so this is just another example of what my boss is like...
he was called to jury duty about 6 months ago, and totally thought that he could get out of it. so he gets my co-worker, cyndi, to spend all this extra time and energy (they kept on putting her on hold forever...for his personal stuff!) to try to get him out of it 'cuz he's a busy surgeon, and his patients' lives are on the line, etc, etc. it turns out, the regulations have become really, really strict, so the most he could do is postpone it. so he postpones it to the last possible date, which was yesterday. all day, he's calling maria and griping and complaining about how he has to sit around and wait, yada, yada, yada. so then he calls in the afternoon again and tells her that he's been called to a jury. by the end of the day, he had been put on a jury and sworn in, because, as he put it, everyone else had a criminal history except for him and some other old ladies.
then, he calls his attorney friend (who, by the way, was on oj simpson's original defense team...i dunno why he feels that a good thing), who tells him not to go. his friend volunteers to go in his stead and argue with the judge. um...everyone else, including scott, maria's husband who's an attorney himself, is telling him that they could send out warrant for his arrest, give him a huge fine, all this stuff, but because his friend tells him something that works to his favor, he's ready to follow his advice.
now, this whole time, the office has been scrambling to reschedule his surgeries and appointments, but we find that the patients are really cool with rescheduling or seeing another doctor, and it's totally doable and running smoothly even with him serving on jury duty. but since he decided that he wasn't going in, he tells us to put everything back on schedule, so we do.
then, this morning, he calls maria and tells her that he actually is going in, but he's still trying to get out of it. he was going to court with his attorney friend to try to convince the judge that one of his patients needed surgery today or else she would become seriously ill or even die. (completely not true) so the judge makes him get on the stand, swear an oath, tell her that he has to do surgery, and sign a statement...most of it half-truths and lies. finally, the judge lets him off for today, but tells him that he must come back to court on monday. he comes back here complaining that the judge said something to the effect that he was no different from anyone else, and would not be treated otherwise. he couldn't believe the judge said that!! i was seriously ready to tell him off this morning...
the thing is, if he had just served his time, the case he was assigned to was supposed to take 4 days. granted, it had the potential, as all cases do, to take longer, but he could've been out sometime next week and be done with. now, it's dragged on until monday, and now that the judge has his number and could very well be out to get him, he could get assigned to an even longer case and lose more time for jury duty. plus, our office spent the entire morning calling patients and apologizing and trying to organize and reorganize things for him being late from court this morning and being out on monday and some of next week. but he's not the one who has to clean up this mess that wouldn't be there if he had just complied in the first place. and once again, he's made himself the victim! aaaargh!!!
sorry, just had to vent...