Category: Work Stuff

Just Write, Work Stuff

Just Write {2}

Karen

I received my company newsletter in the mail yesterday … and on page three, taking up the entire page (and it’s one of those over-sized newsletters) was a notice about the upcoming flu vaccinations.

And how it’s mandatory for all health care employees to partake of the flu vaccine.

I don’t know if you remember or not, but I’m NOT a big fan of the flu vaccine.

And quite honestly? I just don’t want to go through the stress of avoiding the flu shot every year. Though I GET why the hospital requires it’s employees to take the flu shot, I just don’t buy all of the reasons they try to justify it. I don’t think it’s a good thing. I don’t think it’s necessary every single year. And I really don’t appreciate the mafia attitude as they try and bully the 3% of us who refuse to participate.

I have a problem willingly injecting myself with poisons. And I honestly think that anyone who trusts the government enough to allow themselves to be injected with God knows what, is playing with fire and they’re way too trusting of the government.

I just won’t do it.

I have no idea what’s going to happen to me this year if I don’t accept the flu vaccine. I narrowly squeaked by not getting it last year and my stubborn rejection, not to mention my very verbal feelings about it, really irked a few people I work with. I don’t mean to be difficult, I truly don’t, but I feel VERY STRONGLY about this and I WILL NOT COMPROMISE ON THIS ISSUE.

I was THE ONLY person in my entire clinic who refused it.

And I will refuse it again. And if that means I will have to wear a mask, or that I even get suspended for a few weeks, so be it. If they fire me, then I’ll collect unemployment until I can find another job.

I will not get the flu vaccine. Period.

Nothing you, or anyone else, can say will ever convince me it’s a good idea. Vaccinations every ten years or so (like a Tetanus shot), okay, I’ll buy that. But to get a vaccine every year, for a strain of virus that literally has HUNDREDS of different varieties and the likelihood that you’re being vaccinated for the ONE virus that may, or may not, be the dominant strain that year, just seems so … RECKLESS to me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue for the past several days. I don’t want to stress about this every year – and I will, because it’s healthcare and they require it every year. It’s also not fair to my co-workers to wonder if I will be coming to work if an outbreak “supposedly” happens.

So the bottom line?

I think healthcare may not be the place for me after all. Which makes me sad, because I like my job and I LOVE the people I work with, but this issue may very well be the deal breaker for me.

Work Stuff

The Most Stressful Day of My Life …

Karen

… was yesterday.

I’ve had a lot of stressful days in my life, but yesterday, took the prize.

It all started, when my boss asked me if I wanted to work the Carthage clinic.

I immediately tensed up. I’ve been to three clinics since I began working this job: Branson twice and Harrison once.

And all of these times, I just sort of sat and watched what was happening. It’s not hard and I felt like I had the hang of it, but then …

… that was months ago. Then, they started cross-training another co-worker of mine to start working the outlining clinics. I tried not to take it personally but I just figured, Meh. I must not have caught on and ouch, but I would live.

I sort of forgot about outlying clinics, quite frankly.

So when my boss asked me on Wednesday if I wanted to work the Carthage clinic, by myself, with a doctor I’ve only spoken to TWICE, in a clinic I’ve never even been to, I naturally said yes.

OMG, what WAS I thinking?!?!?

So I began stressing about the ordeal. I asked a ton of questions and a co-worker gathered all of the necessary paperwork for me to take. I would be responsible for checking patients in, having them sign paperwork, taking their pictures and scanning their ID’s and insurance cards.

Easy-peasey, right?

It didn’t really occur to me, until about 4:00 on Thursday (because I was SLAMMED on Thursday and really didn’t have time to think about it, actually), that I didn’t know how to set the damn computers up.

Swell.

So by this time, most everyone I could ask was gone for the day and did I mention I was leaving to work the clinic the very next morning?!

I got up early Friday morning, got ready (it was sort of nice to wear business casual for a change and not scrubs), and went up to the clinic to hunt down the IT guy. Luckily, I found him right away and we went over how to set the computers up.

That helped. I was actually feeling a bit more confident about the day. I went to my desk to pack up my fan.

Yes. Fan. Because between my hot flashes and my nervous sweats, which only get worse after I start sweating and I know people can SEE that I’m sweating, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t a hot sweaty mess with a moist mustache checking patients in.

Not exactly professional attire, right?

Suddenly, I heard my name being paged overhead. The doctor and his PA were ready. Did I mention I had to drive the company van, a van I’ve been in twice and have NEVER driven, to the hospital to pick up the doctor and his PA after their morning rounds?

Just add THAT to my heaping helping of stress and well … I WAS A WRECK BEFORE WE EVEN LEFT THE BUILDING.

