Secretaries' Day

The Pat Lykos bloodletting continued today with several Administrative Assistants around the Office being told, three days before Christmas, that their services would not be needed under the Reign of Queen Snookems.

I have to say that I honestly don't get the timing of this one, because, quite frankly, it couldn't have been worse for the hard working folks that help us all get our jobs done every day.

You know, I expected to get fired by Old Patsy the second she won the election. I had pretty much been planning on it all year. I had campaigned very diligently against her and I knew her reputation of not tolerating political opposition.

But for me, it was a calculated gamble. I'm an attorney and even if my services weren't needed with the Harris County District Attorney's Office, I still have the potential to make a living outside of it - whether that be hanging out a shingle (which I'm doing) or trying to get on with a law firm.

The Administrative Assistants have it a bit more difficult. In spite of their priceless support to the prosecutors of the Office, they can't really set up their own shops if they lose their jobs. They have to find somebody to hire them in order to continue their profession.

And in today's economy, that's getting to be more and more of a challenge.

Now, Lykos was barely able to land her broom in front of the CJC before she had Jim Leitner fire me and the other attorneys. That has given me more than ample time to get my ducks in a row and get ready to set up my next career move by January 1st -- more on that later.

But for some reason, she elected to wait until three days before Christmas before letting go the secretaries. These are the folks that will have to fan out their resumes wherever they can and hope that somebody has an opening.

It won't be easy for them, and they needed as much advanced warning as they possibly could have to give them time to look. Considering how most businesses in the legal field are closed down (or on extremely light schedules) because it is three days before Christmas, that is going to be no easy task.

My sad prediction is that thanks to Lykos' timing, most (if not all) of those terminated today will begin 2009 with no jobs lined up.

It didn't have to go down that way. There are a lot more attorneys than there are secretaries, but Lykos wasted no time in gleefully starting her firings on the prosecutors.

Why did she wait so long on the secretaries?

None of the secretaries that were fired today actively campaigned for anyone that I'm aware of. If one were to assume that they were fired based on job performance, what exactly does that say about dear Snooks?

What it says is that her lust to fire her political enemies far outweighed her desire to get rid of people based on their job performances.

As a result, some very qualified Administrative Assistants will begin the year amongst the ranks of the unemployed. In this economy, you can guarantee that is a terrifying prospect.

You are doing a bang up job so far, Patsy. You've put the Office morale in the crapper worse than Chuck Rosenthal ever did (even during the scandal).

And you haven't even taken office yet.

Good God, it's no wonder the Coronation is mandatory. I imagine attendance would be pretty damn thin if your people had the choice of whether or not to attend.

Oh, and in case I failed to mention it earlier, Lykos did this three days before Christmas.