Deposition From Hell...f/k/a Why I Should Learn To Say "No"...a/k/a The Reason I May Soon Implode.....

(Please note I will not be identifying any of the people involved in this by their names or their gender. He/She does not refer to a transvestite, I'm just trying to be vague.)

So my office called this morning. My least favorite attorney -- let's call he or she ..... Pat .... which isn't even close to his or her real name -- needed a reporter at 9 a.m. for a depo that would probably go most of the morning. Even though I have a full day of depos to work on that need to go out ASAP, I said I'd take it, because things have been slow and I need things like money to, you know, live. My gut told me to stay home, but I ignored it. Note to self: Listen to your gut. Don't drink Starbuck's fat-free lattes, and DON'T GO TO DEPOS YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN'T. Moron.

So anyway, I go and get set up. Everyone in the attorney's office was appreciative that I was there on such short notice, so I thought, "Man, this is nice, everyone is so excited to see me. This can't go that bad." WRONG.

This was a heated case. The person who filed the case we'll call "Complainant," and we'll call the person he/she filed the case against "Respondent." They were both there, and super pissed at each other, which always makes things go smoothly **note dripping sarcasm**. Respondent had no attorney. Complainant was represented by the attorney who called me.

Tempers were high and the tone in the room was nothing less than unfriendly, but it was going okay for a while. We took a break and I went to the restroom, and when I came back Complainant and Respondent were in the room, but the attorney was gone. This was a bad idea to leave his/her client in the room with Respondent, because they were mad at each other, but everyone makes mistakes.

I sat down at my computer to proofread the transcript I had been working on, and I heard the two parties talking to each other. I could tell they were angry, but voices weren't raised, and I was purposefully not listening. After six years of being a court reporter, one thing you learn is that unless you're on the record, you don't listen to other people's conversations because you're bound to hear something you don't want to.

So all of a sudden Respondent gets up and leaves the room. He/She storms back in a few minutes later, grabs his/her stuff and states he/she is leaving because Complainant had threatened him/her, and then he/she says, "And she heard it," while pointing in my general direction. I was paying attention by this time, and just looked at him/her, because I had no idea what he/she was talking about. I hadn't heard anything other than them talking to each other. I wasn't listening to the content.

So he/she leaves. Pat (the attorney) realizes that Respondent had left with the exhibits that had been marked, so he/she asks me to go out and get them from him/her before he/she leaves. I do so, and he/she follows me back into the office from the parking lot. Respondent has his/her spouse with him/her, and is talking to said spouse about the alleged threat, saying, "And she heard it," again, pointing at me as I'm walking away. So I turned around and said, "Sir/Ma'am, I didn't actually hear anything."

I said this with a smile and very nicely, and then added that I had been proofreading a transcript and wasn't paying attention, and then I walked away. I wasn't about to argue with this person, especially when he/she was not represented by counsel and had no one there to tell him that court reporters are unbiased parties to proceedings such as these, and that I probably wasn't listening.

So I heard him/her behind me say to loudly, "I don't know how you couldn't have heard that," then he/she turned to the secretary and said, "Does she work for you?"

All right. Now I'm insulted. I'm incredibly careful about our Code of Ethics. I always make a large effort to remain unbiased, to treat everyone equally, to not offer services (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about rush transcripts, ASCIIs, etc) to one party and not the other. If I heard the comment, I would have said so, but I didn't. In fact, if I were actually listening, I could probably repeat it back verbatim, because that's how my brain works after two and a half years of school and six years of reporting.

I just walked away, though. No point in arguing. We took the spouse's deposition, and I got the hell out of there. I had told the spouse, though, that he/she and his/her spouse were entitled to copies of their depositions, gave him/her a card, and nicely explained the process to order one to him/her. The spouse was more pleasant and smiled nicely and told me thank you.

So now I'm just irritated. I'm afraid that these people are going to try to yank me into court to grill me about whether or not I heard the statement, and about my being biased toward the attorney, or file a complaint against me with the state board. Let me tell ya, I'm not biased. Pat is not my favorite attorney to work with. Our personalities don't mesh, and we've had a couple of run-ins that have been less than pleasant. Both involved me just trying to do my job correctly, and Pat apparently misinterpreting my requests to not be crammed in a corner unable to reach my steno machine, or to elicit verbal answers from his/her client, rather than having said client grunt at me. I think we just don't understand one another, and that's fine, but I clearly am not biased in Pat's direction.

Grrrr. Days like this make me want to scream. I'm a professional. I do my job well. I do my best to be friendly to all parties and to stay out of things that are none of my business, and this is the fucking thanks I get?

I need a drink.