I panicked. OMG! I can’t make the doctor wait on me!!!! is what I thought and I grabbed my stuff, loaded up the two cases of laptops and cords and away we went. The van wasn’t that hard to drive and we made it to the hospital (which is only down the street from our clinic) in pretty good time. I pulled up under the awning and there was the doctor and his PA, waiting on us.

I hurriedly got out of the van (because there was NO WAY on God’s green earth I was going to drive the doctor all the way to Carthage) and got into the back seat.

I began to relax.

Okay. So far, so good.

About five minutes into the journey, when we had just driven onto the highway, did a thought suddenly occur to me.

DID I pack the case with all of my paperwork?????

The nurse was sitting in the back of the van and I turned around, “Hey [insert name of nurse here], do you see a black suitcase with silver trim back there?”

She looked. “No,” she said.

I immediately panicked. I ripped off my seatbelt and crawled (rather unceremoniously, I might add. The PA, who was driving, probably caught a very good view of my ass as I scrambled over the seats) to look for myself.

SWEET JESUS – I FORGOT TO PACK THE PAPERWORK.

I’m not even sure how to describe what I was feeling. I was horrified beyond belief. I have NEVER felt that horrified in my entire life. My chest started hurting and I honest-to-God thought I was having a heart attack.

The nurse, who is super calm (which is a good attribute to have if you’re a nurse), called the nurse’s secretary to ask her to fax all of the paperwork to the clinic. Though I appreciated her jumping in and trying to solve MY problem, I couldn’t let her do all of the work.

I called my office manager. She didn’t pick up her phone, so I left a message.

“Hey [insert office manager name here], I’m an idiot.” (The MA next to me laughed and said, “You’re not an idiot.” I just gave her a look as if to say, “Yeah right.”). I forgot to grab the case with the paperwork in it. Call me back on my cell …” Then I gave her my number.

“Should we go back?” I asked, hoping they would say yes.

The doctor, who had been silent up to this point and must just think I’m the stupidest person on Earth, said in a very calm voice, “Nah. We’ll be fine.”

That somehow made it worse because it made it sound like he had faith in me … OH MY DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN. Don’t think that! Is what I’m thinking to myself.

I’m not sure how I did it, but I outwardly remained calm. I called the clinic back and had my office manager paged. When I explained the situation, she sounded annoyed, but all business. She would make sure she faxed all of the paperwork to the clinic and would alert the clinic manager as to what was happening.

I felt like we should have slapped a sign on the van, “IDIOT ABOARD.”

OH MY DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN.

I’m pretty sure I started hyperventilating. That was going to be a lot of paperwork – we had 15 patients scheduled that day.

Now I know what people are talking about when they describe panic attacks – they feel like heart attacks, they say. And now? I completely agree. In fact, I’m getting anxious just typing this story out. My heart was thumping so hard I’m pretty sure the MA next to me heard it. She sort of awkwardly patted me on the thigh and quietly said under her breath, “It’ll be okay, it’s not the end of the world. Breathe.”

It took an hour to get to the clinic. And I think my heart finally slowed it’s pace about fifty-five minutes later. By the time we entered the building, I had gotten over my initial horror/shock and I was resigned to the fact that I’m an idiot and I might as well make the best of a terrible situation.

The clinic manager was SUPER NICE. Like CAUTIOUSLY NICE, as if she was treating a person made of glass and indeed, I FELT like I was about to shatter into a million pieces at that point. She took me to the area that we usually use and instructed me where things were. She gave me a STACK (it was about fifty pages) of paperwork to sort through. I set up my computer, plugged everything in, opened up my programs (just like the IT guy and I had practiced that morning), and began sorting through an impossibly messy and disorganized pile of paperwork – in the meantime, the first three patients, who had already arrived, stared at me waiting to be helped.

I took a calming breath, always conscience that the doctor was just doors away and though he was busy setting up his own stuff, would be ready to see patients at any moment and I was the one responsible to get the ball rolling, and just dove right into the middle of it.

Somehow, I managed to survive the first thirty minutes. Things finally started to settle down and I actually had a few minutes to straighten things up and put things into some sort of organized chaos.

Once we got going, I think I did okay. The MA always had at least one or two patients to show back to their rooms and the day rolled by relatively smoothly. I’m pretty sure I missed some things and I completely forgot to take one patient’s picture (he was one of the first and quite honestly, I’m surprised I was able to string a complete sentence together I was so stressed, let alone remembering to take his picture), but I’ll just have to clean up my mistakes this week.

