Does anyone have experience where, when one thing goes “wrong”, and not even that it was wrong a mistake, but a complication, you feel overwhelming dread, stress and you shut down and can’t function? When you’re in litigation, this happens so frequently but I can’t control my reaction to anything! Help!
Don’t! Just let it go
Rising Star
Agreed!
This is a bummer. I would wait for another excuse (secretary’s day/his or her birthday/whatever), hopefully something will come up soon, and give a nice gift then.
Don’t feel too bad. It’s fairy unusual for assistants to gift upwards, especially with cash. And the secretary will hopefully have received nice gifts from other associates and partners.
But this is also a learning experience. If you’re anything close to big law salary, $50 is lower than typical (unless you literally just started). I also like coordinating among the people who have the same assistant and pooling the gift together. This generally shames people to give a bit more and also makes it easier to avoid this type of issue.
Oh okay. Then that’s totally fine. I would just find another occasion in near future you can gift a Starbucks card, flowers for her desk or something like that.
Give some wine/food basket type of gift that is perishable and say you wanted to save it until as close to the holiday as possible. 🤷♀️
Write a letter telling her how much you appreciate her (if you can honestly do this). That will be more valuable than any gift card.
Let me add: honestly, it’s fine. You can make it up to her later. And there is nothing wrong with gifting that is comfortably within your means.
Let me assure you, how you treat her throughout the year is far more important than a gift.
A gift is like a bonus. One should neither expect one nor be disappointed. It’s a tough year. You gave your assistant a gift. The fact that she was equally generous speaks to her generosity not to the size or expense of your gift. I think a note or email reiterating how much you appreciate her and thanking her for her thoughtfulness is the way to go.
I would give a New Years gift basket (with another $50 gift card). And you can write a letter about how thankful you are for this last year of hard work and looking forward to the upcoming year.
So I don’t really agree. I’d wait until secretaries day. New Years is overkill and a reminder about the size of your gift...
Give a gift for family/kids, if applicable. Give a New Years gift. Don’t feel awkward about being kind. People are mean without feeling awkward. Be kind and make your heart happy without feeling awkward.
To avoid tit for tat, I asked my assistant to please not get me a Christmas gift. May sound extreme but it gave me the comfort that she wasn’t using any of the money I gave her to buy a gift for me!
Wtf are you talking about???
I would give a New Year gift. Maybe a bottle of champagne or something?
In which area are you practicing? Lol
This is a season for attorneys to give not receive. In the last 15 years secretaries became admins and as software changed our profession the non attorney staff (admins and paralegals) went from supporting 1-2 attorneys to supporting 6-8. It’s really not fair to have non attorneys buying gifts given then new metrics. We have reminded our staff for over ten years that attorneys should give and non attorneys should receive without giving. Get ahead of this and take the heat off staff. Ps attorney gifts to non attorneys should be a decent amount of cash.
I believe that the solution depends upon a variety of factors but, most importantly, the overall value of the relationship with your secretary. In other words, if you really enjoy this person and value their work, then you should take immediate steps to make it known to her that you were just being ridiculously cheap. On the other hand, if you’re not particularly fond of her performance and personality, leave it alone and she’ll recognize that there’s a problem in the relationship.