I know a few of the other receptionists and one of the doctors totally knew and appreciated my abilities. By my fourth day I pretty much had a handle on all the front desk duties: phones, files, how their computer system worked, etc. I was probably 85% trained and there were people who had been there a month who were way behind me. It did feel really good to be doing a lot of that stuff again, especially helping clients over the phone, which was always one of my strongest areas. And I got some pretty decent puppy kisses. I even got some Brindle Boxer smooches which, to me really are the caviar of dog kisses.
But the being gone from 9am to 9pm and spending most of those 12 hours STANDING UP just sucked. Only one of the three computer stations allowed you to actually sit while you used it. The other two you had to just stand close to the counter and reach for the keyboard and mouse. God if OSHA saw that place they’d probably shut it down. To speak on one of the phones you actually had to lean over a counter. If you added up all the time I spent sitting down during my 10 hour shifts (not counting eating my lunch upstairs) it never added up to more than 30 minutes any of the days I worked. I came home so tired that if John hadn’t had dinner going I probably wouldn't have bothered to eat before I fell into bed. On the third night when I went to stand back up after sitting on the couch for an hour my legs cramped up and I got stuck.
The idea of working four 10 hour shifts, M – Th, thereby giving me automatic three day weekends, was appealing. The reality of it was that I was getting home so late I didn’t have enough time to wind down before it was time to go to bed. This translated into lying in bed staring at the ceiling desperate to sleep and unable to relax. And then, when I finally did manage to fall asleep, it meant nightmares. Pet and Vet related nightmares, which I have never had before. Snake nightmares? Not fun. VETERINARY SNAKE NIGHTMARES? REALLY NOT FUN.
One of the main problems was that I really disliked the main guy who was “training” me. I mentioned him before on this blog actually, the guy with the full arm tats? Long story very short – they were hiring again and I went back to interview more with the intention of just staying in the job-hunt game and making the effort than of actually accepting a job there. But the manager and I got on like a house on fire and she SOLD it hard and I bought it. And I had long since given up finding the perfect job or even a really clean office. Sad but true. After seeing a reasonable sample of what was out there I'd had to accept that my standards were just too high. So I lowered them.
So that’s how I found myself being trained by a skinny white guy in his early thirties who was not only covered in tattoos (including an Irish clover and a GUN) but who also seemed to hold the disparate beliefs that he was both a white Irish guy from Philly (true) and a black hip hog gangsta (not true). He also held forth, at length, about how WRONG it was for white people to ever wear dreadlocks and that it was a violation to steal something that important from another culture. I was totally all Meg Ryan in Joe Vs. the Volcano, “I have no response to that.”
I discovered the official term for this pale ebonic-spewing dichotomy is "Wigga." That there are enough of them out there to have an official definition is depressing. To spend most all of your day locked in a tiny space with one was exasperating. For example if I did something right he wouldn’t say it was right he’d say, “Yo, you’re money!” He also had a habit of yelling out random lyrics to rap songs, repeatedly. One day he “rapped” about 12 times during a 3 hour period something to the effect of, “Need money in the bank now I gots to get paid!” Since I had no idea what song was playing in the ipod imbedded in his brain it was just this same phrase over and over again without context. I also just kept thinking, “aren’t you too old to be acting like this?” I mean, he was five years younger than me, tops.
I might have been able to live with the “lingo” if talking hadn’t been something he did so damn much. One night I was there 20 minutes longer than I needed to be (and after already having worked 10 hours and 15 minutes, every extra minute felt like five) because he was talking to a tech and then to one of the vets about his freaking tattoos. Instead of counting out (something I did NOT learn how to do during my very short tenure) so we could close up he was pulling his socks off (after carefully removing the extra padding in the front of his shoe he puts there to make the tongue of his shoes puff out) to show off the huge leering face being inked on his left foot. I thought I was going to have to HURT him.
Halloween morning I arrived to discover that a bunch of people had requested Halloween off so instead of usual FOUR people in reception there was just Justin and me, the new person. And he had to go run an errand because the printer was out of INK so for a while it was JUST me and a tech kind of popping in to check on things. And I actually fucking kept it going, phones answered, questions answered, appointments checked in and out. All of it. BY MYSELF. But, not surprisingly, I missed a few things like writing the weight of a fucking DOG down in his chart. But they cut the new girl up there by herself some slack, right? NOPE. I was snapped at ALL morning for every single thing I did wrong including, I kid you not, for tossing a post it note in the garbage instead of the recycling bin. I actually got in trouble when I walked IN that morning because the phone rang three times and the manager (who was about to become NOT so cool after all in my book) said, in this tired upset tone, "that call just went to voicemail because you didn't pick it up in time" and I asked, totally confused, "since when do we HAVE voicemail?" and she said, I kid you not, "oh I installed it this morning." And then I blinked at her because, what do you say to that?
The entire morning was so bad that I decided to go home and have cereal for lunch because I desperately needed to call or e-mail someone and let off steam before I faced the rest of what was going to be a really long day. I found out exactly how long that day was going to be when I was informed right before lunch that there would be NO BREKAS that day for either of us receptionists because we were understaffed which meant that I was looking at pretty much 2:45 - 8:45 with no break. Six straight hours with a woman who, instead of telling me what thing I had done wrong, told Justin while I was standing 2 feet away. While gesturing at me. Before I was even introduced to her. I made the mistake of asking the Wigga (who I thought it was safe to talk to since he was on HIS way out the front door having asked for half of Halloween off) if my leaving would totally jack up the schedule. He said I should talk to the manager and I said I would as soon as I figured out where my head was at.
