Do you have a problem? Blame the YWCA!

Before i begin blathering here, just to cover my ass, Ill let any possible/former/ current clients who may stumble across my blog and figure out that its me [ which is not bloody likely] that i am courteous, professional and would never speak of your matter here on my blog. That being said...

You would not believe the fuckin nutjobs i have been seeing lately... I feel like im on candid camera some of the time. So much so that when i was telling Jer about it, he actually said "that sounds like blog material"

This lady comes in here yesterday and says she wants to sue the YWCA. So i think... oh she slipped at a pool or they fired her or something [both quite possible claims and with a fairly high success rate... i mean its pretty much a charitable agency and you'd kinda have to be a jerk to sue them]

So this lady wants to sue them for "mental anguish"...because they had the audacity to evict her from their housing because she hadnt paid rent [consisting of 150 per month] FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS.

So i tell her, "Well, uh, they can do that...basically they coulda kicked you out after the first 14 days of the first month of non payment and they were quite nice to not do such..."

This just pissed the lady off: "No!" she yelled "They had no right! Who do they think they are! I missed weeks of work because i was so upset!"

Well, ok...maybe she could try to claim that, its a real real real longshot, but maybe....So I ask, "What type of work do you do?"

"Oh, I dont have a job. I havent worked in years. But if i had a job... i would had needed to take it off".

"Hmmm... So you want to sue them for kicking you out because you werent actually paying rent...and because IF you had a job, you would had missed time because you are upset. "

"Yes, and also because before i moved there, I was homeless"

Now this is when i went from humoring her and writing down notes like i may actually be able to help her, to putting the pen down, and closing my folder. "Why" I asked in a trying-not-to-sound-condesending-but-failing miserably voice, "is the YWCA responsible for that?"

"Because I WAS HOMELESS... AND NOBODY CARED ABOUT ME!"

So everyone, just so you know, this woman wants to start a precedent that whatever has happened in your life which is unsavoury or made you feel bad, is the fault of the Calgary YWCA. Maybe we can start a class action. Personally, Im going to sue them because in Grade 7 I fell off a seesaw and broke my arm and my summer was really boring...and also because i crashed my car in 2001 and couldnt afford a new one until this year.

So now, I wanted this woman out of my office. And immediately. My trick to do this is to quote an excessively high retainer amount-- its not very nice, but its a lot nicer than saying "you have no case you weird fruitcake". So i tell her, I dont think you have an action against them...but if you want me to pursue it, I will need $1000 upfront.

"Oh" she says "I thought you could do it for contingency".

Right. So Im going to get paid out when you get paid....so lets see, Im not that great at math, but 35% of zero is..... zero. So I tell her I dont work for contingency, and she pretty much packed up all her shit ( she had receipts for everything she has purchased in the last 3 months...wanted to claim those from the YWCA too) and stormed out of here...saying that the mayor and her alderman may call me because she is going to call them and ask them to pay.

I really had to bite my tongue. I said. "Great, thanks!" and suggested she call legal aid. What i wanted to tell her is that she should have a nice day in her magical world and to send my regards to the leprechaun and the unicorn she rode over on. That being said, I should had asked the unicorn what he wants to sue the YWCA over...and will be sure to see whether the mayor wants in too when he calls to pay for her legal fees. Maybe i shouldnt be so flippant. Im sure the next lawyer she sees will also have to sue the YWCA over the mental anguish i caused by not taking her on as a client.