THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS BIRD
Anonymous

    One of the things I like about my job is that I never know what’s going to happen to me when I get in to work in the morning. In fact, things that I would never in a million years expect happen to me all the time.

    For instance, one day recently when I arrived at work, I noticed that someone had put a certain file in the middle of my floor. "Oh, there it is," I thought, "I’ve been wondering where that file was." I picked up the file and was starting to put it away, when I noticed that the documents inside were covered with bird droppings (or at least that’s what it looked like).

    Just to make sure my imagination wasn’t running away with me, I went over to A---’s desk, and showed her the file, and said, "Does this look like bird droppings to you?" (Of course, "droppings" is not the word I actually used.) A--- started laughing, and admitted that it did look like bird droppings. "Who did that?" she wanted to know. Meanwhile, B--- was walking by, so I showed her the file, too, and she said, "Eeewww! How did that happen?"

    I told them that I didn’t know who did it, or how it happened, because, in fact, I didn’t know who did it, or how it happened. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I mean, if I had been the one who got bird droppings all over the file, then I would have cleaned it up, of course. But I wasn’t the one who got bird droppings all over the file, so I didn’t see why I should be expected to clean it up (without even being asked).

    On the other hand, it didn’t really seem okay just to put the file away in the condition it was in, leaving some unsuspecting person to find the bird droppings at a later date. So I sent an email around to everybody working on the case, which said "I'm not the person who got bird droppings all over the Z--- file, and I'm not going to be the person who cleans it up." (On this occasion I did use the word "droppings.") I sent the email to everybody working on the case, even though I knew the culprit was obviously one of the attorneys and certainly not any of the staff, firstly, because I thought that the staff would get a chuckle out of it, and secondly, because the unsuspecting person who next went after the file was more likely to be a staff person than an attorney.

    I got only two responses to my email. One attorney called and said, "I’m not the one who got bird droppings all over the file, either. Do you know who did?" Another attorney said, "That has got to be the weirdest email I’ve ever received. Are you joking?" So I still don’t know who did it, or how it happened, and I still don’t know what to do about it.

    This is a true story.