I’m mentioned, a few times (okay, more than a few times), that my job is stressful.
It was stressful with two doctors … now I’m responsible for three doctors and there are days I’m quite convinced my head is going to explode.
We lost a girl this past week.
I walked into a mini-pow-wow on Wednesday. Three of us were there, one was not.
My stomach dropped. Because I had suspected, for quite some time, that my co-worker, let’s call her “Jane”, had been skating on thin ice.
Apparently, I was right.
Jane had been making all sorts of mistakes, little ones, but big enough to cause a ripple, or two, or (eleven). And then, she really dropped the ball on a patient – it was serious enough that this patient could have died.
And shortly after that fiasco came to light, she made the mistake of scheduling a patient to have a brain MRI the same day of her appointment with the doctor. And this particular doctor? Does. Not. Like. That.
In fact, he was so upset, that he ended up throwing a temper tantrum, along with his mouse and several papers. It was not pretty.
The next day, Wednesday? I walked into a mini-pow-wow and found out that “she had chosen to pursue other career choices.” That, “this, in no way, was a reflection on her job performance.”
Jane’s desk hadn’t even been cleaned out yet – excuse me, we’re not idiots.
But to be fair, this girl had been making way too many mistakes and she didn’t appear to take her reprimands too seriously, so either she was completely clueless, or didn’t care – maybe she wanted to be fired to collect the unemployment. I don’t know. I really don’t care, quite frankly. It’s a done deal now – I’m more concerned with surviving and keeping my job so I can continue to provide insurance for my family and pay for groceries.
But now that Jane is gone, we had to take on extra doctors to compensate, at least until they hire someone new. That means, I now have three doctors I’m responsible to schedule for. And I have the doctor that threw the temper tantrum. Which means, I’m walking around with pretty much all of my nerve endings raw and exposed and these past few days have been insane while we scramble to compensate, re-adjust and re-group.
And did I mention we also switched cubicles and I’m now “in the hot seat??” I.E. the first cubicle, the cubicle everyone stops at instinctively and by default, I now help the most patients on a given day.
It’s a good thing I’m pretty freaking awesome at multi-tasking.
Seriously.
So. We’re down to three schedulers. And when word got around the clinic of what happened, a few girls, from different areas of the clinic, who were interested in possibly applying for the position, picked me, ME, to sit with and “job shadow.” Well. Okay. I’m flattered. But also out of my mind with worry and new things to do … but I kept my cool and I took the time, I pretty much talked through everything I was doing, while they watched, so they would get a better understanding of what, and why, we did things.
I scared one girl off.
The other girl applied for the job.
I just hope, that whomever they choose, has the intelligence to do the job and the mental stamina to keep up with the job.
AND – related to this story, but sort of not – since I work the 8:30 to 5:00 shift and hear things I probably shouldn’t hear my boss talking about in her office when it’s quiet and she has forgotten I’m out there all by my lonesome, I think the hospital administration is looking at re-evaluating our job description. Which NEEDS TO BE DONE because OMG, we do waaaaaaay more than our “official” job description states. And if they determine that we’re doing several duties from several different job descriptions, maybe, maybe, we’ll get a pay raise.
And if that happens, even though I’m not expecting anything huge, then all of this stress will somehow be a little more tolerable.
(Notice I didn’t say worth it).
Kevin has been working non-stop; He hasn’t had a day off in two weeks.
He’s been busy training to be an Intuit Turbo Tax help guy.
So who knows? If you do your taxes through Turbo Tax, and you need help and call the help line, you might end up talking to my husband!
Just keep it tax related, please. *wink*
He’s been going in to his office at 6:30 and coming home after 5:00. He has to be online and ready to learn from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and then he stays after a bit to catch up on his regular clients.
In short, he’s been working like a dog – all of us have, actually. Kevin, me, Dude and now Jazz. Because Kevin has hired Jazz to come in and work about an hour and a half after school because yes, he’s been busy enough to keep both Dude and now Jazz busy with stuff.
The boys are really getting some pretty cool experience in bookkeeping and general accounting tasks.
It’s hard to imagine Dude working at a fast-food restaurant now after doing data entry, cutting checks, filing and whatever else Kevin has him doing on a daily basis.
