thessalian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thessalian) wrote2011-11-28 11:01 am
thessalian) wrote2011-11-28 11:01 am
Monday ... booooooo!
I am having One Of Those Days.
I was late for work owing to the more-or-less standard public transport woes. I guess it froze last night, to judge by the salt scattered all over the train platform this morning. Anyway, I wasn't very late, so that was alright. Still, not a great way to start the day, particularly when you have no idea what desk you're going to end up sitting at when you get in. (I know more or less what department I'm working in until mid-January. What I don't know is exactly where I'll be sitting on any given day.) As it happened, the other float temp wasn't in so I was offered her desk. However, I figured that it would be just my luck if she turned up while I was mid-letter, so I declined and took the desk of the IT guy who sits across from her desk instead. Unfortunately, there is only one foot pedal for our shiny new digital dictation machine, so I nabbed that.
Well ... I nabbed that after I got my computer access back.
Yeah, imagine my shock when I tried to log in and got beeped at with an error message saying that this user account had expired. Apparently, IT got really confused when my job spec went wibbly and I ended up doing the typing for half the damn hospital. Or they mistook me for one of the temps that float through the place sometimes. I honestly don't know. Either way, they somehow thought that my contact was ending and pulled the plug on my account on Friday night. So ... that was a truly unpleasant surprise, about which I thankfully got immediate reassurance. Things got settled on that end ... mostly ... except that I'm now having some issues with my EPR account that IT hasn't sorted out because EPR helpdesk is a separate department, which is traditionally staffed by lazy twits. But at least I can more or less type.
Unfortunately, the other secretary can't. Look, we have exactly one foot pedal up here. Headphones we have in plenty because there are still some of the old transcription machines kicking around (because, despite us having gone live with digital dictation over a month ago now, some of the consultants still refuse to use it altogether and so we have to make special allowances for tapes, because consultants are Speshul Snowflakes and anyone who's trying to maximise the efficiency of the NHS really needs to crack down on that bullshit, JUST SO YOU KNOW), but that doesn't work for the footpedals. I found my colleague trying to plug a foot pedal from a transcription machine into the microphone jack of her computer. Then she wandered away and found one that would fit an old-fashioned pin socket. Which our computers don't actually have anymore, given that I think those gave way to USB ports about five years ago and not even the NHS is that bad about updating its equipment. Sometimes. Mostly. Anyway, point is that she is boned. And if she hadn't had a worse time on public transport than I did, that'd be me.
The only cup of coffee I could get this morning was some incredibly disgusting instant. We were out of sugar so I had to use someone's artificial sweetener, which only made it worse. My tiny bag of dried apricots was not suitable for breakfast and it's at least an hour 'til lunch. I have a headache. My knees are really feeling the change in weather, as are my sinuses. I am tired and unhappy and I want to go hooooooooooome. And one of the doctors not only cannot figure out that he needs to hit the record button before he starts talking, but also has not yet worked out that the digital dictation system means that you have to dictate each letter as a separate sound file. So I'm going to look real forward to formatting this sucker when I finally get this sucker typed.
[Edit: Also, when I have cleared out three months of your typing backlog, do not turn around to me with bitch-face and tell me not to do your typing anymore because you don't need the help. Not when I have managed to clear the backlog that you've been leaving sitting there since June because you've been too busy reading the Metro or talking too loudly to your colleagues to actually do a damn thing. And this is the woman who bitches about how coming in on weekends isn't worth the overtime she gets! I don't even know what the hell she does! Argh!]
I was late for work owing to the more-or-less standard public transport woes. I guess it froze last night, to judge by the salt scattered all over the train platform this morning. Anyway, I wasn't very late, so that was alright. Still, not a great way to start the day, particularly when you have no idea what desk you're going to end up sitting at when you get in. (I know more or less what department I'm working in until mid-January. What I don't know is exactly where I'll be sitting on any given day.) As it happened, the other float temp wasn't in so I was offered her desk. However, I figured that it would be just my luck if she turned up while I was mid-letter, so I declined and took the desk of the IT guy who sits across from her desk instead. Unfortunately, there is only one foot pedal for our shiny new digital dictation machine, so I nabbed that.
Well ... I nabbed that after I got my computer access back.
Yeah, imagine my shock when I tried to log in and got beeped at with an error message saying that this user account had expired. Apparently, IT got really confused when my job spec went wibbly and I ended up doing the typing for half the damn hospital. Or they mistook me for one of the temps that float through the place sometimes. I honestly don't know. Either way, they somehow thought that my contact was ending and pulled the plug on my account on Friday night. So ... that was a truly unpleasant surprise, about which I thankfully got immediate reassurance. Things got settled on that end ... mostly ... except that I'm now having some issues with my EPR account that IT hasn't sorted out because EPR helpdesk is a separate department, which is traditionally staffed by lazy twits. But at least I can more or less type.
Unfortunately, the other secretary can't. Look, we have exactly one foot pedal up here. Headphones we have in plenty because there are still some of the old transcription machines kicking around (because, despite us having gone live with digital dictation over a month ago now, some of the consultants still refuse to use it altogether and so we have to make special allowances for tapes, because consultants are Speshul Snowflakes and anyone who's trying to maximise the efficiency of the NHS really needs to crack down on that bullshit, JUST SO YOU KNOW), but that doesn't work for the footpedals. I found my colleague trying to plug a foot pedal from a transcription machine into the microphone jack of her computer. Then she wandered away and found one that would fit an old-fashioned pin socket. Which our computers don't actually have anymore, given that I think those gave way to USB ports about five years ago and not even the NHS is that bad about updating its equipment. Sometimes. Mostly. Anyway, point is that she is boned. And if she hadn't had a worse time on public transport than I did, that'd be me.
The only cup of coffee I could get this morning was some incredibly disgusting instant. We were out of sugar so I had to use someone's artificial sweetener, which only made it worse. My tiny bag of dried apricots was not suitable for breakfast and it's at least an hour 'til lunch. I have a headache. My knees are really feeling the change in weather, as are my sinuses. I am tired and unhappy and I want to go hooooooooooome. And one of the doctors not only cannot figure out that he needs to hit the record button before he starts talking, but also has not yet worked out that the digital dictation system means that you have to dictate each letter as a separate sound file. So I'm going to look real forward to formatting this sucker when I finally get this sucker typed.
[Edit: Also, when I have cleared out three months of your typing backlog, do not turn around to me with bitch-face and tell me not to do your typing anymore because you don't need the help. Not when I have managed to clear the backlog that you've been leaving sitting there since June because you've been too busy reading the Metro or talking too loudly to your colleagues to actually do a damn thing. And this is the woman who bitches about how coming in on weekends isn't worth the overtime she gets! I don't even know what the hell she does! Argh!]
no subject
Actually, not much point, right? Consultants are Never Wrong, and it would be All Your Fault that he's messing things up?