite quotations from her:
    • "I got pregnant at 19, and it kept happening; then I figured out it was the sex."
    • "Those old women are just tired and cranky because they aren't getting any and you young girls are."
• Commiserating with my father about the people who annoy us because we almost always agree.
• When bizarre people come by and Mallory tells me the stories when I come in.
  • The story of the woman who wanted an attorney to represent her because she believed the FBI was in a conspiracy against her and her family, and that she needed to dye her hair to disguise herself from the people who were out to get her; this story reminds me of when my great-grandmothers became senile though and would think bad men were coming to attack them in their homes though, so that makes me sad.
• The couriers- they are always nice, though some years we talk more than others; they are highly familiar with people taking their frustrations out on them and are always good to talk to
• The law clerks- they are always very friendly are are some of the only people who stop by the reception desk to talk in addition to the couriers
• The street mail delivery man/the UPS delivery man- though I do not know their names they are both always extremely friendly and amuse me with their excitement over me "letting them" eat the mints/get a bottle of water; unlike the FedEx guys, the same people always bring these deliveries
• Tim's whistling/singing as he wanders through the office, especially when he whistles my favorite "Winter Wonderland" (I love thinking about Christmas during the summer)
• Carleen's meaningful looks, especially when she subtly rolls her eyes after someone has just said something ridiculous- I got to see this more when my desk was in the real estate department for 2 summers
• The coffee with the French Vanilla Coffeemate is so good! Depending on my schedule, I don't always drink it, but I drank it every day when I came to work at 9 AM
  • Related to the coffee, my favorite mug with the multicolored diamond pattern around the top border
• The job security- since everyone has known me forever/my father is a partner, I'm not scared I will get fired every time I do something wrong.
• The mysterious nature of Sumter Street storage has always amused me. There's always only 1 courier who knows how to find anything there and gets sent there (Drew and William before him) and whenever someone comes back that person looks like they've been through some horrible trial since they're so sweaty/dirty. It also amused me that whenever the one person who knew how to find anything left, everyone was very concerned that there was no one left to go to Sumter Street.
• Picking a jury for my father last summer/writing discovery questions for his case against Target/going to the hearing for Joseph Brunson that my father referred to as a "circus"
• Filing when I am getting to read interesting cases
• The spreadsheet that I did on all the old employees because it was like reading through a history of the law firm/I got to see everyone's reasons for leaving while entering information on their start date/end date

Annoyed by

• The power struggle in the office between the assistants eg. the fact that Rhonda always gets mad about Carleen wanting the runners to complete tasks for the Real Estate Department because Rhonda thinks that with 2 assistants one of them should be able to do bank runs
• Assistants who create problems/go on power trips: Debi being unable to get highlighters for herself, Alisa's obsession with PCLaw and needing to make sure the cases were closed/her obsession with making me complete filing when the files were nowhere to be found in the file room, Cay's passive agressive e-mails that she always ends with Thanks! and something about the message coming from Rhonda/Tim to make it sound like she's not the one creating problems
• The temperature control problems- it's freezing everywhere but the reception desk, but whenever I was filing in the Real Estate File room, I would feel like I might pass out from the heat
• The fact that the couriers have to sit in the area adjacent to the real estate file room with no windows that they refer to as the "dungeon"- if they're only getting minimum wage plus mileage the people should at least get to sit in an area with proper chairs
• Blocking facebook/twitter is a travesty particularly when I am working as the receptionist forever and my head starts to ache from staring at the Sumter Street spreadsheet with its tiny font
• The fact that it has taken 3 years to make any progress on getting rid of files on Sumter Street from more than 15 years ago
• No one gets cakes for people's birthdays anymore, decreasing the community time and the hilarity that ensued from watching the awkward encounters between the older partners and the couriers who they barely knew.
• Ray Lark's attempts to talk to me about Duke because he always seems confused even though he went there and never remembers anything I tell him, making all of our conversations about Duke highly similar; his inability to tell me and Laura apart to the point that he still asks me if I'm Elizabeth despite the fact that Laura hasn't worked here in 6 years; for this reason he also refers to her constantly as "my sister" and not by name when asking about the family
• When some of the lawyers look at me/ask me stupid questions as if I know nothing even though this is the 3rd summer I've been here
• People who get mad when I don't know something even though no one has ever told me anything regarding whatever it is e.g. copying/recording FedExes in the special spreadsheet
• Cay's obsession with the postage and how no one but her can ever fill in the spreadsheet properly
• The lack of windows in the kitchen/the lack of chairs around the table creating a depressing atmosphere
• The lack of pretzels to go with the peanut butter-now all we have is this nasty pub mix and those bizarrely orange peanut butter crackers that no one but my father actually likes
• When Carleen won't pick up her phone, particularly when her mailbox is full and everyone calls back after they get her voicemail
• When I am taking messages for the 2 people here who don't check their voicemail regularly and the person hangs up before I can confirm their information with them,especially if the person was talking in confusing legal words that I didn't understand, so I have to send some incredibly vague message that makes no sense to anyone
• As receptionist, it can be very irritating to have to be near the desk at all times, creating a feeling of entrapment as I can no longer wonder freely around the office (though Cay already made me feel weird about wandering around when she was the receptionist); having to call someone to sit up here when I just need to go to the bathroom always makes me wonder if anyone's call is that important
• Ray's exasperated tone that he uses every time someone calls him or he thinks someone hasn't done what they're supposed to
• The fact that all clients seem to think they should be the top priority for their attorney at all times, to the point that they yell at me about how "urgently" they need to speak to someone when I can only put them to voicemail