Am I right to be upset or is my superior right? Forum

[johnnyquest]

Have you highlighted the text and clicked the eraser icon?

When you paste, do you write click and then see like five icons? One of those will do no formatting.

1) This is a highly entertaining thread, I thank you for sharing OP

2) nothingtosee, Awesome avatar. I'll never forget that face, ever. Both LSAC and NASBA (National Association of State Boards of Accountatncy) use the same stock photo

http://nasba.org/exams/cpaexam/

Good find. Who is this chick?

[dresden doll]

Okay, I'll be a little pro-OP. I detest formatting shit, and it does sound like this document is screwed up in a special way (although it shouldn't be, but this wouldn't be the first time someone experienced a really unusual formatting issue). Also, if this is the type of assignment he's getting all summer long, I completely get the frustration. Interns should have substantive work in addition to this kind of bullshit.

Also, if there's no substantive work involved whatsoever and it's purely a matter of copy/paste, maybe the dude should have passed it off to a legal assistant to begin with.

[TooOld4This]

How fair is it to call out a dude for going to a TTT?

About 10% fair but when you've just been embarrassed and yelled at, you look for ways to make someone else look bad (and then you get embarrassed more on TLS).

No, it is 0% fair.

He didn't embarrass you, you did.

1. You demonstrated that you don't have basic skills that are reasonably expected of someone who is 22+ years old and has a professional job.

2. You demonstrated a lack the awareness of your own limitations.

3. You demonstrated a lack of problem solving skills in either quickly using google or asking for help.

4. You demonstrated a lack of judgment in not circling back and being proactive in saying you ran into difficulty.

This is real work and instead of doing it, you have added to the stress level of the person who assigned it to you. There are few things more frustrating then needing to put more effort into delegating a task than doing it yourself.

These mistakes happen and are generally quickly forgiven if the person owns up to it and fixes the issue. Given your rant here, I'm guessing the victim/entitlement mentality was readily apparent and you've dug yourself quite a hole. Good luck. I think you are going to need it.

[MinEMorris]

To answer the OP, generally TCR in the legal community is that you're not supposed to give much attention to how you feel or whether your assignments are 'fair'. Your job is always just to try to get whatever you're given done right as quickly as possible. If people think you're not quick enough or don't do things right enough, then you're obviously in an unhappy position, but so long as you're honestly doing your best, it's out of your control. Sometimes it's unrealistic expectations from your superior, sometimes it's your incompetence, but it's not your job to make that call. Indeed, you're wasting your time, your client's time, and your superior's time if you're spending time trying to make that call and justify it. If you constantly feel unable to meet the demands of your superior, that's something for you both to consider. For him/her to consider whether to fire you, and for you to consider whether you'd like to quit or try to work under someone else. But until it hits that point, it's your job to try and make things as good as they can be without wasting time or energy assessing the justness of the assignment or expectations placed on you.

On an aside, is anyone aware of a relatively quick, general tutorial on word formatting? I haven't found myself quite in OP's position, but I've definitely wasted time and spun wheels trying to figure out something stupid like how to get index page numbers to auto update, and I hate having to take time out of a project to google around and find some tutorial for my specific problem.

[1suckout]

Okay, I'll be a little pro-OP. I detest formatting shit, and it does sound like this document is screwed up in a special way (although it shouldn't be, but this wouldn't be the first time someone experienced a really unusual formatting issue). Also, if this is the type of assignment he's getting all summer long, I completely get the frustration. Interns should have substantive work in addition to this kind of bullshit.

Also, if there's no substantive work involved whatsoever and it's purely a matter of copy/paste, maybe the dude should have passed it off to a legal assistant to begin with.

Yeah I think if I had thoroughly flopped on a legal question it would be a different picture. Getting mad at me for some unique copy/paste issues (that seem like they should be easy and are naturally frustrating), is something that, to me shows immaturity on his part which is why I was kinda like...dude really?

[chipotle123]

Have you highlighted the text and clicked the eraser icon?

When you paste, do you write click and then see like five icons? One of those will do no formatting.

1) This is a highly entertaining thread, I thank you for sharing OP

2) nothingtosee, Awesome avatar. I'll never forget that face, ever. Both LSAC and NASBA (National Association of State Boards of Accountatncy) use the same stock photo

http://nasba.org/exams/cpaexam/

Good find. Who is this chick?

Who knows. She is probably in the top ten in terms of recognizable people in the law school community though, she should capitalize on that

[1suckout]

.

Someone had posted in another thread that you might be considering opening your own cleaning service. That sounds interesting; just thought I would say good luck and let me know if you want to talk about how to both (a) retain customers and (b) not make people mad.

