Helpful Hints from Helpless Admins

[thessalian]

Dear consultants, SHOs, SpRs, clinical assistants and nurse specialists:

I am not entirely fond of my job. Who the hell would be? However, I am not entirely unfond of my job either, and it would be nice if we could tip the scales away back towards actual fondness. There are things that you can do to help:

1) I CAN HAZ HOSPITAL NUMBERS? Seriously. Eight digits. Read them out to me. Sometimes I do not get the notes, or medical records steals them before I can get around to the clinic tape or something else happens and I have not got the hospital number for ease of reference. Yes, having the date of birth helps (I'm looking at you, French Consultant; at least give me something instead of subjecting me to the mangled pronunciation of a fairly simple English name. How the hell hard is 'Smith'?) but really, I would prefer the hospital number. And if you are reading off the date of birth, you are likely looking at documentation that contains the hospital number. This would make my job go faster, having hospital numbers.

2) Think about what you want to say before you say it! What I mean is, do not go back three letters mid-tape because you couldn't be arsed to look at the bit of patient note you just wrote down about a patient's meds. Once in awhile, I could understand. Multiple times per tape? Please actually sit down and consider what is coming out of your mouth.

3) On the subject of what is coming out of your mouth, or what is going into it, please do not do any of the following with your mouth mere millimetres from the microphone:
- yawn
- sneeze
- cough
- exhale heavily
- chew

Seriously. Tape distortion and most breath sounds are NOT MY FRIENDS.

4) Places you should not be dictating clinic letters:
- In your car, apparently during rush hour
- Any restaurant or bar
- Public transport of any description
- Your living room when your kids are having a tantrum
- Standing directly behind me in the office while I am trying to type something else
- Any office, building or residence where the fire alarm is going off

5) If English is not your first language, please let the final judgement of what constitutes good English go to the person who actually speaks it fluently. Do not 'correct' letters so that they say things like 'He continue well despite no to have symptoms of--' (No, I am not making this up) and if you're going to add things to letters after you've dictated them and I've typed them, let me know that you've made amendments so that I can correct your fractured English and not send appalling letters out to GPs all over the damn country.

6) There is a queue. Respect the queue. And for the love of every god, stop dictating things three to four weeks after the clinic in question! It throws off my system and it makes me look bad to management when I don't type something from a 22 June clinic until 22 July. (Also, if you could actually check and amend the letters that I have typed as I type them instead of letting them sit for a month and giving them to me in a wodge that will take an entire day to clear? I'd be obliged.)

If you follow these very simple instructions, you might actually succeed in not pissing me off or driving me to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Regards,
Your long-suffering secretary.

Seriously, I don't know what's going on with Schrodinger's Admin anymore. Apparently she has been signed off for another four weeks for stress, even as Office Manager has said that she does not want Schrodinger's Admin back ever again. I don't know if Schrodinger's Admin has got that memo or if HR are even taking it seriously, but I do know that this is now six weeks that Schrodinger's Admin has been signed off for 'stress'. Though apparently she's doing university courses! ...In Psychology. This woman with the attention span of a gnat and the volatility of decade-old TNT is taking Psychology. And she says she's doing well. I ... my mind is comprehensively blown by the notion. Plus she does not strike me as all that bright or indeed well-versed in how people think. Ah well. Suppose it's not my business. I just hope she never comes back again ever. Particularly not next week for any reason. Next week, everyone who is regularly in this office - OtherAdmin, LovelyFrenchAdminLady, NurseGuy - are out of the office and that just leaves me, all by myself. Schrodinger's Admin would kill and eat me.

Payday woo! I have Lush products and little plastic bottles with dropper-caps, and tomorrow it's to the Brixton hoodoo shop for fragrance oils. I'm also pondering a trip to see Deathly Hallows 2 but I haven't seen the first one yet. But then, I'm subscribed to LoveFilm so I suppose I can watch it from there if I want to. Still, I'm not all that invested in it. I've heard mixed reviews. And anyone who says anything to me about 3D should know better; I'm not even entirely over this week's migraine attack and I have no desire to risk it further with that 3D shit. Frankly, most films shot with 3D in mind are obsessed with shots aimed directly at the camera, and I think that even if I did escape the migraine, the vertigo'd get me. I remember this from when Hollywood fell in love with that swooping helicopter circular pan shot that they overused so completely in the LotR movies.

...Or maybe I'll just stay home and buy the 'all the Harry Potter DVDs in one box set' pack when it comes out. And then throw CoS in the nearest bin.

Warcrack. Level 37 and wandering around Stranglethorn Bay or something like that. I'd probably be further along if I actually moved on to level 35-40 areas, but I'm not in the mood. I just want to level slowly and mine things. Particularly after that hideous 'poison the farm for the Forsaken' quest, when I got mobbed by many, many Alliance farmhands (though I managed to survive, which surprises me). And now I have to go back to kill nine of them, but I'm waiting for awhile because ... again, finishing up those stupid quests in Stranglethorn and mining things. There's a lot of iron deposits and a bit of gold around Hardwrench's Hideaway. Speaking of mining, iron really is used in Jewelcrafting. A lot. Who knew? Wish I hadn't smelted all my tin, though. It's awesome for prospecting. Still, I suppose now I can prospect any tin I get hold of and make a lot of bronze with the tin I smelted. Which is useful because I seem to need a lot of bronze settings. Damnit, wingedkami!

Right. Guess I've killed enough time. Fridaaaay!

Comments

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

My possibly out-of-date tip for Stranglethorn Vale: should you find yourself with vast numbers of pages of The Green Hills of Stranglethorn Vale, put them on the auction house. There are a lot of people willing to pay to not have to collect the whole damn book.

The dwarflock is now through the dark portal, flying around on her gryphon shouting 'Sod war, give me fel iron!' And I'm very tempted to buy the expansions so I can pick up archaeology and have even more things to dig up.

The one thing I'm stuck on is cookery. Not that Kremhilde actually eats food, but it would be nice to be able to do it. Currently my bank account is full of raw meat.

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

Cooking's not that bad (I think I'm up to 180-ish now?) but getting new recipes is a right royal pain in the backside. The trainers give you some but for any hope of using up all that meat? Generally you need to wander around finding as many recipes from as many vendors as possible. Try here for recipes and where to find them. I think you might be lucky in that so many of these are easier to get for Alliance. (I need to use my big bear meat, damnit.)

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

I suspect the problem is that the dwarf has yet to set foot on Kalimdor - based on that site a lot of recipes come from Darnassus. Time for a detour, I think.