New Job Suckage

Ah, the old saying, incompetence rules is back on high rotation in my vocabulary. So I took this management job, which, as presented to me, would be a really good fit for my skills and interests, albeit ALOT of work. For that I was prepared, for what is reality, I was/am not.

Let's start with my first three days, overwhelming of course. The guy that is orienting me, "until you feel comfortable" as I was told by HR, is a complete moron. He works part-time so he's only there to "orient" me 3 days/week. Day one was exhausting but I was anticipating that. Day 2 he's not around so I just kind of lay low, attend some bullshit meetings, shuffle papers, walk around to get to know the facility, etc. Day 3 he's back and running around like a chicken with no head. We sit in a meeting in which any question asked to him he responds with "Uh, I don't know," or "Uh, I really didn't ask." So, he's an idiot.

The weekend is here and I'm happy. It's labor day weekend, and I don't get labor day off because as a new employee you get no paid holidays for the first 3 months, I can dig. So I go in Monday and I'm the only manager there, meaning I'm in charge. I am sitting in my office (hiding) and hoping no one dies, chokes, falls, seizes, escapes, etc on my clock. Then I hear the door alarm buzzing for like 5 minutes and a scuffle of sorts. I come out to see an 80 something year old lady trying to make a break for it as my staff is trying to physically pull said woman back into the adult day care. Using my psych skills, I tell the staff member to let go (I mean, the lady is in her 80's, you can't just grab her and try to force her back inside, you might dislocate her shoulder or cause her to fall and break a god damn hip a.k.a. "the death break" and that shit is NOT happening on my watch). I talk to the old lady, ask her some easy yes/no questions and convince her to come sit with me and do a puzzle, she agrees. I have the staff call the family to come get her the fuck out of here. All is well and I leave for the day.

The rest of the week sucks because of the following: I am short staffed due to a medical emergency, a false alarm conversion of a negative to positive TB test comes up, NO managers are there the entire week because they are at a training, and my "orienter" doesn't come in but one day, the day that I am in facility orientation all day. By Thursday idiot orienter sends me a "to do" list via email, half of which I did, the other half were adminstrative tasks like budgeting, ordering supplies, moving programs, none of which I thought were realistic seeing that I had been there for one week and one day. I email him to let him know this. We go back and forth with email banter, all cc'd to my boss, who again isn't around because she is at a training. I finally call him, try to have a professional conversation with him, until he becomes condescending and rude to me, at which time I tell him he is being unreasonable, irresponsible, and I can no longer discuss this matter with him. He says "FINE" and I hang up on him. I left pissed and on Friday I muddled my way through yet another day.

Week 2: My boss sits down with idiot and I and tells idiot that he has to give me more guidance, he needs to continue doing administrative tasks while I get to know the residents, my staff, how the facility works, then lastly, her expectations of me. She tells idiot that I have three months to get up and running. I feel better for now. I go in on Tuesday feeling pretty good, things run smoothly. Wed the idiot is back and we're back to running around all day not really getting anything done except for washing the facility van. That's when idiot notices damage to the van that was not reported. Instead of going straight to our boss to report it, he tells me to do it in the meeting tomorrow.

So tomorrow comes, and I bring up the damages, and I'm left with her being pissed off. She talks to me as if I already know how this all works and who the drivers were. She makes me write up two employees for damages not reported. I think this is wrong, seeing that the damages likely happened before I started working, and may not have been from either employee. She says do it so I think about it for a few hours. I also have to deal with two separate medical type issues, so I email idiot for guidance, he directs me one way, I talk w/ families they are pissed, then my boss says "NO NO NO that's not the way to do it." So I have second conversation with families who are now even more pissed. It's the end of the day, I'm tired, so I wait until Friday to write up the employees.

Friday comes, I write up both employees and one is pissed. Rightfully so. I still don't think it's fair and I tell him that. Two hours later, my boss and the maintenance guy approach me to let me know the damage happened over a year ago. Great. I say to her, well I just wrote two of my staff up per your direction. She says again it's old damage and "that poor van" then walks away. So I say fuck this I go tell both employees the situation and shred their write ups because that shit is humbug. They are happy with that and understanding. I'm pissed. I try to go to my boss to see if there are some policy/procedures I can look at so I can follow and not make mistakes w/ families or staff members to which she answers "what procedures?" Really? So I tell her I'd like to put some in place so all of the things that have come up in the mere two weeks I've been working there, don't come up, and if they do, everyone in the facility is on the same page as to how to proceed. She agrees, but then back tracks and says to ask idiot and I tell her no, that he's not very helpful. So she tells me to consult with the medical director or "just call other places and see how they do it." Wow, I am working at UH all over again.

So I go to my office, start making a list of policies and procedures that I will begin working on ASAP to avoid any future confusion, despite the direction of my boss. As I can already see she too is an idiot. The idiot orienting me likes my thinking and agrees that I should put these safeguards in place, thanks for the validation idiot. By the end of the day, the idiot comes back from a meeting with our boss and says to me "She really wants me to get going on my other project so I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to help you." I was feeling good about getting my part of the facility into shape until he said that. Remember, the beginning of the week she tells me I have three months to learn everything. Any guidance I've gotten from either of the two have been conflicting, causing me to run around and contradict everything I've first done/said. Now this.

Needless to say I left about a half hour early because I was pissed at all the disorganization, confusion, poor guidance, and now a blatant lie by my boss. Fucking UH all over again. Today I will be calling my former employer (the pediatric job), and asking if my position has been filled, and if not, I'd like to come back. If I am able to return to the previous job, I will give same day resignation tomorrow. Fuck this.

MJ