The year was 2004. My daughter was two, we had just moved to a new town and we were living with my (now ex) inlaws. I was desperate for a job. After suffering through a succession of temp work that lasted only a few days, I was hooked up with a gig via my mother-in-law as a secretary to an attorney who had a private practice in the next town north. I nearly cried with joy when I was hired.

My elation was short-lived. My boss, a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Miss Piggy, was an absolute imbecile. How she managed to graduate from law school remains a mystery to this day, and she never seemed to have any clients.

Furthermore, Miss Piggy, Esq. chain smoked. In her office. All day long. I tried to open the windows and turn the fans out to ventilate, but every time I did, Miss Piggy would scream from her desk, “Close those goddamn windows! I don’t pay to heat the outdoors!” So I would have to languish for eight hours in the cloud of fetid, putrid air that emanated from the five packs of Virginia Slims she sucked down. It was so bad that I had to shower and change immediately after getting home each night. Everything article of clothing I owned smelled like Joe Camel took a dump all over it.

Then, Miss Piggy started shorting me on pay. It was a little at first, a few dollars over the course of a couple of weeks, and then it started to grow. I documented every single penny she did not pay me. However, when I attempted to broach the issue with her, she would make excuses that she was too busy to discuss it with me, right before returning to her hundredth game of computer Solitaire.

I busted my ass for this woman. I cleaned her office from top to bottom, organized all of her files, created a database of her alleged “clients” (none of which ever called or came in), hauled out garbage and scrubbed the toilet. Meanwhile, Miss Piggy would sit in her office with her son’s girlfriend, who was inexplicably there every single day, and talk about how black men like to sleep with lots of women and have “tons of baby-mamas.” That’s a direct quote.

The final blow came at Christmas time. My parents were flying in from Alaska to spend the holiday with me, and I asked Miss Piggy if I could take off Christmas eve and the day after Christmas. Her response? “I have a practice to run, you know, and that’s not going to work for me. You’re fired.” End of discussion. End of job. I felt like I had hit the lottery.

Shortly after that, I sent Miss Piggy a letter, demanding all of the back pay she owed me and informing her that if she didn’t compensate me, I would be seeing her again in court. My mother-in-law, a probation officer, bumped into her at court one day, and Miss Piggy handed her check for the money I was owed. “I guess K finally got what she wanted,” she said to my MIL.

She was a crazy bitch. No wonder Kermit was always so hesitant in the Muppet movies.

My first summer of law school I was excited to work in the “real world” and found a job in a small firm managed by “H”. I took the job despite warnings from classmates he was an asshole, but by the end of the first week I realized their opinions of him were tame in comparison.

My first day he asked if I was “fucking stupid” when I professed ignorance on a relatively rare type of legal pleading. On my third day, he and an associate got into an argument which ended in him stabbing a pen through his computer screen. Sadly, that wasn’t the last of the histrionics and the next six months saw the death of two more monitors, one laptop, (which met its end after an attempt at being the first frisbee/laptop hybrid) at least three coffee mugs and my soul.*

Most of these tantrums occurred during daily meetings where he would criticize each clerk, paralegal, and associate on their billable hours from the day before. (Billable hours are hours that can be billed to a client, they are not hours worked). Although important to review, his rants on the length of our restroom and lunch breaks would stretch well into the morning, gobbling up workable hours. Of course this led to anger the next day for not billing enough hours (and down the spiral we go).

He rarely used deodorant and rarely changed clothes, even for meetings with clients or opposing counsel. Never without a big plug of brown tobacco stuffed in his lip, his spit cups were left everywhere. Rounding it out was his habit of urinating in the bushes outside the building and images of him spitting brown ropes of tobacco juice while peeing in the pyracanthas are seared into my retinas. Not surprisingly, his digestive system was also off. Although housebroken for this issue, he would spend quite a bit of time in the bathroom adjacent to my work station. Apparently a modest man while perched on the potty, he would sing country western songs to (unsuccessfully) mask him doing his “business”.

The last straw was the Christmas party. Ten minutes before the party, he had another tantrum, and chucked an incense burner full of lit (cone) incense across the room. The sparks were pretty but showered down on a set of completed exhibits for The Big Trial. After ensuring the Judge wouldn’t get a singed copy of Exhibit A, we dutifully stayed for lame games and forced cheer. I managed a little excitement when he pressed a small but thick envelope into my hand. Unfortunately, the card contained no cash, no words of thanks, but a $5.00 gift card to Carl’s Junior.** I quit shortly after the new year. The sad thing is he honestly seemed surprised when I gave my two weeks notice.

* Who am I kidding, I sold my soul when I entered law school. As well as the soul of my first born, but that’s to the Federal Gov’t for student loans and is better covered on MyVeryWorstDebt.com.

** I was hoping to use a Christmas bonus to buy back part of my soul but I was informed the devil doesn’t take gift cards.