What a mean attorney.
Dear Diary,
I had a sales call with the rudest most condescending attorney I have ever talked to. EVER. Wow.. I mean just wow.
I am trying to merge my business to be less about my own paralegal work and start building out an agency with other paralegals I can match to law firms. I really do love talking strategy with attorneys on how they staff their firm and where they plan to grow. I didn’t think I would. But it really is an unsurfaced passion of mine.
Until today.
So I got on the sales call, all prepped. I looked into his firm first. Blonde, young attorney. The moment we got on the call he didn’t even say hi. He just said, “I need my legal assistant and secretary to come sit in on this with me to take notes,” and shoved his hand in the camera almost to say, “Shush, little girl, I’m not ready to be annoyed by your voice.”
Immediately my stomach coiled into this weird twisted knot. I felt DEFLATED just by that gesture. I mean, maybe I am reading too much into that but it was rude.
Here I am, already nervous because this is like my FIRST sales call where I am not selling myself as a paralegal, but selling my ability to match attorneys with high level, business minded, professional paralegals. It just isn’t something I know how to do yet. At least when I was selling my services I could somewhat recoil into a little interview vibe. This is like… ok I am supposed to be the true leader here and really sell myself as a business owner and staffing specialist. Which, sorry I am not - I just think I am pretty good at it over the last couple of clients I merged to a new paralegal and off of my list of work.
Anyway, I am ranting a bit here and it probably makes no sense. Back to the story.
So, his paralegal and secretary come in (note I called her a paralegal? Because she is one. What she does for his practice is basically mid-level associate work. But he called her a legal assistant). He just immediately fires me with questions. Rapidly with this monotone, resting b*tch face. His poor paralegal and secretary sitting behind him. You could just tell they hated their jobs and working for him.
I tried to redirect the conversation because I couldn’t really answer any of his questions without first understanding what he was needing. I needed to know complexity, if there was a litigation specialty he needed, how many hours a month, where his bottlenecks were. I tried REALLY hard to “peel the onion” like my ridiculously extensive customer service training at Wells Fargo taught me.
And you’re not going to believe this… when I tried to ask clarifying questions he literally said, “So you’re not able to answer my questions? You’re just going to answer it with another question?”
Things like that.
It was incredibly demoralizing. Inhumane, really. Ok - maybe inhumane is a bit dramatic.
It was cold, unfriendly. It was almost as if he was saying, “HA! You are going to try and tell me how to staff my firm? What are you even? You’re just a paralegal.”
I mean he didn’t SAY it like that, but man - that’s how it felt.
Anyway - he basically ended by saying ok we have the information. Didn’t even say goodbye, just hung up. I started BAWLING. And when I say bawling, I mean ugly cry, snot, and breathing that sounded like an old CD all scratched up and skipping the good parts.
I called my husband. I did. Because I just never felt so ready to quit all together. I never wanted to experience that call ever again and I called my husband to basically tell him that while I know my new found income is really great, that call made me feel like I needed to sell my soul for it.
He told me not to let one bad experience wreck everything else I built. Reminded me I had other really great clients that treated me and my paralegals with respect. So on and so forth - you know, things people are supposed to say when you’re hyperventilating.
Well, anyway - I need to go pick up Jac from daycare. Yep! You heard that right. It was his FIRST day. I decided that because I was getting a bit busier with my work and he was almost 2, it was a good idea to let him have some socialization. But can you believe we can afford DAYCARE now? It’s wild…
Oh yeah, it’s also my birthday today. 28! Getting closer to 30… Derek better bring me home a bottle of wine or something and make a campfire for me after the day I had. Even though we have no firewood right now.
Alright, I really have to go. I don’t think I have any more discovery calls booked, so I have time to just… think about what I want to do next. Maybe I’m just not cut out for the agency owner life.
Talk soon,
P.S. - Wanted to real quick write you before I head to bed. Derek DID bring me home wine, and we found an old broken chair for a quick fire. I’m also over it now. Screw that guy. The next one will go better (I hope). Definitely a birthday to remember!