Somehow, by the grace of God, I made it through the clinic without completely losing my sh*t. The last patient finally left and we packed up our gear and piled back into the van. We all ate lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant and the doctor bought our lunch, (did I mention he is SUPER NICE?!?) It was probably one of the more awkward meals of my life, but not THE most awkward (I’ve had a lot of awkward meals in my life too, like eating with Kevin’s bosses over the years) and I felt a little better after we ate. Not because of the food but because THANK GOD, it was over and we were heading back to the clinic.

The PA drove us back to the hospital so he and the doctor could get out and I guess the nurse no longer trusted me (can’t say that I blame her) and she drove us back to our clinic.

I pretty much collapsed back into my chair, in my cubicle, after we arrived.

I apologized all over myself and quite a few ladies gave me a hard time, but I didn’t care, I had survived and it wasn’t as bad as it COULD have been and did I mention I was just thankful that it was OVER???

So. Now? Who knows if they will trust me to ever work an outlying clinic again. The wanting-to-be-super-employee part of me hopes they haven’t lost all confidence in me and will ask me again, but MOST of me hopes they never bring up the subject again.

I think mostly? I’m disappointed in myself because honestly? That was a pretty STUPID thing for me to do.

_______________________________________

By the way, it has started: The whole “let’s get together after work” thing. I can’t fall into this trap. Because when you start hanging out with co-workers after work, things suddenly … get messy. I used the “I already have plans” card to get out of going to see a movie with the girls. But if/when they get to know me better, they will realize that I NEVER have anything to do on the weekends and …

… I’d like to keep it that way.

And … by the way, er, way … one of my co-worker’s job is in jeopardy. The sh*t will likely hit the fan on Monday. I don’t know if she’ll be fired, but it’s going to get ugly. Would you think less of me if the first thing I thought of was … HEY! Maybe I’ll be able to nab a better shift if she leaves!

I’m so bad.

Work Stuff

My First Solo Clinic – God Help Me

Karen

On Wednesday, my boss asked me if I would work the Carthage clinic this coming Friday – as in today.

I quickly learned I would be working it by myself.

With a doctor I’ve never worked with before.

And did I mention I’ve never even BEEN to this clinic before?? I have no idea how it’s set up or what to expect.

To say I was stressed yesterday would be an understatement. In fact, I worked myself up so much that my heart actually hurt by the end of the day.

I will be wearing business casual attire, not scrubs. And I’m quite certain I will be drenched in nervous sweat before the day is out. So I’m totally taking my fan and I don’t care if the team thinks I’m weird. I know, between my hot flashes and the fact that I profusely sweat when I’m nervous, I’ll need it.

Appearances be damned.

I’m going to get to the clinic early so the IT guy can show me how to set up the laptops for the team to use. Then I will drive the company van to the hospital to pick up the doctor, the PA and the nurse. The PA will then take over the driving part (THANK GOD) and we’ll drive an hour and a half to the clinic where I will frantically set things up (and pray to God it all comes together smoothly and actually works), and then check patients in, complete with scanning their ID’s and insurance cards and taking their pictures, to checking them out when they’ve been seen.

And this is assuming I’m not throwing up from the car trip. (Did I mention I get car sick? As in DEATHLY sick?? Note to self: don’t forget the Dramamine).

There are 15 patients on the schedule for tomorrow.

That’s about half the number of patients our doctors see on a daily basis. (Full clinics run about 30 patients per doctor).

I’m trying hard not to get too stressed about this because I will make myself sick if I do. I’m going to just take a deep breath and do my best, that’s all I can do.

I’ll let you all know how it goes – assuming my head doesn’t explode in the interim.

Life-condensed, Work Stuff

So Many Thoughts …

Karen

… so many stories, events, and ideas … and no time to write them down.

I’m starting to resent this job and how much time and energy it sucks out of me every day. I still haven’t found my new normal – after NINE months. I’ve had this job now for NINE months and I’m STILL struggling. I like this job, but is it really worth stressing this much over so little pay?? Is it really worth missing out on life’s little moments??

I’m close. I’m close to finding my new normal. I’m not as tired as I was, but still, it patiently waits to pounce just as I get home, have dinner with my family and settle at my computer to write down my thoughts or what happened that day.

It’s like someone is dangling my creativity in front of my face by a fishing line and just when I reach out to grab it, that entity, that something, yanks it out of reach.

I miss writing. I miss blogging. I miss reading. I miss the long days of laughing at my husband as he tries not to spy on me at his office. (I used to share his office space with him until I got this job).

Is it worth it?

Really?

I’m beginning to wonder.

Excuse me. I have to go. I don’t want to be late to work.

*sigh*

Work Stuff

I Am a Shee-Doo-Ler

Karen

This is the back of my name badge …

Work Badge

True story.

