Calendars

I love calendars.  I keep three of them -- two electronic ones (don't ask why, there really is a good reason) and a paper one.  My assistant keeps one also  so she can tell people who call asking about my availability what my schedule is.  The problem is my schedule changes -- sometimes moment by moment.  I would really love to keep to a set, planned 8 hours a day, 5 days a week schedule that I know where I am supposed to be and everybody knows where to find me.  That's just not the way my work goes.

For example, I was about to walk out the door, headed for the airport to go out of town to conduct a hearing.  I had my roller bag all packed and was rolling out to the car when the phone rang.  It was my assistant.  The attorneys called to say they had settled the case.  It's a good thing they called when they did, because another 30 minutes and I would have been standing in the security line at the airport.  And then there are the times when I don't have anything scheduled on the calendar and I get a call from the Docket Manager in Austin asking if I can do a case tomorrow in some remote location.  Of course, I'm always willing to help people solve a problem if I can.

So I go home and pack a bag, drive or catch a flight to wherever I need to go.  Some of the places we go do not even have a motel.  In those cases we stay in the closest spot we can and drive to the site of the hearing or mediation.  After a very long day we can drive home or back to the airport -- or not.  Sometimes it is onward to the next business location and we may not return home for a week or so at a time.

My paper calendar looks pretty funny with all its red X's on the items marked out.  That's why I reprint the electronic calendar fairly often because the paper calendar is out of date after about two days.  People are always asking for continuances or settling cases.  Meetings get rescheduled or cancelled. 

And then there is my personal life.  Hah!  We have a wonderful lady that comes once a week to clean our house.  It started on Thursday (I think).  Then it was changed to Wednesday (I think).  Now it is supposed to be Tuesday, but last week she needed to take her son to the doctor so she asked if she could come on Friday.  Not a problem.  This week she was supposed to come on Friday also (so I thought but I don't remember why), but she called this morning and asked if it was okay if she came today.  Of course, I said.  So I changed my morning routine for her to be her today.

Tomorrow I'm going to the dentist.  This appointment was originally set for June 3.  I cancelled it so I could conduct a hearing in the Metroplex area that day.  The day I rescheduled I to was in July.  Wouldn't you know, but the Immigration Service picked that date for the interview of my client who is applying for what will eventually be his green card?  And I got about a week to make the rescheduling arrangements.  So I re-set the appointment.  The day that I reset it for was the day that everything flooded and I couldn't get out to that part of town and back again.  I'm very happy to be able to make this appointment now.  But my plans don't go very much according to plan.

It used to be very simple when someone else told me where to go and what to do.  That's not the case anymore.  I'm the one that issues Scheduling Orders and tells other people where to go and what their deadlines are.  But that puts even more pressure on my calendar trying to maintain the overall calendars of those cases and those people.  I feel the responsibility of those lives and those problems.  My life and my problems get subordinated to everyone else's -- and sometimes that may be the right choice and sometimes it may not.  I get accused of a lot of things, a lot of which is unrepeatable, and most of which I try to overlook because I know it is said in anger by people who need an easy target.  (And I deal with a lot of people who have mental illness.)  All in all though, with the help of my staff, I think we do a pretty decent balancing act of juggling all those schedules to get the prehearing conferences, mediations, initial scheduling orders, management conferences, status conference calls, arbitration hearings, due process hearings, and assorted miscellaneous matters attended to.

So, my Gratitude goes to my Staff for seeing me through all, keeping me where I need to be, getting information to me, and messages sent to the right people in the right way.  Thank you, Candyss, Merry and Janice.  (Connie, you are included in this, too, even though you are part of a different staff, but you keep me on track and participate in the communication process right there with Candy, Merry and Janice!)

As I mentioned to one of the lawyers in my mediation today:  If there were not any problems, there would no longer be a need for us as lawyers or mediators.