Last summer I had a job in medical records. Basically I came in at 8 am every day, sat in a cubicle in a corner and scanned old files into the computer all day. The woman at the cubicle next to me played classical music on the radio, and I measured my progress in inches. We typically had 150 inches of pending work, and on a good 8 hour day I could get through about 3 inches. Basically it was the worst job I've ever had, and I've been an RA and worked in food service.
So, when the chance came up at the end of the summer to add more hours at my laboratory job and quit my med records job I jumped at the chance. My lab job was interesting, the people were nice, and everyone knew that I was competent and reliable (because I am). This background all leads up to why today was so frustrating. By the end of my shift I was hiding in the back room, sitting on the floor, and telling my roommate about how I know I used to like my job, but I can't remember what that feels like.
We got a new supervisor in December, and that's when things started falling apart. For a while it seemed like minor growing pains. However, it's been over four months, and we're still running out of vital supplies every single week because he doesn't know how to order things. He keeps talking about how he wants things to be safer, more efficient, and how he values employee feedback. The only positive thing he's done, however, is to buy a swiffer duster for the lab so that I don't have to lug a ladder around the entire lab to clean the tops of the equipment once a month.
The past two weeks have really pushed me to the edge, and I want to quit my job. It's a mixture of things really. He's implemented new "safety procedures" regarding gram staining where we have to wear eye protection because "the organisms could aerosolize." One, the organisms are dead, and two, if it's enough of a concern that they could touch our eyes shouldn't we be protected from breathing it in also? Not to mention that the only information I could find online regarding gram stain safety is that sarafin can be irritating to the eyes. If that was the reason he'd given I would be less upset, but I really dislike policies that have no foundation in anything. By the way, unlike every other lab I've ever been in, eye glasses do not count as eye protection. It isn't like we're working with acid or corrosive chemicals, I'm pretty sure my glasses will stop the flying [dead] bacteria from infecting my eyes.
The second thing that has really rubbed me the wrong way, especially with the new stringent "safety guidelines" is the fact that the hood I work under is broken. I do one of the few tasks in the lab where bacteria could actually become airborne and infectious. A few weeks ago, a maintenance worker noticed that the pressure in the hood was outside the safe range. I assumed that our safety focused boss would be working to rectify the situation, which is why I've been surprised lately that nothing is being done. Today I asked another employee about it, only to find out that, since our annual hood inspection is sometime in April, they've just decided to wait until that to fix it. So, this issue was documented weeks ago, and then just left. That makes me feel really safe. Although since the only people that use that hood are myself, the weekend morning staff, and the temporary tech, I guess no one really cares.
Today was the breaking point. Apparently our department managers want all the staff to follow "phone scripts" because we are too incompetent to talk on the phone without offending anyone. So, my boss made a phone script, and had the techs revise it. He then gave me two versions of the script to look over, one for the techs, and one for the call techs. The tech script was basically how I handle phone calls everyday, so it didn't really bother me. What did bother me was the script for the call techs, which would be the one I would follow. Essentially the only two options were taking the doctor's pager number so that a tech could call them back, or handing the phone off to a tech. I asked my boss if this script meant that he no longer wanted call techs to give out results. He said that he was unaware that we were capable of doing so. Giving results to doctors is the main function of my job. It's right there in the title, we call people with results and handle phone calls. Everyone else at work was equally appalled when I mentioned that. By the way, the second line of conversation after "how can I help you?" is "Dr. can you spell your name?" If I were a doctor and someone treated me like that on the phone, I would just say "yes."
Another aspect of my frustration stems from the fact that I won't be working days over the summer. I told my boss that my degree required me to take an internship, and that I couldn't work weekdays for nine weeks. I thought that was the end of it. However, later he said to me "[another call tech] is going to help you out with your problem and take your weekend shifts." I wasn't aware that I had a problem, and I was not aware that I was in charge of finding someone to take those hours for me, when they aren't officially even the hours listed for my position.
The other techs told my roommate that she is a bad influence on me because I've gotten more snarky and I've "used the f-word twice in the past three weeks." Clearly my co-workers have just never seen me angry. But if things keep up like this in the lab, they are going to see me angry more often.
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