Synonym request

[TUSooner]

I am currently working closely with a female colleague who is a nice woman but who has a striking and annoying anally retentive personality. Primarily, she is obsessed with details of our work (legal writing, fwiw) having little or no significance. It causes me to ponder whether there is a more sophisticated and erudite term than "anal" to describe someone with an anally retentive personality. Please help me find that just-right, non-scatological word.
My expectations are astonishingly low, so go ahead.

[Frozen Sooner]

Controlling.
Obsessive.
Persnickety.
Detail-oriented.
Awesome blue-booker.
Someone who got a good grade in Legal Writing.

I'm not a big fan of the current trend of describing everyone excessively detail-oriented as "anal". I agree with your judgment that it just seems crass.

[OU4LIFE]

Controlling.
Obsessive.
Persnickety.
Detail-oriented.
Awesome blue-booker.
Someone who got a good grade in Legal Writing.

I'm not a big fan of the current trend of describing everyone excessively detail-oriented as "anal". I agree with your judgment that it just seems crass.

you're just being anal.

[sooner_born_1960]

I like Detail-oriented, Mike. And that's not always a good thing.

[badger]

I like Detail-oriented, Mike. And that's not always a good thing.

Change it to "Oriental Dental." People will think you're talking about a dentist's office and not about her :D

[TUSooner]

Persnickety led to "finical"; it's close.

From the OED:
"finical"
Of persons, their actions and attributes: Over-nice or particular, affectedly fastidious, excessively punctilious or precise, in speech, dress, manners, methods of work, etc. Also of things: Over-scrupulously finished; excessively or affectedly fine or delicate in workmanship.

Which led to this, which could be the word. It even sounds a silly as the quality it describes:

punctilious

Strictly observant of or insistent on fine points of procedure, etiquette, or conduct; extremely or excessively particular or correct. Also: characterized by such scrupulous attention to detail or formality.

[Frozen Sooner]

I like Detail-oriented, Mike. And that's not always a good thing.

I agree. I look at it as there's people who are naturally high-level organizers and people who are naturally low-level organizers (and I intend no normative distinction by the choice of terms.)

I'm a high-level organizer. I want to work on the broad brush strokes. You'll commonly hear me say "You know what I mean.' Emotionally, I feel like it's a waste of time to spend all day making sure that every comma is in place and every citation is perfect.

Low-level organizers like to refine and make things perfect. It has decided advantages-where my approach can lead to misunderstandings (wasting more time than if I had just spent the time to make sure things were clear) theirs makes sure that everything is clear. Low-level organizers are rarely taken by surprise.

Low-level organizers irritate the **** out of me, but it's handy to have them around. :D

And yeah, I like punctilious.

[Breadburner]

"Tool"....

[OUDoc]

"Shut up, bitch"

Too high-brow for you? :)

[King Crimson]

i think the way you do it is not what she is/writes, but what she's not....like couldn't we do this in a more "nuanced" way.

it's legal writing, we aren't always trying to prove that x=x. stratagem.

[TUSooner]

"Shut up, bitch"

Too high-brow for you? :)

An epic case of failsome failitude.

:eek:
:D

It's between finical and punctilious. To the extent finical means excessively punctilious, that the right word. But punctilious just sounds more gooder.

[TUSooner]

As for the work, we get along fine because I generally overlook her finical punctiliousness. I make most of the changes she suggests, unless I think they're just plain wrong or it entails a significant waste of my time.

[Stitch Face]

I am currently working closely with a female colleague who is a nice woman but who has a striking and annoying anally retentive personality. Primarily, she is obsessed with details of our work (legal writing, fwiw) having little or no significance. It causes me to ponder whether there is a more sophisticated and erudite term than "anal" to describe someone with an anally retentive personality. Please help me find that just-right, non-scatological word.
My expectations are astonishingly low, so go ahead.

Man, lotta sexual tension in that post.

[Viking Kitten]

"OCD," short for obsessive compulsive disorder of course, is a good descriptor I use a lot... simple, words people understand, no reference to buttholes.

"Joe made me rewrite my copy five times. He is being very OCD today."

