Admission

Okay. Want to hear something pathetic? If so, read on. (If not, you must be new here.)

Do you recall the post I wrote the week before Christmas, about an asshole lawyer? It's this one. In that post, I ranted on and on about a lawyer who was such an asshole towards my client and towards me in this day-long deposition that didn't even end when we called it a day at 6 p.m. In all my holier-than-thou glory, I went on and on about what an inconsiderate and rude lawyer this guy is. And I complained about how I was going to have to go through yet another horrendous, long day of deposition again with him the next day; not only had we not finished with the witness (my witness) whose deposition had begun (and continued ALL DAY) that Thursday, we were also having to depose another witness (another client of mine) that next day, that Friday, after finishing up the first witness's deposition. So, see, we were scheduled to begin my witness #2's deposition at 10am on Friday; but since we hadn't finished my witness #1's deposition the day before, Thursday, the day I wrote that post, we decided to start back at 9am on Friday with witness #1, finish his deposition, then start with witness #2 at 10:30 am - knowing, of course, that we'd be lucky to finish witness #2 by the end of the day. So I was annoyed; the night I wrote that post, I was extremely annoyed, not only by the asshole lawyer's behavior, but also by the slow pace of the depositions, the fact that we weren't yet finished with #1 and didn't know if we could finish #2.

Did you notice how, in that post, if you read it, I mentioned that I slept for a few hours, then woke up at like 2 am or something, and couldn't go back to sleep? And how I said that, at the point I was writing that post, I figured I should just stay up? Do you see where I'm going with this?

As it turned out, At around 6:30 am, I laid down on my bed, lights on, for what I thought would be just a moment, to have a few minutes of rest before I got up and got dressed. And, of course, because this is the way things happen sometimes, I fell asleep.

I woke up at 9:30 that morning. Half an hour after the continued portion of the deposition was supposed to have begun. Freaked the fuck out when I realized the situation, when it all sunk in to my consciousness. Called the law firm immediately, the firm of the lawyer taking the deposition, and told him I was so sorry, I'd been up sick half the night (partial lie) and then slept through my alarm (true), said I could be there in half an hour. Well, we decided to just skip the finishing up of witness #1 (who was in that lawyer's office, waiting on me, poor guy), and instead send him on his way, reschedule him, and all meet back at 10:30 am, the time we'd instructed witness #2 to arrive for his deposition. And that's what we did.

Well, it's not really a big deal, in the larger scheme of things. I mean, we actually accomplished the deposition of #2 that Friday, finished him shortly after 5 pm that afternoon, and rescheduled the end of #1's deposition (about an hour's worth more of questions) for another time. And no one made a big deal of it at all. But, the thing is, I totally lost face. And not just with the other lawyers, but also with myself. I mean, come on; how can I keep up my own personal tirade against asshole lawyer for being such an asshole in that deposition, blaming it in part on his incompetence as a lawyer in general, when I totally flaked the next day and overslept a deposition of one of my own witnesses? What could possibly suck more? I mean, man; my own inept behavior has now totally taken all the joy out of my making fun of that asshole's ineptitude. And that's just not fun.