The Bottom Line
Jan. 12th, 2005 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianThere has to be a limit to just how bad this week can get, right?
Violet's still out sick. Monica's still out sick. There are still no temps at our regular agency. And the one person in HR who seems to know contact points for other agencies? Also out sick, and no one feels that this is urgent enough to merit a flick through the Yellow Pages. We've been told to "band together and muddle through somehow". I don't know how long this is going to continue; Violet could well be off sick for the rest of the week for all I know. Apparently Tanya (head of our HR department) doesn't care "so long as the urgent stuff is taken care of". We're medical oncology; it's practically all urgent! She said something about getting someone in to help clear the backlog "when the crisis period is over", but I have a feeling she'll change her mind when everyone's back and she tells herself how efficiently we can manage things if we all 'band together'. She's a very sweet woman, but I'm thinking that mindless optimism is the result of a relatively recent lobotomy.
Typing the de facto consultant's tape; you know, the one I was bitching about yesterday who seems to think I'm incompetent. Starting a letter, he tells me, "Same diagnosis as last time, but you haven't changed it; I want it to say..." So I pull up the last letter. No, I didn't change it. That would be because I didn't type it. It was typed on 15th December, which was when I was home with the gastric upset. It has the bloody replacement secretary's initials on it and is done in a different format to mine. Before saying things like that, he could check to make sure he's not taking that "oh, you're a bit crap, aren't you" tone with the wrong person. It's not hard.
You know, I have to ask myself when people are going to understand that the bottom line should be drawn under the employees rather than the profit margin or what have you. As is being made abundantly clear, this place falls apart without the secretaries. And yet we're treated like garbage, by and large; there's no effort made to make our jobs any easier, and everyone from the patients on think we're there to take abuse. Yes, two of my three consultants are quite nice to me, but let's face it; management shouldn't be making one person handle the workload of three consultants in the first place. Management should make sure that we're adequately staffed so that we can keep the place running smoothly and not have to panic for the best part of a week over other people's work. No wonder they can't get decent staff in this place -- anyone talented and qualified enough to handle the workload has gone to somewhere that appreciates talent and ability and pays for it accordingly.
Except me. 'Cos I'm an idiot. Actually, it's not so much because I'm an idiot as because ... again, it sounds stupid, but every job is going to be boring and crap and have its serious down sides. If I'm going to work a job I don't really like (and I'm going to; fact of life), I'd rather do it for some other reason than "it pays well". Money's not enough compensation for stuff like this, and the only thing that keeps me going sometimes is knowing how much my job means to people. Fine, the people I'm helping don't often realise it, but I do, and it's enough. It's why I don't leave -- people need me, and I'm reluctant to leave them to the tender mercies of some of the secretaries I've seen over the years. Maybe that does make me an idiot, I don't know.
Anyway, I think I've had enough of a break and a vent. Back to the hellaciousness. Wish me luck.
Violet's still out sick. Monica's still out sick. There are still no temps at our regular agency. And the one person in HR who seems to know contact points for other agencies? Also out sick, and no one feels that this is urgent enough to merit a flick through the Yellow Pages. We've been told to "band together and muddle through somehow". I don't know how long this is going to continue; Violet could well be off sick for the rest of the week for all I know. Apparently Tanya (head of our HR department) doesn't care "so long as the urgent stuff is taken care of". We're medical oncology; it's practically all urgent! She said something about getting someone in to help clear the backlog "when the crisis period is over", but I have a feeling she'll change her mind when everyone's back and she tells herself how efficiently we can manage things if we all 'band together'. She's a very sweet woman, but I'm thinking that mindless optimism is the result of a relatively recent lobotomy.
Typing the de facto consultant's tape; you know, the one I was bitching about yesterday who seems to think I'm incompetent. Starting a letter, he tells me, "Same diagnosis as last time, but you haven't changed it; I want it to say..." So I pull up the last letter. No, I didn't change it. That would be because I didn't type it. It was typed on 15th December, which was when I was home with the gastric upset. It has the bloody replacement secretary's initials on it and is done in a different format to mine. Before saying things like that, he could check to make sure he's not taking that "oh, you're a bit crap, aren't you" tone with the wrong person. It's not hard.
You know, I have to ask myself when people are going to understand that the bottom line should be drawn under the employees rather than the profit margin or what have you. As is being made abundantly clear, this place falls apart without the secretaries. And yet we're treated like garbage, by and large; there's no effort made to make our jobs any easier, and everyone from the patients on think we're there to take abuse. Yes, two of my three consultants are quite nice to me, but let's face it; management shouldn't be making one person handle the workload of three consultants in the first place. Management should make sure that we're adequately staffed so that we can keep the place running smoothly and not have to panic for the best part of a week over other people's work. No wonder they can't get decent staff in this place -- anyone talented and qualified enough to handle the workload has gone to somewhere that appreciates talent and ability and pays for it accordingly.
Except me. 'Cos I'm an idiot. Actually, it's not so much because I'm an idiot as because ... again, it sounds stupid, but every job is going to be boring and crap and have its serious down sides. If I'm going to work a job I don't really like (and I'm going to; fact of life), I'd rather do it for some other reason than "it pays well". Money's not enough compensation for stuff like this, and the only thing that keeps me going sometimes is knowing how much my job means to people. Fine, the people I'm helping don't often realise it, but I do, and it's enough. It's why I don't leave -- people need me, and I'm reluctant to leave them to the tender mercies of some of the secretaries I've seen over the years. Maybe that does make me an idiot, I don't know.
Anyway, I think I've had enough of a break and a vent. Back to the hellaciousness. Wish me luck.
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Date: 2005-01-12 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:30 pm (UTC)(Of course they will probably have a catch-all clause in your job description, making this impossible...)
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Date: 2005-01-12 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 03:35 pm (UTC)