[encore1101]

Okay, I'll be a little pro-OP. I detest formatting shit, and it does sound like this document is screwed up in a special way (although it shouldn't be, but this wouldn't be the first time someone experienced a really unusual formatting issue). Also, if this is the type of assignment he's getting all summer long, I completely get the frustration. Interns should have substantive work in addition to this kind of bullshit.

Also, if there's no substantive work involved whatsoever and it's purely a matter of copy/paste, maybe the dude should have passed it off to a legal assistant to begin with.

Well, to be fair, in OP's context, he apparently didn't know what he was doing and this turned out to be a learning tool for him. Knowing how to use slightly-above-basic functions of a word processor are important to an attorney.

[1suckout]

Word can be legitimately hard to work with

But guess what law is full of fucking fucks

Complain and you will be disappointed in the outcome

Most memorable quote from 2nd fav prof: "the worst think about being a lawyer is having to work with other lawyers."

[kalvano]

Why didn't you ask a secretary or legal assistant how to do it? They deal with this stuff all the time and probably know some trick to fix it in 5 minutes.

[guano]

how much longer I should serve as a punching bag before I complain about him.

Until you're the client paying for the work to be done. If someone else is paying you, then suck it up, buttercup.

[Pleasye]

Well OP, at least you've learned that transactional law is not your calling.

[mushybrain]

Why didn't you ask a secretary or legal assistant how to do it? They deal with this stuff all the time and probably know some trick to fix it in 5 minutes.

Yeah, if your secretary thinks it's a weird deal then ask around. Or if you're at a big firm with a doc services dept, send to them. They'll fix it right up and do this shit all the time to documents that people destroy through copying and pasting absurdity. Worst case they redo it all overnight.

[dudley12]

Being an expert in Word means knowing how to use hotkeys and macros and whatnot. Not ducking up formatting when moving things around is something you should've picked up somewhere during high school or college. Or you could've done a quick Google search before you fucked up the formatting of the entire document.

you should consider opening that cleaning service. I think it's a good fit for you.

[truevines]

Word can be legitimately hard to work with

But guess what law is full of fucking fucks

Complain and you will be disappointed in the outcome

Most memorable quote from 2nd fav prof: "the worst think about being a lawyer is having to work with other lawyers."

FYI, you're not a lawyer.

[Nebby]

QQ

Do the work that is asked of you. You're free to walk out of the door. See below.

So you messed up a simple task because you can't figure out MS Word, a program tons of non-college grads use proficiently, and are talking shit about where this guy went to school?

[mountaintime]

A little piece of real world advice: your boss is always right. You want to build a reputation for yourself as someone who gets shit done... So get this shit done.

[DELG]

Did this guy get fired yet

[Mr.Throwback]

I have had the WORST problems with Word and their new formatting gimmicks.

I'm sorry to hear about this.

[fnma2jd]

if you paste text into notepad, then copy it, then paste it back into word, it removes all formatting. then just format it how you want

[ClerkAdvisor]

Okay, I'll be a little pro-OP. I detest formatting shit, and it does sound like this document is screwed up in a special way (although it shouldn't be, but this wouldn't be the first time someone experienced a really unusual formatting issue). Also, if this is the type of assignment he's getting all summer long, I completely get the frustration. Interns should have substantive work in addition to this kind of bullshit.

Also, if there's no substantive work involved whatsoever and it's purely a matter of copy/paste, maybe the dude should have passed it off to a legal assistant to begin with.

Yeah I think if I had thoroughly flopped on a legal question it would be a different picture. Getting mad at me for some unique copy/paste issues (that seem like they should be easy and are naturally frustrating), is something that, to me shows immaturity on his part which is why I was kinda like...dude really?

Sounds like the maturity problem is with you... Just get it done and stop complaining.

[ClerkAdvisor]

if you paste text into notepad, then copy it, then paste it back into word, it removes all formatting. then just format it how you want

Is it really that hard for people to paste special, non-formatted text?

[starrydreamz3]

alt+E+S, click down to "unformatted text", press enter

[Herr Brun]

if you paste text into notepad, then copy it, then paste it back into word, it removes all formatting. then just format it how you want

Or just right click + either merge formatting or clean paste.

[ymmv]

You realize you can change default paste mode to "unformatted text" (or other paste modes) in Word preferences, right? Jesus, OP, your undergrad institution robbed you blind if they handed you a degree without making sure you had basic Microsoft Office skills.
Alternatively, two seconds of Googling would have told you this.