2005-07-01 - 5:06 p.m.
Holy shit. This morning was very stressful, and now I�ve done a crappy job. I was supposed to check the cites for CHE, a senior associate, on a brief she had written. I got to work at 7:30 and I had until 13:00 to finish. I finished at 14:00, but that�s not the bad part.
I made a lot of mistakes. CHE couldn�t trust my changes and so she was forced to check everything herself. Basically meaning I was worthless to her. First, I was supposed to Shepardize, but I totally forgot to check the little flags and so she found one of the cases had been reversed and was now bad law. Huge miss on my part. Imagine if the brief was submitted with a red-flag case in it!!! Fuck. Then I didn�t tell her that there was a proposition which was not supported by the citation she had used. So she discovered it herself. Then I pinpoint-cited to the headnotes a bunch of times, instead of to the text. And all that was only on the first document.
I knew about all those mistakes when I was working on the second document, a proposed order. I was completely stressing out: heart racing, etc. The time pressure, the constant phone calls telling me all the mistakes I�d made on the previous document, etc. I thought I was really careful doing the order: I checked flags, I checked pinpoint cites (NOT to the headnotes), I added Cal. Rptr. cites, etc. And then I emailed her to ask how it was and she wrote, �There were still some problems with the cites on the order. Let's sit down and discuss once everything is out. Thanks.� Ouch. My heart froze. And then started going again, double time. How could I have made more mistakes? How am I so stupid that I didn�t Shepardize the first time? How could I have made more mistakes the second time after she had warned me about all the mistakes I was making? I mean, this is like my most important function right now, as a peon. I am supposed to be adept at checking things like this. And yet I utterly failed and she had to do everything herself.
I know it was stupid to not start the assignment last night when I got it. She gave it to me at 17:45 and I was meeting Lotta for happy hour at 18:15 and so I just figured I�d come in early and do it this morning. I got here at 7:30, but I�d meant to get here at 7:00. It wouldn�t have made much of a difference. I still would have been late with it, and I still would have made the mistakes.
I am freaking out for my meeting with her. I cannot guarantee I won�t cry. I know part of the reason I screwed up so bad was the time crunch. Part of it was because I didn�t trust myself and whenever I saw something I thought was wrong I just figured I was wrong and the document was right. But the part that scares�oh shit. She�s calling.
---Ohhhhhkay. Breathe. Do not cry.---It went OK. She was very nice. She�s only a senior associate, so it�s not like I fucked it all up with a partner or anything. But still. She said that it always takes a long time to do this sort of thing when you�re just starting out�SED took two days to cite check a 50-page brief when he started. That made me feel better. But still. She said that the details are so important and we were lucky that local co-counsel had some really good people who could just pick up the slack. And she said that everyone has their first work thing that they screw up, so mine wasn�t so bad, considering.
Ugh. I fucking HATE messing up. I hate not being perfect. I hate when people are mad at me. I hate when I do a poor job. Thank God it is Friday and I don�t have to deal with these feelings of indadequacy any more this week.
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