It just gets worse

Monica and Violet are still out today, and there's no one to cover them. Apparently there are no temps available and there are ten people in the department out sick. You should see Violet's office -- it's chaos. Then again, mine's no better. It's going to be a very, very long day. Or just a very short but very hectic one.

Help?

Virtue

Back at my desk, but taking complete and total advantage of my lunch break. After all, there is going to be exactly no quiet time for the rest of the afternoon. I didn't get my morning screen break, and I probably won't get my afternoon one either. This is complete and utter insanity.

It's getting more and more difficult to manage for three consultants. At least one of them recognises, to a point, that I'm not the only one he works for. One's at least okay with the fact that some things don't get done RightNowThisMinute because I might well be doing other stuff, but the last one ... well, technically my job description did not start out with him as one of my consultants. Apparently one of the temps who came before me took on his work as a 'favour' while he was part time here and part time elsewhere, and it kind of stuck until his work sort of got incorporated into my job description just recently.

This would not be a problem ordinarily. However, this man is not doing this job part time. He is doing it full time. He also takes two clinics, one of which falls under another consultant's general remit, yet he still expects me to know exactly what's going on with the lists for both clinics. The Monday one, fine; that's my job because of the other two consultants. The Thursday afternoon one? I'm happy to do his typing but people don't refer to that clinic through me; they do it through Violet's consultant. So how in the name of all that is sacred am I supposed to know what's going on in that one? Plus he expects me to cross-refer. It's insane. Worse? The drug trials. He does the drug trial stuff for pretty much the entire department. Which means yet another addition to my work load. On top of the phone calls for all three, diary management for three people (all three of whom maintain their own diaries and only one of whom actually makes sure I know what's going on in both), the typing, the filing etc.

Most of the other secs have one consultant, two at the outside. Two is fine. I can handle two. I am rapidly getting to the point where I simply cannot do this anymore. Particularly not when the third consultant in question is overly demanding and generally expects everything to go his way all the time, regardless of the other bits of work I need to do. This afternoon kicked off with him yelling at me; I told him that one of his patients had gone in for chemo late, and he misunderstood, apparently thinking that the patient had not gone in for chemo at all. After two minutes of yelling, I finally understood the misunderstanding and managed to get a word in edgewise to rectify it, but for pity's sake! He knew the patient had been booked in for chemo because he did it himself, so he should be able to work out that even if the patient hadn't had treatment at all, it would be due to ward issues and therefore nothing whatsoever to do with me. That is, he'd be able to work that out if he has the brains God gave a gopher. Besides, if I had found out about a ward issue, I'd have handed it to the ward to sort out, not just sat on it until he came back. For Christ's sake, if he's not happy with the way I do my job, why doesn't he get his own damn secretary and leave me to do work for people who recognise that I am competent?

I really, really need to get out of this place. I would ask why this kind of shit always seems to happen to me, but I know why -- I'm bright, willing and competent. Those are the sorts of people who always wind up getting it in the neck when there's a need to overwork somebody. Apparently, virtue doesn't pay.

Why can't things ever go smooth?

You are Captain Malcolm Reynolds, aka. Mal or
Captain Tightpants. You saw most of your men
die in a war you lost and now you seek solitude
with a small crew that you are fiercely devoted
to. You have no problems being naked.


Which Firefly character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I told cholten99 about this, and he laughed. Arsehole. ^_^

Another day over. Again, I am thankful, and dreading tomorrow. I don't like this feeling of dread. At least it's not unnameable. Its name is carpal tunnel. The wrist braces are going back on for the evening and I'll see if that helps. I can't be out tomorrow; there's too much to do.

The cat's eating my shoelaces, and the flat is suddenly filled with the "Don't Stand So Close To Me" remix. Eh, could be worse. The headache could be really bad.

No more typing now. Hasta.

I love my computer

Aaaaaaaaaargh.

Was going to have a nice quiet evening not doing very much. Instead spent the last hour or so of it researching Certamen. Because, God help me, someone's going to challenge someone to Certamen before the next session ends. ("I'm gravitating towards the conversation, 'cos they're yelling! They're mages, and they're yelling! It's gonna get pretty!")

Note to self (and anyone else who might be paying attention): Now added to my list of must-haves in the sourcebook department is The Book of Mirrors and The Book of Shadows. (On top of The Book of Madness ... and suddenly the act-titles from aberranteyes' prose adapt of "The Lawndale Witch Project" make sense to me.) Those apparently contain the kinds of rules I'd need if I wanted to be really pedantic, though the sources I've read through Google tell me that the Certamen rules are sort of unplayable. The short-form write-ups make sense to me, at least. And now that I know the rules and have the foundations, I can go ahead and bend/break them how I like. Whee!

Anyway, as well as the Google stuff, much help was delivered to me by those belonging to the_ascension, particularly prettyarbitrary, who suggested a version of informal Certamen that dodgyhoodoo might like. How would you feel about "Who can blow up the most wyverns in ten minutes", Mr Skank?

Ah, the Internet. Vast store of information, conversation and wank material. How did I manage without you? Well, okay, the wank material I wouldn't even miss, except it would make Googling for pictures so much easier if it wasn't there. Do you know what you get if you put "Redhead" into Google Images?