It only took the Wigga (who apparently swooped right around back in the side door) about 2 minutes to rat me out because he’d only been gone 20 minutes when I got called upstairs.
The manager said, “so I hear today may be your last day” which was interesting because *I* hadn’t actually said that to anyone, but it led to my expressing my concerns with how exhausted I was and my frustration with how oblivious the rest of the staff seemed to be with the fact that I’d only been working there a few days. I will be fair. She was totally willing to tell off the two women who had been mean to me that morning. She actually thought that it would be much more appropriate if I got in their faces myself. When I pointed out that one of the people causing me frustration was a VET she essentially said that wasn’t important and something along the lines of everyone was equal there. Which: No. I actually believe if someone has made it through the rigors of veterinary school and gotten a job where they spend their days actually saving LIVES they are higher up on the food and respect chain that a person who answers phones and fills prescriptions, no matter how good she is at it.
What it came down to, in the end, was that what they were looking for MORE than, oh, say, someone who could really do the job well, was someone who could spend 10 hours a day on their feet while desperately trying to keep up with the insane pace of the hospital. And what was required was a total commitment to the job over everything else. Period.
She told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend over the job, the Wigga's girlfriend had broken up with him twice and was still really mad he worked there (I already knew that because I’d overheard several of her calls to him – and I can’t blame her – since he was training me he was working TWELVE hour shifts and she was his ride) and that pretty much everyone else was either single or had an angry spouse at home. I said that the reason I’d been happily married for over 11 years was that the biggest commitment in my life was to my marriage. It felt really corny making that statement out loud to a woman I barely knew but it was true. I also said that I always gave my best to the job while I was there, and that I was pretty sure that was obvious to everyone. And she agreed totally with what a fabulous job I had been doing, how amazingly quickly I had picked things up, how hard I was working. She also said that if I couldn’t keep doing it for those hours, and probably longer hours, then it wasn’t the right job for me. She said she’d had a lot of people quit because they couldn’t handle the hours and the pace and that she’d also fired people who “couldn’t keep up” She said, “I haven’t showered in three days because I’ve been working 16 hours a days and between here and school I haven’t had time to go home.”
What do you say to someone who is thinks it is reasonable to give up their partner, sleep and personal hygiene for the sake of their job? I decided to go with, “I just can’t make that kind of commitment” I also said I was still willing to finish my shift and work the next day if she needed me and she said, “no, it is what it is” and she clocked me out right then, and that was it. I was escorted out like I'd been caught with my hand in the till.
It was jarring to all of the sudden be out on the sidewalk with my stuff in my arms but it was also a HUGE relief. The realization I didn’t have to go back ever again almost made me cry. And then there was this funny moment where I felt like I should go do something since I was free four hours earlier than I’d planned. And then I realized it was 4:45 and that I was freaking tired. So I went home.
My thoughts a few days later?
I seriously think one of the vets killed a turtle and a bird in one day. Two pets dying under one vet in one day? Not normal.
That same vet is putting other pets at risk every week. I overheard a conversation about how the techs were leaving cats UNATTENDEND under anesthesia for like 15 minutes which really upset the one vet I really liked. I know this because I overheard him say "because anesthesia is like, controlled DEATH and you really don't want cats under that any longer than they need to be.” Hello, understatement. I never EVER would have taken Tandy there no matter how good the discount was. The reason for the delay and the totally unnecessary increased risk to people’s beloved pets? The above mentioned vet would show up half an hour late for his surgeries. If I was a tech I wouldn’t have put the animals under until I saw the whites of his eyes, but that’s just me. When I mentioned THAT to the manager during our last conversation she said she knew and he was a discipline problem, that he really liked to test the boundaries, and they all knew about him and were trying to work around him.
Again what do you say to that? You have a vet whose actions are putting animals’ lives at risk and, what, it is what it is? Fuck that noise. I actually wish I could figure out a way to post a warning about them on yelp.com that wouldn’t (since I brought it up to her and so she knows I was upset about it) totally be traced back to me by, oh, their lawyers. The Wigga and then insane pace aside that is just BAD.
During the entirety of my very short tenure there the manager had a copy of "Nordstrom's Guide to Management" under her arm almost every single time I saw her. I'm thinking she hasn't had time to actually read it.
I’ve also gotten over feeling defensive for not being willing to commit my whole life to that place because, well, that place sucks. When I was at SNAH I was totally 100% committed to it. I worked as hard as I could, I put all of myself into it and I was proud of it. And it was worthy of that. All I could think during the manager’s sermon about how she’d dedicated her life to that hospital was, “you’ve picked a really shitty place.” I mean, she’s willing to give up everything for that place and it isn’t a good place. And it isn’t like she’s on a mission to MAKE it a better place. Her goal seems to be to just somehow keep the damn thing going. And with the Wigga being the most senior employee there (as in, he’s worked there eight months) that probably does take 16 hours a day. God I’m glad that’s not my mess.
I think I’ll let the BBC link I followed from wikipedia have the last say on this:
A wigga is an affluent young white male, who admires and absorbs certain aspects of black culture, which happen to have cooler music and sharper clothes. He adopts the slang of the black city. Wigga is attracted to hip hop and rap.
But what are the roots of white teenagers' fascination with black culture? Is it a genuine attempt to cross racial boundaries, or is it looking for a new, cooler identity? Is it a genuine affiliation to another culture or a desire of nerdy white boys to feel well hard, get rid of hang-ups and to up their cred.
I love that the definition assumes it is a TEENAGE BOY they are defining.
OH! And it turns out they made a whole MOVIE about the guy I worked with & I didn’t even know it! This may need to go in my Netflix queue
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