Sooo, Friday Kinda Sucked....

I have not written much about my new job yet. Let me correct this. Now.

So far, I enjoy working for the new vet's office. Everyone is very nice and helpful. Most of us are learning as we go, even the doctors. The clinic I work for has opened a new clinic, and in the essence of "go big or go home", they are going paperless. All of the physical charts are left at the old place, which is still open. We print a "check-in" sheet that we place in a holder outside the room so the doctor knows who is in there, and we print a receipt. Other options we print are cage cards and Rabies certificates. So, not much paper. In the end, all of us are learning together how to go paperless. It's a challenge. Also is the challenge of opening a new office and realizing what you don't have when you need it. And trying to figure out who put what where and how the only pair of scissors keeps finding their way to surgery (to cut surgery drapes).

My biggest challenge has been trying to forget what I learned in Sticksville and learning how they do stuff here. Their prices, their policies, their way. That is a huge challenge.

Today, however, was not an overly enjoyable day. By 10am I was wishing that Excedrin was back on the market. Costco size. We have owners drop their pets off for surgery between 7:30 and 8am. Surgeries are by appointment only - however some people are getting the idea they can just "walk in". Confusingly enough, we accept walk-in "appointments" for things such as basic exams and vaccines. I had two walk-in surgeries today and two no-shows on my scheduled ones. At least they balanced out. People started calling as soon as I turned the phones over at 8am. In my first hour I was off the phone for about 5 minutes.

Around 9am, Dr. G comes and tells me he wants all the front lobby windows washed. Inside and out. Okay. If the phones would stop ringing that would be super helpful. Dr. H tells me I'm the one up front, therefore the only one who can do it. Um. Sure. I mention that I will need help answering the phones and she says okay. That didn't happen. It took me two hours to wash the inside of the windows. I never made it to the outside because people kept coming in and the phone kept ringing. At one point I had three lines going and a line of people up front about four deep. Did anyone help me? Nope.

We got a bunch of "retail" type items in earlier this week - toys, treats, leashes, food, etc. I found out the hard way that though the items may be entered in the computer system, there were no prices to be found. I called my Front Office Manager (FOM) at home to ask her what I needed to so and she told me. Can I just say I hate adding machines? With the phones still ringing off the hook, and the line getting longer, I finally just said (not aloud), "Fuck it" and sold it for a random price that was over what we paid so we still made a few bucks, just not as much as we should.

I had people be all kinds of rude to me. My only comfort was that no one cussed me out, however they still weren't very nice in some cases. Rude retorts of "well that just doesn't make sense to me" and "well that seems awful pricey", among others were what I received. People not able to make a decision about when they'd like to bring their vomiting puppy in for an exam because of the exam fee (turned out to be positive for parvo and this clinic requires a $500 deposit). I still had nice people to deal with, patient people that waited while I figured stuff out, they just seemed to be in the minority.

One of the techs I don't much care for. I think it's just a personality difference. However, I just don't much care for her. For starters, from the get-go this morning she's telling me that she has four treatments in back and that she'll need help cleaning the 8,000 square foot clinic. I tell her I will be able to take care of the front half (lobby, reception, exam rooms and front bathrooms). For some reason, she keeps telling me every time she comes up front. I'm not sure why. She kept telling me that I would have to do the front half of the clinic . . . yes, I'm pretty sure we've covered that. All day this happened. She kept telling me how much she had to get done today, while I'm up front alone fielding all the phone calls and the live people, checking people in and out, putting people in exam rooms and cleaning said exam rooms. I've got this shit covered.

This tech, at noon, comes up front and says she's taking her lunch. We take working lunches as we stay open during "lunch". So she sits at the counter behind me and eats her lunch. While I still continue working. Before I can ask if she'd watch the front while I fixed my sandwich, she's done with her lunch and eating her big ass bag of Doritos on her way back to the treatment area. I went and found a fork, made a half sandwich instead of a whole because I figured it would go stale while I worked. Fortunately for me, I was smart to have nabbed two of my mother's wonderful homemade chicken strips as well. I devoured my half sandwich, never really tasting it and then nibbled on the two chicken strips for the next three hours. And she still continues her little schpeel about the cleaning. Pretty sure I got it.

In the afternoon, my tech (Tech 1) gets relief in the way of a tech from our other office. (Btw she's had help all morning, we have a surgery tech Monday through Friday who leaves at 2). So she always had help, but she got help again. The other tech (tech 2) came over to see what treatments we had for tomorrow so she could come in for a couple hours on Saturday because  Tech 1 will be over her 40 hours if she comes in early to do the many treatments she's been complaining about all day long. I still get no help up front. Heaven forbid.

Around 3pm I started with trashes from reception, bathrooms, and exam rooms. It took me an hour because apparently people still kept calling and coming in. Somewhere around 4ish I was able to start dust mopping. And somewhere around 5ish I started mopping. I was finally able to sit down and do the money at 5:25. I was off at 5:30 and I hadn't done it by myself at this clinic (their way) before. It's fairly involved.

Everything was off. I was about ready to take my head to the counter top, when Tech 1 came in. I asked her to double check me. Same thing. We called our FOM and she came in to help us (she happened to be nearby, thank God). After a half hour of OT, we finally figured most of it out. The credit cards were off, because apparently a credit slip had fallen off the counter and behind something and I hadn't been aware of it. The checks and the cash were off because evidently a check went through as cash. We were still over on cash, but better over than under, so our FOM said, "let's not wrack out brains over it." She was glad this happened so she could show us how to fix these sort of things. Good learning experience. Because Tech 1 and I both learned. We printed all our reports, filled out our deposit and called it a night.

My parents called in a pizza and I picked it up and took it home.

Now, wait until you hear about Saturday . . .