How to make yourself look like a blithering idiot to the IT department....and your bosses.

Let me explain....

Technically, I work for three and one half lawyers (the half one is a lawyer - but he's at the very bottom of the totem pole and rarely asks for anything).  As I work for three and one half people, I have access to all their calendars to keep them on track....theoretically....especially since one particular lawyer sometimes doesn't share the information in his head with me OR his calendar; but that's a story for another day.

My company has recently upgraded all of our systems and as a result, our calendaring system is quite different from the way it had been for YEARS.....as in the last ten....give or take a decade or so.

It has been taking some getting used to while looking at them.

Today, I was asked by Lawyer #1 to schedule a meeting.  So I looked at his calendar and saw that the whole day he was asking about was completely free.  So I booked the meeting.  Good.  All is right with the world.

Now, generally, I book all meetings through MY calendar so that I can get alarms about the meetings so I can  gently remind the one or two lawyers that might "forget" where they are supposed to go.  For whatever reason, I booked this particular appointment through his calendar.

A few minutes later, I went into my calendar and noticed that there was already a meeting scheduled for that particular time on MY calendar FOR him at the same time as the meeting I'd just scheduled.  So I clicked over to his calendar to see where I'd missed it.  That meeting wasn't on the calendar - only the one I'd just booked was.

In the back of my head, I vaguely remembered this particular lawyer complaining that his computer and his Blackberry weren't synching and that appointments weren't showing up on one or the other.  The reason I say vaguely is because, for once, he didn't get me involved and dealt with it himself.

So my first thought was that something was up with his computer again (as a result of clicking on those virus-laden links maybe?!).  So I did what any rational, sane human being would do - I called the Help Desk.

In a panic.....because ESPECIALLY with this lawyer, I need to be on top of that calendar.

I informed them that something was very, very, VERY wrong and that some of this lawyer's appointments weren't showing up on my screen.  This needed to be fixed ASAP!

She asked exactly what I was looking for and told me she'd get one of the techs to look into it and call me back.  Meanwhile, I began frantically re-scheduling the less important meeting.

Eventually she called me back.

Only to inform me that the reason I couldn't see the appointment was because I'd scheduled it for the following Friday......and that I was looking at THIS Friday's calendar.

And THAT is how I have now become the laughingstock of the IT department....and made one of my bosses think I'd completely lost my mind for randomly re-scheduling meetings for no good reason.

I'm thinking I need a vacation already.