Yesterday afternoon, work had an Employee Recognition Service Awards Ceremony, which they held in my courtroom since it’s the largest courtroom in the building. (That’s why the pilot episode of “Shark” and a courtroom scene of Ray Romano’s movie “Eulogy” was filmed in here.) Luckily, my back hallway walls were repainted in time for this. Earlier in the week the wallpapers were ripped off, revealing this underneath:

That’s directly behind my courtroom’s back door which exits into the employee hallway and elevator. Here is a closeup.

That’s right, that’s what every employee, judge and commissioner read for a week when they keyed and waited for the employee elevator on our floor. Our own little piece of history. Since the building’s built in the 60s, could it be written by someone dating back to that decade? And it’s a secure back hallway; what employee was so bursting with this statement that he had to memorialize it in writing? The world may never know. (Personally, I think the handwriting looks like that of my first bailiff. Ha.)

On to the afternoon ceremony. My courtroom was decked out.

Above, you see the bar of my desk on the left, the long counsel table on the right.
Below is a shot over the bar of my desk toward the audience. People are starting to gather.

A shot from the audience. This is the supervising judge of our district, also known as my Family Law Resource Judge. He’s wonderful.

I had been dreading this day, because I was among the employees being honored for “benchmark” employment spans, i.e. 10, 20, 25, 30 and 35 years. To my own surprise when I received the memo, I’m at the 10-year point. To me, that meant I was here 7 years too long. Complacent much? The memo had with it a 4-question form that we were supposed to fill out so that something could be said about us. Things like, “What is your most embarrassing or memorable experience while working for the County?” Well, let’s see. The time when I was in an empty back hallway adjusting my pantyhose in a way that showed way too much leg and way unfeminine actions, and THEN looked to my left and up, and saw that unbeknownst to me, SECURITY CAMERAS had recently been installed shooting down the hallway? There was another time when I was walking toward the building from the parking structure and my gartered thigh-high on my right leg just folded over and fell down. I fidgeted with it unsuccessfully, trying to be discreet, then ran back into the parking structure for privacy in repairing this the way I had to. A bailiff later told me security cameras were aimed at me and they had even focused in. I no longer wear hosiery. “What are your future goals with the Courts or with your personal life?” Um. Addressing that honestly would be, to quote Chandler Bing, “Can open…worms everywhere…” “Where/what various positions have you worked while with the County?” Well, THIS one. That’s it. For the last 10 years. With this staff, and this judge. I didn’t promote from within, I came “off the streets” from college straight into the position. I can’t even remember the last question, but it doesn’t matter cuz I left the entire form blank. The administrative secretary told me if I left it blank, the supervisors would just make up stuff about me. That was fine, I told her. I had too much going on in my head to write anything inspiring, anyway. (You can tell this from the lack of inspirational posts on this very blog.) My supervisor came in last week with the blank form. “Write SOMETHING, will ya? At LEAST in your personal and professional goals and where you’ve worked, you can do THAT. I can make up stuff for the other two, but you gotta give me SOMETHING.” Fine.
Professional goal: To stay employed in this current economy.
Personal goal: To never look my age. I gave it a second thought, knowing my supervisor, and added for his benefit: (Meaning YOUNGER than my age, Brian, not OLDER.)
Court work experience: Departments H (criminal calendar), C (civil law & motion), E (trials/long cause).

When I was called up by my supervisor for the award, he roasted me. I instantly regretted not filling out the form and letting him instead make up some bogus story about surprising me one morning when I strolled in to work an hour 20 minutes late, coming upon him after he’d finished the crossword puzzle while sitting at my desk waiting for me. “The look on her face was priceless. It was great for me, but it was quite an embarrassing moment for Cindy.” I should’ve given THIS experience as my worst court experience instead…

Earliest bad experience. I was still in training class, which was downtown so given the distance and horrific SoCal morning traffic, I had to get up very early to allow for a 2-hour commute. One morning I woke up late, and this happened to be a horrid bad hair day. I’m not used to bad hair days; my hair’s usually no-maintenance, wash-and-go, or even get-out-of-bed-and-go. I don’t even bother brushing it. The photo a few posts ago of me in the purple camisole top? Hair still damp out of the shower, did NOTHING with it. I have no idea why my hair revolted that morning, but knowing I’ve always looked normal before, what’s one day? Big freakin’ deal. So I pulled half of it back in a clip and left. It still looked crappy, but I told myself nobody notices this stuff but me. I got into class just a couple of minutes late, just as they announced that today was picture day! What picture? For our ID badges! Of course. I was right, this was the absolute worst picture I’d taken, so I just didn’t wear my badge much. And then September 11, 2001 happened. Memos went out in our public building, ORDERING us to ALWAYS have our employee badges worn in plain sight on our person. Wonderful. To this day this late bad-hair-day morning haunts me, and I have to wear it like a red badge of shame.
I’ve received comments on the picture through the last 10 years, too. Vicky once saw this badge in my car. “I don’t like this picture,” she announced. “You look much better than this in person.”
A coworker Andy said another time, “This picture makes you look like a foreign exchange student from China majoring in Math at CalTech.” That is NOT a compliment.

It wasn’t all roast yesterday, though. My boss did give me an unexpected gem of information. “You’ve been her coworker for 10 years, but there are things about her you may not know. She’s a published poet.” He went on to say that he’d attempted to obtain a copy of the poetry anthology in which something I’d written years ago had been published, but was unsuccessful, so he ended up photocopying the pages, had his gifted wife copy the poem in calligraphy, then had it framed and mounted in his home office. I had no idea, and until that point I’d forgotten I’d ever shown him the book. He used some very flattering adjectives in describing the piece. Totally made my week.