Jurorsaurus

For a change of pace, all last week, I sat for 8 hours a day. Well, actually, I guess not change of pace. Exact same pace. Different place. Different time. Different pay. Less comfortable chair. I was a juror on a personal injury lawsuit. I sat through four days of character witnesses and doctors' testimonies. It was a rude invasion into someone's life, but she volunteered it.

I have a new loathing for personal injury lawyers. Their logic is annoyingly fallible. The plaintiff's lawyer's closing arguments were literally nauseating. His attempt at mixing logic with emotion wouldn't emulsify. You know, mayonnaise is an emulsion of vegetable oil and egg yolks. Try eating that unemulsified and that's about how I felt during his closing argument. Then, the defense followed. The two lawyers split their time. The woman's argument was more palatable. For me, her argument and the testimony of one of the doctors really shaped my opinion. The male defense lawyer tried the fire and brimstone angle. Not a fan. He started yelling about how the plaintiff's emotional argument made him angry. I don't respond well to yelling. I shut down.

We deliberated for 2.5 hours and awarded the plaintiff about 6.5% of what they asked for.

I'm not as stupid as Judy must think I am

We have a client with ridiculous two-sided, full-color, full-bleed business cards. They've ordered them for various employees maybe five times in the year I've been here. And I have fucked them up every time. The first time, it was a minor foible. Typo or something. The second time, was probably a typo too, but being the second mess up, it's no longer a foible. The third time, they'd moved, so I had to change their address and I left the old zip code. I'm such a flake. A long time went between the third and fourth. I forgot they'd moved, so I sent the proof with the old address. I'm an idiot. Now, I picked the one oddly formatted card to create proofs for new employees, so the alignment and spacing is all wrong. I can only imagine what the card orderer thinks of me. Has she even noticed that I've fucked up their cards every time she's ordered them? I want to email her some long excuse begging her not to think I'm stupid. But that would probably just annoy her.

This is my life . . .

I'm excited over my credit card company actually doing something nice.

I recently paid for my car insurance with my credit card, so I could get the rewards points. I paid it off right away. In fact, my payment cleared before the insurance charge did. Problem was, there are two accounts I pay from and I chose the one that didn't have that much money in it. It was rejected, but I noticed it right away and payed again from the correct account. They hit me with a returned check fee. But I called and explained I'd chosen the wrong account and would love it if they'd remove the charge. And they did. Sweet! I love you customer service representative.

Now, if I can just get Geico to realize I don't live in South Carolina anymore...

A customer yelled for God to damn me today. Literally! I couldn't help him in exactly the way he wanted me to. I offered him an alternative, but it wasn't good enough and he yelled "God Damn You!" and hung up. I threw the phone down and went completely non-functional. I just kinda stood then paced then waved at my face. Should I go cry in the bathroom? Should I call him back and tell him how absolutely unacceptable such conduct is? Should I go tell my boss? It felt like I was stuck like that for ten minutes. I was in full meltdown mode, shaking and crying. And I went to ask my boss what kind of things I could get away with saying on a call back. He apologized for the man and went upstairs to call him back. But man beat him to it and called back apologizing for his outburst. Then he tried to work out his problem with my boss, but my boss had the same solution I did. So he yelled at my boss too. "You're not help," and hung up. My boss called him back and told the man's machine that we would have no further dealings.

Ashley: "Cute is the new subversive."

It's just cute. Nothing meaningful. But there is the idea to ponder that cute is the new subversive.

Sometimes things seem so profound.

Aaron, Oscar and I had lunch on Wednesday. We came up with an idea about a notebook titled "Things to Take Seriously." Sounds like a list for McSweeney's. Of course the things in it would have to be ridiculous.

A note on becoming an adult: When you rent a car, make sure you get the walk-around report first, in case you don't bump a fire hydrant, but there's a huge scratch that looks like a bump with a fire hydrant. Also, don't take the free upgrade with half a tank of gas. Because they'll think it's supposed to be full when you return it. Of course, it may eventually work out, but it'll still be a delay and 10 minutes of worrying that could be better aimed at, I don't know, deadlines or finding better car insurance.