I collected a large retainer from a new client first thing this morning, all in $20 bills. This made quite a stack of money. After I gave him the receipt and he left, I was walking back to my desk when one of the attorneys called me into his office to address a virus problem he was having with his computer. I had the money with me, and he picked up the stack and was commenting on how much money it was and the fact that it was all $20 bills, an unusual way to pay such a high fee. I got the virus scan running on his computer and went back to my desk to enter the client information into my computer. While I was there, the attorney asked for the file. So I got up and took the file into his office and went back to my desk. The deposit slip for the money was sitting on my desk, but the money was gone. I freaked out and started looking everywhere for it, thinking I must be going crazy. At first I thought maybe the attorney hadn't given me the money back, or I'd left it in his office. So he and I scoured his office, then the rest of the office, with rising panic as the minutes passed. We were both baffled. He mentioned that maybe he took it to the restroom with him accidentally (we were really grasping for possible locations by this point). So when he left to go to court, I went to the office next door to ask if anyone had seen anything.
Turns out that one of the guys, on his way to the restroom, had seen someone come out of our office's back door and hurry out the stairwell right across the hall; the timing was right. Dread sunk in. I felt sick. We hadn't yet had a client visit in the office, except the new client. He described the man, but it wasn't someone I recognized. So we pieced together that someone had entered the back door and had been hiding in the shadows of our library right next to my desk waiting for an opportunity. There were two paralegals sitting in their cubicles ten feet from my desk, but the back door is only used by employees on their way to the restrooms, so no one pays attention to that traffic. No more. It's permanently locked now.
I called the police, and an officer came over to take my statement. That was a surreal experience--almost as surreal as being robbed in the middle of a workday. I felt stupid. All the while I knew there was nothing he could do. I knew we'd never see that money again. And now I'm freaked out and super-cautious. We're taking other security measures. But I know that if someone wants to hurt you, they will find a way to do it. We'll just make it harder on them. And thank goodness that kharma doesn't let anyone get away with anything.
I really need things to get better. Now.
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