Words

I still can't get the commas right. I spent over 14 hours in the office yesterday and in the last email I sent out at 11.30 pm to a small number of people there was a typo for which I got a "talk." The bossman (generic name to describe any of my bosses) said that this was his only complaint about me and my work and he thought that I was a good lawyer and did a great job, but, really, it is the second time that there was a typo in one of my emails to a client and he just wants me to read them more carefully. He was very worried that I would get upset about this and I assured him that I wasn't, which is true, only because I really don't care. That I can't say, of course.

What does upset me, however, is that I have to use this horrible, nonsensical jargon again that I had also forgotten about. I am "turning documents," which means collecting and typing in everybody's comments on one of the monster documents that we are "drafting" (i.e. changing dates, numbers and definitions in precedent documents) and then sending them out. I cringe when I have "input" another "Notwithstanding the above," a "with respect thereto and in accordance with the definition thereof," a "provided that," or even a "for the avoidance of doubt" into the next "distro" (short for distribution, meaning an email to lots of people who won't read what they receive). It pains me to come up with those distorted, sick sentences, even if I know that this is probably inevitable when you try to put into words the sale of 500 million dollars worth of bonds secured by a bunch of other bonds and mortgages to investment banks and insurance companies.

I can convince myself not to actively hate doing this if the sun is shining, if someone was nice to me or if I get to go to my yoga class at 7 pm. I can even condition myself to care about the substance of my documents and make sure that I exercise a "degree of care that can reasonably be expected" of a human being who spent 14 hours straight in front of a computer monitor. What I can't do is seriously worry for one second at 11.30 pm that some math geek at one of the rating agencies will see a typo in my cover email.