My co-worker was checking a patient out the other day and her name badge had flipped over so that you could see her first name, her last initial and scheduler under neath it – like in the picture above.

Patient: “Are you German?”

Co-worker: “Excuse me?”

Patient: “Are you German?” the patient asked again.

My co-worker was stumped. She had no idea why the woman would ask her that question.

Co-worker: “Not that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?”

Patient: “I just wondered how you pronounced your last name. Is it shee-doo-ler?”

It took my co-worker a few seconds before she finally figured out that the patient had thought her last name was Scheduler!!

And my boss, who happened to be walking by at that very moment, tripped and had to run back to her office because she was laughing so hard, she was crying.

I can tell you that we STILL, to this DAY, joke about that. And we’re now known, to everyone in the clinic, as the “shee-doo-lers.”

LOL

Weekend Tale, Work Stuff

A Patient Complained About Me This Week

Karen

You may find this hard to believe … but I’m actually really good with people.

Yes. I have zero patience, have little tolerance for stupidity and I’m a class-A control freak … but still, I’m pretty good with people. And that’s mainly because I control my emotions and try to remain empathetic to people’s situations.

You will rarely see, or hear, me lose my temper with people. I try and remain happy, breezy and light hearted. I do this mainly because I figure if we all have to be there, let’s make the best of a crappy situation, right?

And I keep my thoughts to myself. If I ever run into someone who can read thoughts? I may need to run for my life.

I work in a health-care clinic (in case you didn’t know that). So I deal with people who are in pain and looking for answers. The clinic I work in is sort of a last stop for a lot of patients. The doctors I work for are specialists and if they can’t help you, then you’ll likely just have to learn to live with the condition.

It’s often a frustrating and disheartening place to work at times because of the nature of the business.

I get that. I understand. So I go to work every day mentally prepared to be overly sympathetic to people’s plights.

Most days? It’s not that bad. I’m constantly surprised at the number of people who come to my desk to schedule a follow-up visit and/or further testing who are generally in good spirits. I suppose at that point, there’s still hope for some sort of answer to their chronic pain. People have retained their senses of humor and are very pleasant to interact with.

And then … there are those people who have been told there is nothing our doctors can do for them. Or they’ve been given bad news and then? I’m a scapegoat for their frustrations because I’m one of the last people they see when they leave the clinic.

This lady approached my desk to check out. It started innocently enough. She wasn’t due to come back for a few years and I could sense she was in a hurry. I just figured she had probably been waiting a while and was anxious to get out of there.

I couldn’t blame her. Whenever patients have a noon or later appointment, chances are, they’ve been in the clinic for a while. Because by that time, it’s likely the doctor is running late because previous patients took longer than he thought they would, or he was called to the hospital for an emergency. Delays happen … nothing is black and white in the health care field.

The woman wanted something from me to state that she had been in the clinic that day so she could reimbursed for mileage/gas … whatever.

No problem. I would print something off for her, stamp it with her doctor’s stamp and she would be on her way.

Only. My program crashed.

I have one particular program, the program that I’m in for most of the day, crash on me at least once a day. My IT guy knows about the problem, but he can’t do anything about it until the main hospital releases some sort of security patch.

Bummer.

So of course, my program picks this precise moment to crash. And the lady is already annoyed because she had been in the clinic for a few hours and the doctor didn’t spend much time with her because everything was going well and well, there wasn’t much to spend time ON.

Instead of waiting for my program to come back up, she produced some sort of log book for me to sign.

STOP. Wait a minute.

I’ve been a manager. I’ve been a loan processor. I’ve been a notary public. I’ve been accountable for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a company. I have enough experience to KNOW, you never, EVER blindly put your name to something.

EVER.

Don’t ever let anyone pressure you into signing something until you’ve had a chance to read it. And if you STILL don’t feel comfortable signing it, then DON’T SIGN IT.

Now granted, I’m sure this lady’s log was fine. She had several other signatures in her log and I’m sure it was perfectly legitimate. But there was just something about this woman’s … demeanor I didn’t trust. And quite frankly? I didn’t want to sign it. I didn’t want to be accountable for this woman’s life, no matter how small, at any time either now or in the future.

So. I responded with, “I’m not signing that.”

Granted. I probably could have said it nicer. Because it did sound a bit rude, now that I think about it. But I tried to immediately soften the blow by apologizing, AGAIN, for the inconvenience of her wait and my program was back up and I could print her out something.

Still. I had no idea she was THAT upset until the cashier, who patients see the very last to make sure they’ve made their co-pays, etc., came up to me and said, “Head’s up. That last patient? Said you were rude.”

