I Survived 'Go Live' Week

I'm sitting here sipping a Stone Russian Imperial Stout, and it boggles the mind that I have only worked 4 days this week. It feels more like 4 weeks.

I have a night off work, and I'm using it to drink and be lazy. I suppose I should be more disturbed at how much I need alcohol to physically relax these days. I just can't seem to shut off the brain and various 'what if' scenarios. I can't sleep for more than 4 or 5 hours. Hopefully this is only temporary.

I feel only slightly guilty that I'm not helping Tim paint the garage right now, or do the final touches on finishing the basement. Only slightly. I'm really the luckiest wife in the world. I have a husband who is OK with the fact that I've been so absorbed with work and stressed out for the last 2 months by going to California for class and training my coworkers and trying to weather all this new crap. He hasn't lost his patience once with all this yet. The worst was how bad he missed me when I was gone. And THAT is one hell of a good thing. I soooo long for days where I can almost go to work on auto-pilot. Where I can be thinking about what I'm going to cook for the next meal, or what sumptuous dish I want to make for visiting family. Where I can be caught up with reading my food porn mags. Simple things. But things not to be taken for granted. I hate this state of being so distracted that what to cook next seems a monumental chore rather than a delight. Hate it.

I've spent the last 4 nights shepherding 4 different coworkers through an entire shift in the Chemistry department using the two new monster chemistry analyzers. And it was busier than hell (because the ER lab is closed for renovations to accommodate another of the new monster analyzers, and ALL the work is dumping into the main lab), and all 4 of them performed like troopers. I'm very proud of all of them.

I even had to fix a problem Tuesday night. I seriously considered having a panic attack when I saw the error message pop up on the monitor but somehow I swallowed it down, called hotline, and followed the tech's steps. I flushed out a plugged MC sample probe on the DxC (sorry, but my DxC classmates will know what I'm talking about). I think it took a gel dive into a specimen. Great, now we have to worry about specimens being too FULL. That's usually not the issue with our phlebotomists/nurses! I'm pretty sure that's what the problem was. While I was doing that, my twat of a coworker hung up my phone on hotline. You see a phone laying off the hook, me nearby leaning inside the analyzer with the canopy raised, tool kits open and spread everywhere...and you grab the phone and hang it up?? Tell me who out there would do that?? I've wanted to throttle her so many times in the past for being lazy and inconsiderate, but that about beat all right there. Luckily the service tech called back and he and I had a good laugh about it. And I got the problem fixed. Took me a while because of various brain farts, but I got it fixed and the instrument running again.

However the twat of a coworker is still...a twat. She's probably spent a total of an hour over the course of this entire week actually getting hands-on with the instrument, while everyone else rolled up their sleeves and dove in. But somehow, unbelievably she's acting like she knows all about running these things. This is the same coworker I trained 2 weeks ago who was filing her nails with an emory board while I was explaining something she needed to damn well remember, and worrying about me finishing up with her in time for her lunch. I hope the other three third shifters stick her in Chemistry tonight and make her work the entire shift. Like they voluntarily did. I should have left specific instructions for that, along with my copies of exactly what needs to be done for shift maintenance, and my home phone number. There will be no key operators on staff tonight, so my troopers are on their own. I'm kind of nervous, but I have a lot of faith in them (except of course for the twat). I may just call around 11pm tonight and tell them to stick the twat in Chemistry. By herself.

You could sort of see how things were going to go based on people's personalities, but this major switch in analyzers after 10 years of using the same vendor/instrumentation has so differentiated between the goats and the sheep in the lab. It's been stressful as hell, but after all this is over and there is time to reflect, it will be interesting to look back on it all.

2 more weeks before I have some time off. In that time, everyone will have gotten a turn to work on the new instruments, and hopefully things will be easier by then. And I will probably have learned a whole lot more in that time, too. I'm still a newbie at this myself, and I hate that. It's so painful. But there's no way out right now. If I can just not have a panic attack, that will be a huge accomplishment. So hopefully I will enjoy my time off, instead of being distracted and worried like I was over Memorial Day weekend.

Like this morning's near panic attack: I was staring at a 12-16 hour shift right down the barrel, and I only flinched a teeny little bit. I thought I could go home at 0715. Wrong. First shift comes in, and in a timid mouse-like voice, the Chemistry tech says 'This is my first day running these machines'. Okay. Kathy cannot go home, because the Chemistry senior tech is off today, and the company rep is nowhere to be seen and I have no idea if he's coming in to assist. I am the only primary operator on the premises. So I told her I'd stay as many hours after my own (lunchless!)shift as it took to show her how to run all the different sized specimens and everything else she needed to know to get through the day. Then the next Chemistry tech shows up, and this one's legendary for asking lots of questions in a whiny voice. Incessantly. Constantly. The third tech shows up, and this one's a older Chinese man who is, and I'm sorry, but completely and utterly clueless in everything he does, and should have retired 5 years ago. He's still learning what the names of the parts of the instrument are.

So Kathy decides she'd better stay and help these people no matter what. Until she runs shrieking from the building after being utterly worn down from hours of timid mouselike pleas for help, whiny questions, and sheer incompetence in broken English.

Jesus answers prayers.

The Coulter-Beckman rep showed up at 0730.

We chatted/BS'ed for 15 minutes, I passed on what particular quirks were happening with the two instruments, and left him in charge of the troops. And made a hasty exit.

I wonder if he's run shrieking from the building yet...