Paranoia

It seems that every few weeks, something dramatic happens at my office - an attorney gets disbarred, someone gets fired, a death or illness strikes someone related to the people in our office, etc., and last week was no exception to the rule.

Two weeks ago, another small firm moved into some of our then vacant office space, which formerly housed the offices of an attorney that soon found the need to expeditiously retire from the practice of law. It seems like a great arrangement had emerged, a new happy office coming to join our office of misfits. Of course, that was week one, or as I like to think of it, the calm before the paranoid and psychotic yelling that ended, as all good dramas do, with police involvement. As with all incidents at my office involving the police, and I believe there have been at least two in the last year I have not been there; I am always away when all the cool and exciting stuff goes down.

Returning from lunch, I saw a police car parked downstairs. Briefly, I considered that perhaps they were here for our office but then quickly dismissed this notion, assuming that they must have other important business to attend to within the hallowed walls of our building. It was not until I set foot in the office that I learned that not only had someone been fired, but that the police had to be called on the terminated employee. It took until the following day for me to get all the relevant details, not from a lack of trying to bury my head in the stand and remain aloof and uninvolved. Sometimes, people just *need* to share and I seem to be close at hand.

Apparently, one of the legal secretaries for the law firm that just moved in to our office became convinced that a member of her staff, one of the attorneys or another secretary, was stealing her passwords and messing around with her bank accounts and email. This led to outbursts of racial slurs against not only another legal secretary who is dating a black man, but also against one of Florida's finest. Needless to say, the law firm had no trouble convincing the police that the woman had quite possibly come unhinged and they were more than willing to assist in any way they could. Unfortunately, there really was not too much they could do and the people in the office had to leave the building later with caution, as the one taking a ride over the cuckoo's nest was taking a detour, circling our parking lot.

One may think the story stops there, but one would be wrong, as now there seems to be people thinking that perhaps the woman that only days before was considered delusional and potentially dangerous was on the right track and that this new firm is not all nice and friendly but sneaky, dirty, and underhanded, or maybe there is just one bad apple in the bunch. I have no idea if they are right, but if they are, I am sure it will lead to another exciting installment down the road.