Much Rudeness at the Firm

It was so weird - my boss isn't here today, so the receptionist called me and said there was someone here about one of our clients.

I went out to the front and this lady was there, and she said she was this client's mother and she came to pay his bill and take his file.

I said we hadn't heard from him in months, and if he wanted someone to pick up his file that was fine, but we needed something in writing from him before we could release his file.

She totally freaked out and started ranting about how she came from Airdrie and had ID (like that proves anything?) and if I didn't give her the file 'right now' we were never going to see our money, etc. She pulled out a piece of paper and said here's his number, call him. So I said I'd go try to call him from the number that's on the file (he lives in China, so I really didn't want to wrack up a phone bill, either), and she laughed and said that he has a new number now. (?)

I was starting to get a little worried she was going to attack me or something, so I said I'd have to go talk to the office manager. Loris could hear everything from her office because of how loud this woman was being and she told me to tell this woman that she could pay, have the client send us a message with the address where he wanted the file to do, and we'd send it.

I delivered the message, and she swore, pushed past me and stormed out. She also stopped to swear a bit and tell the receptionist I was rude.

I'm glad the office manager and the receptionist could hear and witness the whole thing, otherwise I'd be a bit worried that I had been inadvertently rude, but they backed me up really well.

I can't believe how rude she was and how mad she got. She didn't phone, we haven't heard from the client in months…and to go ballistic like that? She seems pretty unstable. I was feeling pretty unstable after that myself...my hands were shaking so badly I could hardly type. I don't do well with confrontation in general, but this was just so totally out of the blue. It's not an unreasonable regulation - any other law firm in the city would expect their bill to be paid and to have authorization to release a file, but this woman seemed to think that I should just kowtow to her. SO WEIRD!

Anyway, I'm very thankful I don't have to deal with that kind of hostility very often, that's for sure. I'm very much looking forward to going home in a couple of hours and having a hot toddy - I think I earned it today!