I like to think of myself as a forgiving, understanding individual. One can only put up with so much. I had this employee, let’s call her Darla, who was desperate to have a man in her life. We were traveling consultants, spending 5 nights away from home, so starting a relationship was difficult. Since she had no friends, I felt sorry for her and made friends with her at work.
I worked as a secretary and medical courier dispatcher for a number of years. The doctors (like most doctors) had a superiority complex that could really get on our nerves. But for the most part we just smiled and nodded when they treated us like morons for not having a MD behind our name. However, there were some just beautiful moments when they revealed just how human they were.
Once one of the doctors was at the lab and wanted to step outside for a smoke. He’d forgotten his lighter so I lent him one. He went outside and came back in about five minutes later.
Doctor: L, this lighter is broken.
Me: What do you mean? What’s wrong with it?
Doctor: It won’t work. See?
*The doctor proceeds to try and use it*
Me: Uh, it’s a child safe lighter…
*I take the lighter, flip off the safety and it works*
Doctor: Oh…
Another time I got this angry and frantic call from one of the doctors. His pager quit working and it was imperative that we send a courier to pick it up and take it to be repaired or replaced ASAP. We sent a courier over stat to get it but before I took someone off their route to get it fixed/replaced I told them to bring me the pager so I could look at it. After confirming that it did not turn on I opened up the battery compartment on the off chance the batteries just needed to be replaced. It was empty. The man had freaked out because he’d removed the batteries to his pager and surprisingly it no longer worked. New batteries fixed the problem and I had the courier bring it back to him.
This is about the most awful place i’ve worked. I had just finished a long temp assign in accounts proccessing and applied for a permanent position in administration at a new company. At first all seemed fine and i received the call back to say they were offering me the position. I was so happy i finally had a permanent job when it started. I have extensive experience in administration and accounts but they said that i would be starting on traineeship wages and had to complete the government approved training course before i would receive full wages.
After college, my fiance convinced me to hang up my waitressing uniform and try getting a real office job where I could learn some of the skills I would need to move up in the world, so that’s what I did.
It was a lawn care company and there were three of us working in the office – the owner, the bookkeeper and myself. My job was general office duties, phones and talking to the guys out in the field when they needed to call in and out of their jobs.