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Nov. 1st, 2008 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieCaswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson took up a couple of floors in a highrise downtown. In the atrium of the lobby of the building was a small cafe that served coffee and pastry and bagels in the morning, and coffee and pastry and sandwiches in the afternoon. There was also, inexplicably, a flower shop and a tailor. Past the atrium was the security desk and the banks of elevators, and every morning Val would get a coffee from the cafe and wave hello to the security guys on his way to the elevator. He knew he'd had a late day if the morning security guys had been replaced by the evening security guys by the time he went home.
Monday mornings, the elevators were always full of grumpy, tired people in suits, although you were usually guaranteed at least one morning person or at the very least a chirpy person. Val tried not to be the chirpy person, because he understood that some people were not morning people and didn't want to be perked at first thing, especially not crammed into an elevator with a bunch of other people with their purses and briefcases and shoulder bags and cups of coffee. Mondays were just too early in the week to have to pretend to be friendly.
He couldn't do anything about being a morning person, and at least he wasn't any more excited to be at work than anyone else. Especially when he was pretty much guaranteed a really busy workweek, and he'd had a nice, restful weekend.
The lobby of Caswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson was all polished wood and subdued lighting and the kind of artwork you found in vaguely stuffy professional offices. This morning there was a guy in a wrinkled suit sitting in one of the chairs reading a Newsweek, and a bike messenger already delivering something to Maggie at the front desk. Val checked his watch. It was almost 8:30. Someone really needed something right away.
"Good morning, sunshine," Maggie chirped as Val walked past her. She was also a morning person. Either that or she was terminally perky. She was probably old enough to be his mom, and he liked her.
The bike messenger nodded at Val on her way out. He was a little surprised that she was a she - he knew there were female bike messengers, but he hardly ever saw them. This one was kind of cute, although it was sometimes hard to tell what they really looked like under their helmets.
"There's muffins in the kitchen," Maggie told Val. "IT is working on the network, so you might not get all your internal email right away. Catherine's looking for you."
Catherine was one of the associates Val had been working with for the past week. She'd just started on a big case that seemed to require a lot of research, which meant that she thought she was entitled to a lot of his time, which meant that a lot of other things he was working on got pushed around. He hadn't learned how to tell Lawyer #4 that he couldn't assist her 100% of the time because he was also assisting Lawyers 1, 2, and 3, but he had learned to tell the lawyers he was already helping. The end result was that on Friday Catherine had yelled at Lawyer #2, because Lawyer #2 had needed Val for something and Val had asked if it took precedence over the research Catherine had demanded of him, just so he'd know how to organize his time. Lawyer #2, an uptight but reasonably fair guy named Theo, had set Val on his task and had gone to talk to Catherine about monopolizing his law clerks.
Catherine did not take it well. She snapped "He's not your law clerk, he's the firm's law clerk", which was when Val stopped listening. He liked Theo and liked working with him, even though Theo was very particular and not especially flexible - when he said "I need you to look up these three cases and tell me this about them", he meant just those three cases and just that information, and he didn't want to know anything else you might have found. But he also wanted to introduce Val to a variety of cases and verdicts and processes, and the more things Val could be exposed to, the happier he was.
He wondered what Catherine wanted on a Monday morning. He figured she was going to either give him more work or tell him off for talking to Theo and potentially losing her some assistance.
words: 769
total words: 1245
Monday mornings, the elevators were always full of grumpy, tired people in suits, although you were usually guaranteed at least one morning person or at the very least a chirpy person. Val tried not to be the chirpy person, because he understood that some people were not morning people and didn't want to be perked at first thing, especially not crammed into an elevator with a bunch of other people with their purses and briefcases and shoulder bags and cups of coffee. Mondays were just too early in the week to have to pretend to be friendly.
He couldn't do anything about being a morning person, and at least he wasn't any more excited to be at work than anyone else. Especially when he was pretty much guaranteed a really busy workweek, and he'd had a nice, restful weekend.
The lobby of Caswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson was all polished wood and subdued lighting and the kind of artwork you found in vaguely stuffy professional offices. This morning there was a guy in a wrinkled suit sitting in one of the chairs reading a Newsweek, and a bike messenger already delivering something to Maggie at the front desk. Val checked his watch. It was almost 8:30. Someone really needed something right away.
"Good morning, sunshine," Maggie chirped as Val walked past her. She was also a morning person. Either that or she was terminally perky. She was probably old enough to be his mom, and he liked her.
The bike messenger nodded at Val on her way out. He was a little surprised that she was a she - he knew there were female bike messengers, but he hardly ever saw them. This one was kind of cute, although it was sometimes hard to tell what they really looked like under their helmets.
"There's muffins in the kitchen," Maggie told Val. "IT is working on the network, so you might not get all your internal email right away. Catherine's looking for you."
Catherine was one of the associates Val had been working with for the past week. She'd just started on a big case that seemed to require a lot of research, which meant that she thought she was entitled to a lot of his time, which meant that a lot of other things he was working on got pushed around. He hadn't learned how to tell Lawyer #4 that he couldn't assist her 100% of the time because he was also assisting Lawyers 1, 2, and 3, but he had learned to tell the lawyers he was already helping. The end result was that on Friday Catherine had yelled at Lawyer #2, because Lawyer #2 had needed Val for something and Val had asked if it took precedence over the research Catherine had demanded of him, just so he'd know how to organize his time. Lawyer #2, an uptight but reasonably fair guy named Theo, had set Val on his task and had gone to talk to Catherine about monopolizing his law clerks.
Catherine did not take it well. She snapped "He's not your law clerk, he's the firm's law clerk", which was when Val stopped listening. He liked Theo and liked working with him, even though Theo was very particular and not especially flexible - when he said "I need you to look up these three cases and tell me this about them", he meant just those three cases and just that information, and he didn't want to know anything else you might have found. But he also wanted to introduce Val to a variety of cases and verdicts and processes, and the more things Val could be exposed to, the happier he was.
He wondered what Catherine wanted on a Monday morning. He figured she was going to either give him more work or tell him off for talking to Theo and potentially losing her some assistance.
words: 769
total words: 1245
no subject
Date: 2008-11-01 08:44 pm (UTC)Looks like you're off to a great start!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 05:10 am (UTC)i'm glad you like it so far. :D