*sigh* Of course she did.

Before I had a chance to go to my boss to explain my side of the story, another patient walked up and wanted my help. And by the time I finished my transaction with that particular patient, the woman had called my manager and complained.

My boss called me into her office and we had a little chat. She was super cool about it and completely understood my situation. She reiterated that I didn’t have to sign anything if I didn’t want to and that was the extent of my talk. I’m sure it had more to do with the fact that she can hear every single conversation I have with either patients who come to my window or with someone on the phone, and she knows I’m never deliberately rude to people and that I try my hardest to be accommodating.

In fact, I’m too nice sometimes and patients try to use that to their advantage.

At any rate, here’s how I see it – this job doesn’t pay me enough to risk my signature on some strange woman’s log book that she uses for God knows what.

I like my job, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Day-By-Day, Work Stuff

My First 5K, Meetings Suck, Color Change

Karen

Hold up, ya’ll … guess what I just got talked into …

Yep. My first 5K.

*high fives the monitor*

Oh yeah. I’m walking (cause who are we kidding, I don’t run, okay, maybe I run a little, and by a little, I mean about 20 steps) the 5K. Which, I just found out today, works out to be about 3.5 miles and NOT five miles like I first thought it was. Ha! (And you only THOUGHT I was an idiot!)

When I found out it was only 3.5(ish) miles, I was all like, “I’ll do it!” Cause I walk 3+ miles now whenever I do the treadmill thing.

Easy peasy.

So yeah. A bunch of us at work are going to do this and I can’t wait, actually. I don’t plan on hanging out with them the entire event, but it’ll be fun to start off with them and then talk/laugh about it later. And I LOVE walking outdoors. I’ll have my iPod playing some sweet walking tunes and it’s going to be fun zipping through all of the other walkers as I pump my arms and speed walk my way to the finish line.

(I’m one of those dorky walkers who pumps her arms … you know the ones I’m talking about. And don’t even tell me you don’t snort with amusement when you see them cause honestly? It does look pretty stupid. But it’s a GREAT workout for your arms).

Now I just hope it doesn’t rain cause this thing is a rain/shine sort of event.

I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to do one of these for a long time and now I have an excuse to do it. And it’s for a good cause. We’re raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network, a charity close to my heart (Dude was a preemie), and we’re raising money for the CARE mobile specifically, which is a mobile unit that doles out free health/dental care to about 10,000 children in surrounding areas every year.

Sweet!

I’ll be writing more about my experiences later. Stay tuned!

Yesterday was Administrative Professionals’ day. I had no idea. It’s not like I have that day clearly marked in red on my calendar and make a point of counting down the days until it arrives.

*ahem*

No really. I had no idea the day even existed until one of the nurses I work the closest with came up to me and said, “What type of topping do you want on your ice cream sundae?”

“Come again?”

“What do you want on your sundae? We have ….”

“Who’s paying for this?” I asked. (Cause nothing’s free, remember??)

She mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it. I learned from other people what day it was.

So, it was fun to be served by my boss.

I could get used to that. 🙂

I could get used to having free ice cream sundaes, too.

We had a meeting at 7:30 today. I wish they would get off the meetings kick. Meetings are okay, about once a month. But this bi-weekly thing is just annoying.

Especially when your boss calls in sick and doesn’t even make it in after she made a point of sending everyone a reminder email the day before.

And when we all sit around and stare at each other because there’s no one there to lead the meeting and we really don’t have anything to talk about.

TALK ABOUT ANNOYING.

Hey. I got an hour overtime so I’m not complaining … too loudly.

But still. I’m lobbying for monthly meetings from now on because I would rather sleep in an extra thirty minutes, quite frankly.

So we all voted on our next color. For those of you that don’t know, we wear different colored scrubs every day.

Olive on Monday
Eggplant on Tuesday
Teal on Wednesday
Lavender on Thursday (*puke*)
Wine on Friday

Olive was the oldest color, so that’s now out. And though I TRIED to rally the troops to get rid of that gawd-awful lavender color (seriously, it’s like we’re all at work in our pajamas – I DESPISE that color, i.e. Thursdays), I was out voted.

Olive is out and Charcoal Gray is in. (It’s technically called “pewter” in the Cherokee brand).

Now. If I can only persuade the girls to mix the colors/days up a bit so that we end up wearing that gawd-awful Lavender color (*puke*) on Fridays instead of Thursdays, because Fridays are our slow day and we rarely have a doctor in on Fridays, so there won’t be that many people who SEE us in our PJ’s …

I’m a rebel, people. I’ll have those girls eating out of the palm of my hand before very long, mark my words.