Wrung out
One of the fun things about my job, and about IP practice in general, is that I get to send letters to all kinds of exotic places. OK, most weeks the most exciting place I send to is New Mexico or Canada, but other weeks, I could be faxing or e-mailing Japan, South Africa, or Switzerland. It adds spice.
One of the bad things about my job is that I have to take into account all the foreign time zones when trying to meet deadlines. When a client drags their feet about giving us an answer, it increases the pressure of a deadline even more to know that you really have one less day than the client thinks you do, because you know that China and Australia are a day ahead of you. So you have to get that fax out ASAP before the deadline day is already over in the foreign country. If I send a fax to Tokyo on the 24th, it won't even get read until the 25th due to the time difference. I have a map of the world time zones pinned up next to my desk, because I'm just cool, and also very paranoid. I get paid to be paranoid on behalf of everyone in the firm. That's not even a joke, that's a boiled-down summary of my job description.
That's why I was late getting home tonight. Client has a deadline of Tuesday the 24th to file country applications. Client has been getting reminders since October. Client does not seem to understand that 1) the filing is not something we do ourselves, we have to get a foreign associate to do it, because we are not admitted to practice law in any country except America. 2) foreign associate must be contacted before the actual due date. 3) foreign associate must be contacted as soon as possible before the due date, because a translation of the patent from English is often required for local country filings. 4) last-minute rush translations are super-expensive, more prone to errors, and probably irritate our foreign colleagues. It would irritate me to receive a foreign translation that had to be done and filed inside of three days.
This is not the only client who has ever failed to realize these things, but it's still stressful. And so it came to pass that I spent my day nagging the partner in a paranoid manner about the impending filing deadline, and he in turn spent the day nagging the client via voicemail and e-mail. I think we left four messages. Finally got a response: Just file in Brazil. For now. (Oy.) At 6:30, I was scanning in documents and e-mailing them to Brazil. At 6:45, I received an e-mail from the partner telling me that I was a good person for going the extra mile on this (nice). At 7:00, I was dropping off a hard copy of the Brazilian documents at Federal Express and thanking my lucky stars that I got away at only 7:00. I hope to heck the docs get to Rio tomorrow morning. If I haven't heard anything back from the Brazilians by 8:30 a.m., I'm faxing the whole caboodle and requesting an immediate response. Thank goodness Brazil is only a couple of hours ahead of us. If this client decides tomorrow that they want to file in China, I don't know if we can make that happen for them. I'm praying they stick to English-filing countries like India and Canada, if they want any other filings.
Hey, this is what they pay me the big bucks for. (Not being facetious actually; I really am pretty well compensated for my job level.) But if I have nightmares about missing a plane to Brazil tonight, I'm going to bill the client for my REM time, I swear.
One of the bad things about my job is that I have to take into account all the foreign time zones when trying to meet deadlines. When a client drags their feet about giving us an answer, it increases the pressure of a deadline even more to know that you really have one less day than the client thinks you do, because you know that China and Australia are a day ahead of you. So you have to get that fax out ASAP before the deadline day is already over in the foreign country. If I send a fax to Tokyo on the 24th, it won't even get read until the 25th due to the time difference. I have a map of the world time zones pinned up next to my desk, because I'm just cool, and also very paranoid. I get paid to be paranoid on behalf of everyone in the firm. That's not even a joke, that's a boiled-down summary of my job description.
That's why I was late getting home tonight. Client has a deadline of Tuesday the 24th to file country applications. Client has been getting reminders since October. Client does not seem to understand that 1) the filing is not something we do ourselves, we have to get a foreign associate to do it, because we are not admitted to practice law in any country except America. 2) foreign associate must be contacted before the actual due date. 3) foreign associate must be contacted as soon as possible before the due date, because a translation of the patent from English is often required for local country filings. 4) last-minute rush translations are super-expensive, more prone to errors, and probably irritate our foreign colleagues. It would irritate me to receive a foreign translation that had to be done and filed inside of three days.
This is not the only client who has ever failed to realize these things, but it's still stressful. And so it came to pass that I spent my day nagging the partner in a paranoid manner about the impending filing deadline, and he in turn spent the day nagging the client via voicemail and e-mail. I think we left four messages. Finally got a response: Just file in Brazil. For now. (Oy.) At 6:30, I was scanning in documents and e-mailing them to Brazil. At 6:45, I received an e-mail from the partner telling me that I was a good person for going the extra mile on this (nice). At 7:00, I was dropping off a hard copy of the Brazilian documents at Federal Express and thanking my lucky stars that I got away at only 7:00. I hope to heck the docs get to Rio tomorrow morning. If I haven't heard anything back from the Brazilians by 8:30 a.m., I'm faxing the whole caboodle and requesting an immediate response. Thank goodness Brazil is only a couple of hours ahead of us. If this client decides tomorrow that they want to file in China, I don't know if we can make that happen for them. I'm praying they stick to English-filing countries like India and Canada, if they want any other filings.
Hey, this is what they pay me the big bucks for. (Not being facetious actually; I really am pretty well compensated for my job level.) But if I have nightmares about missing a plane to Brazil tonight, I'm going to bill the client for my REM time, I swear.