Quitting Your Job

Quitting your job: When enough is enough ... does this title bring back memories? It does for me.

A few years ago I was unemployed, looking for a job and accepted some temporary work in a law firm.

Within my first week I noticed a job posting for a legal assistant on the notice board. This being a full-time position I wasted no time and applied.

That same day the personnel manager called me in his office, said that he had received my application and that he wanted to point out one important aspect of this job ... the lawyer who needed the assistant was extremely difficult.

"She is so difficult," the man stated, "that we cannot fill this position. Nobody wants to work for her."

This did not scare me. I had worked for difficult people before. If they were willing to give me a chance, I was willing to give it a try.

Hesitant in outright hiring me, the personnel manager agreed to place me in the job on a temporary basis, that way I could test the waters.

In the beginning everything went fine and I could not quite understand why the woman I worked for was labeled as difficult. She sure was friendly to me. We got along great, so great in fact that after three weeks she decided to hire me full-time. I felt like I was sitting on a bed of roses. Hm, what I was sitting on was in fact a time bomb.

No sooner was I a full-time employee or the trouble started. My lawyer became moody, arrogant and at times very rude. One of her favorite games was to ask me for a specific file. No small task given that I was still not quite familiar with the filing system and there were about 700 files in the filing cabinet.

While frantically looking for a specific file she would yell from her office if I had found the file yet; that she was charging $350 an hour to her clients and that she as such had no times to waste.

Sometimes I found the file, sometimes I did not. I would tremble like a leaf if I had to go and tell her that I could not find a specific file. At such times all hell would break loose. She would yell some more, roll her eyes, ball her hands to fists and throw a tantrum that would be the talk of the office for days.