Good help is hard to find

I have the decidedly unpleasurable job of working with someone I actively hate. This is very weird for me. First of all, I generally do not HATE people. Yes, there are people that I like more than I like other people, but usually I like everyone I work with. On rare occasion, I dislike someone I have to work with, and that is of course unfortunate but part of life. These days, well - actually feeling hatred for someone is so disturbing. I pull into the parking lot, see her car, and start bubbling with rage and wondering how I will get through the day. I hope she will fall ill and have to leave. I fantasize about sending her home and just working on my own. It's terrible, just terrible. I don't know what to do with this feeling.

She's not only has a generally unpleasant demeanor (she babytalks constantly, she never shuts up, she has no conception of personal space) but she is ignorant and incompetent and sadly, I am not The Big Boss, so I cannot fire her.

We call her BTT (babytalk tech) for short around here. None of the other docs let her do any patient care while not being directly supervised, none of us let her calculate drug doses, none of us let her administer medications we haven't handed her directly - she can't be trusted to do these things. Despite having to supervise her so heavily and having restricted her duties as much as possible, she still continues to drive me UP THE FUCKING WALL. Ahem. Sorry for the outburst.

So, yeah. In recent past:

A giant-breed dog presented with a laceration of a toepad. My intent was to sedate him, infuse a local anesthetic, & repair it with just two stitches. I asked her to hold off a vein for me and she started to do so but then let go of his leg JUST as I was about to inject, telling me she needed a tourniquet. I felt that a tourniquet was (a) not needed and (b) going to be a problem as she would then need to release it without his leg moving/dislodging my needle, & told her so, but she (in baby talk) told me that her thumb was just getting TOO TIRED and she refused to proceed without the tourniquet, which she was trying to apply as I was sitting there on my haunches in front of the dog telling her to stop it. The dog freaked out because she pinched his skin with the tourniquet and started attacking us, requiring muzzling and then IM sedation with very high doses to overcome his catecholamine surge. So then of course he took forever to recover. I was outraged. Frankly I am still outraged.

A client came in for "I think I pulled my cat's nipple off!" and apparently she did not, in fact, pull the cat's nipple off. I was in my office typing up charts when BTT came in and said "good news! your next patient doesn't need to see you, she thought she pulled off a nipple but it was just some waxy debris stuck to the fur." I said "is that all it was in for? you can send it home if it doesn't need to see me," because I was backed up with my charting anyway. She said "ok" and and walked out. Then she came back THIRTY MINUTES LATER and asked me when I was going in to the exam room to see that patient. The two other staff members and the boss, who had witnessed our previous interaction, were all completely gobsmacked. We thought she had sent that patient home! She denied having said anything about me not having to see it.

We had a Scottie whose calculated dose of dexdomitor was 0.07 ml, and BTT gave her 0.7 ml. As if that isn't bad enough, it was the third time we know if that she was off by a decimal point in that way, but it was the first time she'd actually ADMINISTERED it before being stopped by a supervising doctor. She has also been known to put the wrong size of pills in bottles to go home with patients. Now, with the dexdom overdose, she DID realize AFTER she did it that there was a problem, and the patient was successfully treated and went home none the worse for wear. But these incidents are so disturbing to everyone, yet she has not been fired. It's mindboggling. Meanwhile, she points fingers at everyone else.

One time, a puppy came in for a first visit, whose owner had registered him as being 12 weeks old. Upon review of the paperwork the owner brought, BTT found that the puppy was actually 14 weeks old. She had a huge hissy fit, yelling at our blameless receptionist that she needed to be more careful about putting dates into the record. Of course the receptionist had put in the birthdate the owner had given her. The owner had made the mistake and freely admitted it. BTT ranted and raved over this "dangerous error" for a good hour and a half. It was really unnecessary.

My diagnosis is that this person has a PITF deficiency. But, the boss says, "good help is hard to find," so we're stuck with her. I say, "some kind of help is the kind of help that helping's all about, and some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without!"
 

Send me your Resumes!

I just received the most awesome job application, and here´s why it rocks:

A) Puts in cover letter that she is looking for a certified Tech position, when she isn´t a certified Tech.

B) Misspells her own name and lists her DOB as 1083.

C) Is certified in animal first aid, when no such certification even exists. Those bullet points about EKG and defibrilation are a huge bonus.

D) Is a certified homeopath (no certification exists) that has a mobile practice in my area. Now thats´s what every practice needs, somebody adverstising their private business to your client base.

E) States that she will be a great asset in helping diagnose patients and developing treatment plans. Hmm.. I thought that was my job. Maybe she can do this between defibing patients and brewing homepathic remdies?


Is there anything missing I ask you?

Shock Collars for Employees?

Can I put a shock collar on my employee?

We have a new and hopefully-soon-to-be-ex technician assistant who has less tact and common sense than a blind cave salamander. Let’s call her Cave Salamander, or CS for short.

I’m actively trying to get CS fired but my office manager is so picky about documentation, so in the meantime I’ve been fantasizing about putting a shock collar on CS. You know, one of those big, heavy, electronic shock collars with a remote control trigger. Just imagine how useful that could be:

CS, on the phone with a client: “Sure, you can give your dog aspirin.”
Me: Bzzt!

CS: “Buddy’s owner wants to know if she can get a refill on his pills?”
Me: “Buddy who? What pills? Where’s the chart?”
CS: “I don’t know.”
Me: Bzzt!

CS: “How do I keep my pit bull from getting my Rottweiler pregnant?”
Me: Bzzt!

Me, suturing a laceration on an anesthetized dog.
CS: “There’s a guy on the phone who wants to know why his dog is peeing in the house.”
Me: “Take a message, pull the chart.”
CS: “But what would make the dog pee in the house?”
Me, gleefully breaking sterility to push the remote control trigger: Bzzt!

Just think of the possibilities!

The obese boarding cat whose chart clearly says “1/2 can food twice daily, no dry” has a quart-sized bowl in its cage full of dry kibble? Bzzt!

The back door which has a notice saying “Do Not Prop Door Open” is propped open? Bzzt!

I think I need to market this idea. Introducing the Zappy®, the World’s Best Personnel Training System, available exclusively from VBB!