Kevin is still thrilled to death with Dude’s work performance. He is impressed that Dude gets in there, gets it done and then asks for more work. He doesn’t goof off and he makes good use of his time. In the meantime, Dude is making money and learning how to spend his money wisely. (That costs $10.00?!? Um. No thanks). Now. To make him save some of that money because living on your own ain’t cheap.
When Kevin gets more clients, he’ll be able to afford Dude full time, granted Dude is out of school and WANTS to keep working with his dad. Who knows how that will pan out.
In the meantime, Jazz wants to work for enough money, at least for now, to build himself a new computer. Dude just upgraded his computer, (again), and Jazz is feeling a bit left out. Dude is going to give him his old parts (Dude is generous like that), so Jazz needs to buy a new, bigger case and a new video card, (which are not cheap, by the way).
Kevin is also thinking of adding his logo to the huge sign above his office. Which will look cool, no doubt, but it cost a small fortune. Maybe if he gets another client, he might go ahead with that plan. I’m trying to talk him into moving into a little bigger (nicer?) office closer to home, but he seems pretty attached to his current location (it IS easy to get to – just right off a busy thoroughfare) and he gets along with his landlord, so there’s that.
We can’t even think of going anywhere for vacation until after tax season is over. Which is fine because given my rocky work situation, that probably wouldn’t have worked out that great anyway.
Dude starts back to class on Monday. He’s only taking three classes this semester and one of them is online. I’m glad his work load will be a little lighter – he’s starting to get burned out.
We had to take his car to the garage this past week. Dude said it was acting funny and would accelerate, and then hesitate, leaving him with very little power. He also said the check engine light was on.
But the garage had it for a week, ran it through their machine thingy and said they couldn’t find anything wrong with it.
???????
I think Dude was embarrassed. But honestly, how many times has that sort of thing happened to us? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to the doctor only to be looked at like I was crazy because they couldn’t find anything wrong with me.
Hence the reason I don’t go to the doctor unless I’m dying … or need three feet of my guts cut out.
We think his car troubles may have something to do with the chip in his key. We had to take the car in about a year ago to have the ignition switch replaced and, I don’t know, maybe there is some incompatibility issue with the new switch and the key. Kevin gave Dude one of his spare keys, it doesn’t have a chip, and we’ll see if that helps.
In the meantime, the guy at the garage gave Dude his card and told him if it ever happened again, to just drive to his garage and he would take a look at it. I thought that was awfully nice of the guy – that and he didn’t charge us anything because he couldn’t find anything.
In some ways, I’m sort of glad this happened. It will teach Dude that he needs to have a plan B and that when life throws you a curve ball, you better know how to duck out of the way.
Jazz continues to do well in school. This is it – THE LAST SEMESTER OF HIGH SCHOOL!!!! His last semester grades were good and we’re on the right track this semester. If the kid can keep this up, he’ll have gone through high school without one C on his grade card. Which means, his GPA is pretty decent and with his music experience, he might be eligible for a scholarship/grant.
Which reminds me, I need to start looking into that. Jazz told me he didn’t want to go to college right away. He wants to take the summer off (which, in fairness, we allowed Dude to do before starting college) and that he’s not even sure he wants to go to college. He really wants to find a job right away and start making money.
I will not discourage that route. Make that money. Get a taste of real life, by all means.
I just learned that his jazz band is not going to the Jazz festival in Pittsburgh Kansas this year. I’m TERRIBLY disappointed as I was looking forward to going. In fact, the kids aren’t doing much of anything this year. I wonder why? Jazz did tell me they are having some overnight trip somewhere shortly after he graduates and OF COURSE he wants to go … so I don’t know if I’ll have very much to report on with jazz band this year.
*sniff*
Manage my energy levels. Which is really a round-about way of telling you I need to exercise. (I know – wash, repeat – BORING). Now that I’m working full-time, I must, must, MUST maintain my energy levels. My new job (I’m a scheduler for eight neurosurgeons – I know, you’re impressed, stop denying it), is mentally EXHAUSTING. It doesn’t SOUND like it would be exhausting – how hard is it to schedule appointments?? But. BUT. It’s so much more than that. It’s making referrals, it’s pre-certing tests with insurance companies, it’s answering calls from patients, it’s answering flags (requests) from nurses … well, you get the idea. 
Write From Karen 