[1890MilesToNorman]

I always liked the phrase "get away from me".

[C&CDean]

I usually use "obsessive-compulsive whacked out bitch."

I've got a guy I work with who is ridiculous. His office is like a surgical suite. Even the pencils on his desk have to be sharpened to the exact same length, laid out with the "No. 2" facing up, etc. He untangles and straightens his phone cord after every call. He puts the window shades into both his back and front window on his car, and it is always waxed with the tires shiny and everything. We always go over to his desk and move a pencil or just bump something out of place by a quarter-inch. The minute he comes in he's over there straigtening them out. Weird.

[OUDoc]

Sneeze on his desk.
A really wet sneeze.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

"Shut up, punctilious bitch"

Too high-brow for you? :)She'll love ya for it.

[1890MilesToNorman]

I got it!!!

Monk

[StoopTroup]

Rainwoman

[LePetomaine]

How about "waste of time"? With no disrespect to ya'lls work (and no admission that 18 years in the business have made me a cynic), but most legal writing is lost on it's intended audience. The deciders have already done their deciding long before the third amended whatever is submitted.

An example: about ten years after I originally wrote it, I re-read my law review article. In the first few pages, one word was incorrect (maybe a "not" that was not supposed to be there, or vice versa, I can't recall). But, it completly reversed the point of the article. After countless hours of proof reading, how could this be? So, I dug up my copy of the the final draft of the article -- the mistake was not there. This somehow happened at the printer's office.

My point is -- people make mistakes. Sometimes you just have to take the advice of Steve Winwood and "just roll with it baby".

[Stitch Face]

You should get the "anal" girl and the southern-drawl girl together in your office and then write about that...

[StoopTroup]

Dear Penthouse....

[TUSooner]

I usually use "obsessive-compulsive whacked out bitch."

I've got a guy I work with who is ridiculous. His office is like a surgical suite. Even the pencils on his desk have to be sharpened to the exact same length, laid out with the "No. 2" facing up, etc. He untangles and straightens his phone cord after every call. He puts the window shades into both his back and front window on his car, and it is always waxed with the tires shiny and everything. We always go over to his desk and move a pencil or just bump something out of place by a quarter-inch. The minute he comes in he's over there straigtening them out. Weird.

Heh, when she walks into my shabby office, she tries not to touch anything. :D

[Tulsa_Fireman]

Howzabout "anus-like" or "rectalesque"? "Colontastic"?

[TUSooner]

How about "waste of time"? With no disrespect to ya'lls work (and no admission that 18 years in the business have made me a cynic), but most legal writing is lost on it's intended audience. The deciders have already done their deciding long before the third amended whatever is submitted....

We ARE the deciders, well, we work for them. :) We sift through the excess verbiage, winnow the wheat from the chaff, boil away the dross (etc.) and explain the case as concisely as possible.

I don't think the deciders do their deciding without first having a good look, but I certainly agree that most legal writing is lost somewhere. Usually it's lost because the point is buried in pages of irrelevant horse****.
I read some really horrible crap, some of it written by experienced and well-paid professionals.

Here's my advice for all lawyers writing to any court.

"Get to the ****ing point, and tell the court only what it needs to know to get there with you."

[Tulsa_Fireman]

Dear judge,

My client pleas, "You can't prove sh*t. Now gimme some money."

Love,

TUSooner

[Stitch Face]

Dear Penthouse....

I never thought it would happen to me...

[LePetomaine]

Here's my advice for all lawyers writing to any court.

"Get to the ****ing point, and tell the court only what it needs to know to get there with you."

-- amen, brotha, amen --

[AlbqSooner]

Here's my advice for all lawyers writing to any court.

"Get to the ****ing point, and tell the court only what it needs to know to get there with you."

-- amen, brotha, amen --

Ahhhh but we are enamored with the sound of our own voice, even if it comes out through a keyboard.;)

[SicEmBaylor]

I always liked the phrase "get away from me".

I bet the phrase, "You're fired" would work much better in this situation.

[StoopTroup]

Unless she's really hawt or employed by SicEm as nothing any woman does can phase his powers of celibacy.