I�m just feeling so overwhelmed
2005-05-11, 1:37 p.m.

I�m just feeling so overwhelmed by the legal stuff at work right now. It�s not that anybody is truly against me in this latest fracas; it�s that I�m caught up in a lawyer pissing contest, and I have a feeling that I�m going to be everyone�s sacrificial lamb. In which case I�ll be crucified. Or maybe the scapegoat, in which case, if you know your Old Testament, I�ll be painted with everyone else�s sins and then set out to roam in the wilderness.

�No offense, Laura, but we had to sue you. It�s just so that we can get the proper paperwork filed to protect ourselves and our interests, but in the meantime, please come in so we can drill you with questions for which there are no answers, and catch your ineptitude on tape. It�s just a formality. We really like ya.�

ARRRGHHHH! Depositions! Injunctions! Temporary restraining orders! Affidavits! Hearings! I�m only tangentially involved in this deal, but I feel like I�m in the center of an ungelled galaxy, and all of this goo is slowly circling around me, becoming more and more and more distinct and defined and slowly turning into planets, and I�m slowly becoming able to make out features on the surfaces of the planets. And the natives are not friendly, and everyone is looking for someone to blame, or at least to take my videotaped deposition and edit it so that my eye-rolling and face-making are highlighted.

Suffice it to say that this started with a snowball that I naively got caught in and couldn�t extricate myself from, and it has rolled downhill, slowly picking up momentum, and now we�re careening and crashing toward the bottom. It has blossomed, in a kind of foul, fetid slime mold kind of blossoming, from a troubled property that was not making its mortgage payments into something rather disastrous.

Not for me, but for other parties involved, and I warned them. I told them exactly what was going to happen, and what they needed to do to prevent it from happening, and they didn�t do it. I believe that this demonstrates a rather stunning lack of business savvy. To have the resources (human and financial) to repair the damage before it really starts, but not to take action.

It could have been so simple and I would have made it so easy on them. I would have simply walked away and left them to enjoy their spoils.

This is not a disaster for me or my organization, but it is for the other parties that gladly and willingly got involved yet did not heed my warnings or advice, and they are going to drag me into it so that while it has no financial repercussion on me, it is going to take the maximum emotional toll.

Please be assured that none of this threatens my job. I�m not getting fired, I�m not quitting, nothing bad is going to happen in the long run. My heartburn is that I�m not really happy in this job due to things like this. If I could do my real work, I�d be so happy. A little bored, but happy. It�s the constantly ringing phone, the emergencies (other people�s emergencies), the wrenches thrown in to the works. I have a hard time dealing with the constantly shifting focus, the barrage of new (other people�s) problems.

People calling and telling me what I have to do for them, what I have to get for them. How in the world can the future of the human race depend on me like this? Why will the sky fall if I personally don�t get out there and prop it back up? Stuff like this makes me want to just pack up my shit and go home.

Of course, there would be no dramatic exit because (1) there�s no one on this end of the hall to witness it, and (2) I have too much personal shit here, and would have to come back for several trips up and down the stairs with boxes. It�s hard to do the dramatic walk-out when you keep coming back for more dusty boxes of shit.

OK, enough of the drama, the hand-wringing, the overplayed emotions.

It�s time to party, y�all.

I�ll let you know when I figure out what we�re partying about, and I�m definitely going to have a drink while I think about it. Well, after work hours. Until then, we toast with water!

Y�all keep the shiny side up and the muddy side down.