TO: All Lawyers, Paralegals and Secretaries
FROM: Personnel Dept.
SUBJECT: Upcoming Holiday Party
We know it’s been a hard year for all of you. Many of our secretaries have developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome due to the long hours of repetitive robo-signing.
Our paralegals have had to do double-duty, working for one or more attorneys and returning phone calls to unrepresented defendants frantically trying to find out if we’re going to go after them for a deficiency judgment. [We regret that the Firm’s decision to have every lawyer’s phone line permanently set for “DND” has forced this task upon you, but we don’t want our lawyers speaking with the very people they’ve sued in foreclosure – we just can’t afford to lift that veil of anonymity. It’s the same reason executioners wear hoods. We knew you’d understand.]
And our attorneys haven’t had it so easy this year, either. While they are well compensated for their work, they have to go home to their families every night and answer the same question: ‘So, honey, how many families did you foreclose on today?’
So we understand the need to unwind from time to time. It seems like many of you are looking for almost any excuse today to have a party! That’s why, here at Holmes Knott Furr Long, LLC, we take your need for mindless diversion seriously. Accordingly, we have created the following valuable tips on conducting yourselves at our upcoming Holiday Office Party.
- Check your conscience at the door. We don’t want the combination of alcohol and that uniquely human trait known as “guilt,” to ruin everybody else’s fun.
- If you’re going to “talk shop” trying to top each other’s stories of your latest foreclosure exploits, don’t name names. Every once in a while, we learn that one of our attorneys has foreclosed a secretary’s parent or other family member. This can have an immediate dampening effect, and distracts from the humor of the story.
- If you feel the need to impress your spouse or S.O. by taking them out on a “Tour of Homes” that you’ve recently foreclosed, please use a designated driver if you’ve had anything to drink. And for goodness sake, don’t do what [name redacted] did last year. He had far too much Devils Spring Vodka, and started yelling “Serves Ya Right!” in front of the homes.
- And lastly, along with your conscience, please check your cameras and smartphones at the front desk. As you may know, the New York Times ran the following picture taken at a foreclosure mill’s Halloween Party…and that was the end of the firm:
It seems their employees’ love of work spilled over to the evening’s festivities, and some decided to dress up as homeless people who had recently been foreclosed. For more on the story, go to this link.
