bah

There's no way you can subpoena someone without making them hate you.

At first this constituted its primary appeal: Yes, jerkwad, you're getting a subpoena. You want to be all mean? See you in Court. Mwahahahaha.

Now it's just...ugh. Particularly when I have to subpoena doctors and psychologists who really get shirty with me for interrupting their schedules. I understand their perspective perfectly. I just don't have an option, and neither do they.

The poor office manager with whom I spoke today thought that I was asking if Dr. X could attend this upcoming trial.

"He's seeing four patients that morning," she said.

"Oh," I said, and then told her, as nicely as possible, "Well, you see, the question wasn't so much whether he'd be willing to attend; it was whether he'd accept service of the subpoena by fax."

Cue shirtiness.

I ducked the blows by telling her I'd check with Boss-Man and find out what the next step was, and then let her know. Fortunately by the time he told me, "Serve it anyway," the office manager was gone for the day and I left a message with what I strongly suspect was an answering service (I didn't know they had those anymore). Hopefully she'll see the call in the light of my intent -- professional courtesy -- and not rubbing her nose in her powerlessness against the Court system.

But I doubt it.