I decided to do the work for the orthopods today. They didn't pay me $50 an hour but they paid pretty well. But, there is another reason why I said yes. You ever get the feeling you have to say "yes" to something you're rather ambivalent about doing? Well that's what happened to me.I have to go back about four years. I was working as a temp and one of my assignments was this orthopod practice which had just been set up about six weeks prior to my assignment. Consequently there was a few weeks' work there. So I pounded the keyboard for them for about 10 days and was offered a permanent job. As I had rather enjoyed the assignment and the surgeons I met were really nice, I jumped at it.
So I helped set up systems for them, tackled the backlog of reports and watched the practice grow. Eventually, they decided I needed someone to help me (much to my relief) and hired a lady who had worked in the same building. (The practice is in a large hospital). I was just so relieved to have someone to assist with the backlog of work, I welcomed the new lady with open arms. Her first comment to me was, "I'm here to work, not have a social life." Okaaaay, I thought to myself, so be it.
I duly taught her the ropes and I reckon I was pretty helpful, but it wasn't long before I was thinking...oh no, a control freak. Bear in mind I had set the system up that we were using, however this lady decided that I needed to be told my job. Little hints didn't work, so I used humour...Ohhh, I didn't realise you were practice manager...chuckle. Nothing worked. So I had a chat with the practice manager, mentioned I was having issues and told her I was going to have a chat with this lady (butt covering exercise...grin).
Baaaad move. After my, what I thought, was a reasonable chat about the fact that I didn't need to be told my job and I'm sure that if there were problems, the practice manager or the doctors would let us know, she become worse. It didn't help when one of the doctors, every time he brought back my work to be finalised, told me how good the work was and how fast I was. I could feel the waves of resentment and dislike, so much so I felt really uncomfortable and wished he would shut up!
The day came when I was given a large documenting job to do. I worked for weeks on this, to the extent that I took draft copies home, checked and amended them in my own time. Once I was truly satisfied they were correct after my hours of proofreading and checking, I printed out final copies and gave them to the doctors, destroying the drafts.
A week went by and the practice manager called me into her office and tore a strip off me for the mistakes in the work. I was totally gobsmacked and said so. Her comment was, "Do you think someone else has done this?" I mean what do you say? I didn't have a leg to stand on, but I knew that work wasn't mine. One clue was a misspelled word. Now, at work, I always read the work through and spellcheck. I can't afford not to, and I said that to the practice manager. I also said there'd been no problem with my work up until then, so what was going on?
I eventually left rather than have my reputation ruined. I was very unhappy and it was the best thing for me.
To cut a long story short, today I got the answers and was vindicated, much to my delight. The new lady I trained was sacked yesterday. She was a complete controller and manipulator, they couldn't keep staff and the morale of the place was at zero. How all this came to light was that this lady couldn't get her way about something, threw a tantrum, stormed off downstairs to have a cigarette, slipped, fell and broke her arm quite badly. It required surgery and she was off work for eight weeks.
Then...things started coming out. The practice manager was appalled as were the doctors. It's too long to go into here...suffice to say people's eyes were opened and a watch was kept on her. It all ended with her being sacked a fortnight ago and finishing up yesterday. (Who would wait around for the fortnight's notice to end, especially after being sacked...I'd have demanded to be paid out and gone.)
Now with regard to my work, I'd always had my suspicions, but I couldn't believe someone would actually do that to another person. Sabotage their work? It was the stuff of movies, wasn't it? Pretty naive of me, I must admit. But to have my suspicions confirmed (I wasn't the only one) was wonderful and being able to tell the practice manager exactly what went on and to describe how I felt was complete closure.
So...the Universe was working for me and I was able to prove my innocence and put the whole sad episode to rest. This lady's behaviour was so bad, from what I was told today, that it seems she needs psychiatric help...sad, really. But a person cannot go through life treating people like that and not expect it to bounce back. As one psychiatrist I sometimes do work for likes to day, "She has no insight into her problems." So true in this case, as far as she was concerned it was every one else's fault.
But I feel GOOOOOOD!
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