One of the swaps that I am doing on Swap Bot right now is called the
"Un-Journal Journal." I guess what this means is that instead of writing
thoughts in a book that you pass along to your partner, you choose ten from a list of
about 30 prompts and write about those subjects instead. When I look over the list
of prompts, I see that they are almost all things that I have written about here in this
journal. But I don't think I've ever addressed this one:
I guess this is a little bit of both. I worked for 12 years as transcriptionist for a local ob/gyn office. We were "the" place to go for having your baby, and the target of the anti-abortion crowd because abortions took place one evening a week. But it was considered the best medical office in Davis.
And then came the big medical corporation, Sutter Health, which bought about 8 different privately owned medical offices and they all became part of Sutter and we all moved into a brand new office building, with all of the offices sharing the space. A couple of months before the move, I had been made office manager, a position I never dreamed I would qualify for, but one manager retired and the next manager only lasted a few weeks. They decided I was the best choice. In fact, at the time I was really the only choice if they were to hire from within the current staff. I was a bit nervous about going from transcriptionist to boss, but the transition seemed to go fairly smoothly, and I thought I was doing a good job.
The problem was that all of us managers of those 8 offices were loyal to our doctors and fought for their principles against the things that Sutter wished to institute (like reducing appointment times from 15 to 10 minutes and double booking appointments, so that the doctors were expected to see two patients in 10 minutes!) Naturally in big meetings, I spoke out for our doctors.
One of the managers left her office and was replaced within a few weeks of our move. Then the day came when I was called to a "special meeting" in another building. Just me and two reps from Sutter. Not a clue what this special meeting was to be about.
Over the next 30 minutes they tore me up and down, told me I wasn’t qualified for the job (I wasn’t) and that they needed someone with a degree in the job and that I didn’t have a degree and couldn’t get one immediately. They didn’t exactly fire me, but made it clear that they were headed in that direction. They told me none of the doctors liked me or thought I could do the job I'd been doing for six months. I was totally devastated, and went home, determined to quit the next day.
But my friend Olivia convinced me it would be a mistake. She told me I needed to leave the job planning for the next job. With her help, I wrote what someone told me later was the best "I quit" letter she had seen, devoid of the hurt and anger I felt, laying out my accomplishments, thanking them for trusting me and allowing me to grow in the job, but saying that my goals did not meet the goals that Sutter had and that I felt I needed to resign.
They expected me to stay on and train a replacement, but I refused. I told them who they should hire who knew the most about the job and who would do a wonderful job. They scheduled an office meeting to discuss the situation and I confided in the person I felt was best to take over for me and told her that at some point during the meeting I would leave to refill my coffee and would just leave. I never went back.
They hired the person I suggested, but told her that she, too, did not meet their standards and quickly fired her and hired someone else. It took them three years and five office managers before they found someone who fit. One person they hired lasted less than a week and never got through the training class. That does take the sting a bit out of my "firing." They let me go because they needed a qualified person immediately and it took them three years to replace me.
Interestingly, of the 8 office mangers who moved to the new building under the new Sutter management, within a year every. single. one. of us had been replaced.
TAP Total as of right now: 35 hours, or 210 days of fresh water. But I do have to go out tomorrow, so will have to unplug and move the cell phone in about 12 hours, so I won't quite make a year of fresh water, but will have made a slight impact.
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