Continuing Education Opportunities

Not too cool for school, and not too old for it either, apparently. I just spent a week in Indianapolis, earning 30 hours of continuing education credits. While it was an awesome way to get off the bench and spend a week away from the presence of certain obnoxious coworkers, it was still intense and tiring. Like I'd spent a regular week at work. An excellent way to shake up the routine, though.

How did I end up going to another basic operators' class six years after the last time I got sent to one, and swore I'd never do it again, because it took too many years off my life? Because my boss asked me to. Without ever actually asking me.

Art's got a talent for treading delicately and being nonconfrontational. The confrontation awards definitely go to other people I work with. One of whom marched into his office one day and told him he should absolutely not send another coworker who had expressed interest in going to class. She informed him he should send me instead. I had expressed interest too, but at such a lukewarm level, I thought it had barely registered. Months prior, I had said: 'someone from the off shifts should go'. That was the extent of my interest. Never was it said to me: I want you to go to Cobas training, will you go? It was one morning Art casually asking me if I was excited to go to Indianapolis. To which I answered no, but I'll do what needs to be done. And so there I was, scheduled to go.

The person who really wanted to go? Oh, she's starred in other blog entries before. Since she's joined third shift, the rest of us have suddenly come to realize how much we value team spirit and a 'don't worry, I've got your back' attitude. This person is not of our tribe. Long before she stated out loud that she's only going to do what she can do and no more, we already had seen this attitude in action and realized we were, and always would be screwed as long as this person was part of third shift.  Disorganized, slow, determined to do things her own way, sloppy, absolutely no ability to help without messing up your department, and someone who takes EVERYTHING as a personal attack. After two nasty confrontations with her (and that's just me, it's happened with other people too), I'm done. Even when you phrase things as carefully as possible to not be taken as criticism, you open yourself up to a verbal counterattack.

One night this summer, I was utterly swamped. She was on the other side of the room, doing her thing. I was keeping up, but barely. She wandered over to the urinalysis area, where I had a number of them lined up and in progress. 'I don't know what's going on with these', she said. 'I'm on them,' I answered. And then wondered to myself: even though I didn't mean it that way, is she going to take that to mean 'get out of here'?

Sure as hell, that's what she did. She did not lift a finger to help me on my side of the lab the rest of the night. She read a book.  I was so furious, I even took a picture with my phone of the 8 stat urines piled up for me to do (among other things) at one point. Did I mention I tend to be nonconfrontational as well?

At our end of shift meeting in Art's office, an actual shouting match erupted. It shocked the hell out of all of us, because this had NEVER happened before.  Well, it never happened until we got you-know-who on board. Yes, I initiated it, but I felt something had to be said. I poked the stick in the hornet's nest by mentioning something to the effect of seeing her reading on her side of the room, and thinking everything in the lab was all right---until I saw all the work piled up in my areas. Sure enough, she mentioned me telling her 'I've got these' when she came over to help. And, yes, I did, I said. 'But that wasn't a blanket pass for the entire night.' I added. The topic then quickly turned to the concept of voluntarily going around to various areas and doing what needs to be done vs. someone asking for help when needed. 'No,' I said. 'You go around and see what needs to be done.' Her immediate response to this was a shrill 'Well just because YOUR life is so frigging perfect!!'

Um. What?

Another coworker quickly backed me up, but unfortunately she's got a reputation for reading and surfing the internet on the clock. 'And THIS from someone who spends more time reading and surfing than anyone else!!' was shrieked at her.

'I DO NOT!!' was her top of her lungs, grade-school and completely hypocritical response. It would have been laugh-out-loud comical if the situation hadn't been so tense.

Well. After the dust settled, and Art's voice stopped shaking ('You should be helping each other, and it bothers me to see you're not'), we all quickly left for home. Discussions since that day have crystallized which philosophy most of us believe in: you circulate around, helping when and where needed, and offering assistance. Help shouldn't have to be asked for.

The next night I found myself scheduled in the satellite emergency room lab with this individual. It's a small room. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to it, but decided the big girl panty thing to do was refuse joking offers to switch places from other coworkers. After a few tense hours, to my complete shock, she actually apologized to me. I don't know what Art said to her after the rest of us left (she hung back, like she often does, apparently to air her own grievances), but she said he'd told her to 'think about things', and she concluded she owed me an apology. She came out and admitted she'd gotten an attitude. I accepted this with as few words as possible.

And since then, I've made it a policy to have as few words as possible with this person. Despite the apology, there's still a lack of consistency with her words and actions. I don't completely trust her. I've made it so she doesn't see my Wastebook posts without actually taking the very unsubtle step of unfriending her. Yes, my life actually does tend to be frigging perfect, but I've long made it a policy to eliminate or limit my exposure to aggressively negative and jealous people. The shades come down, and they no longer get to see into my life.  And people who go to the obvious trouble to craft an image but fall short in reality...red flags pop up like mushrooms. I have never seen anyone actually wring their hands before working with this person. She literally wrings her hands when nervous, tense, trying to figure something out. Which is fairly often. And yet she'd like us to believe she's working on her karate black belt (oh, for 5 or 6 years now?) and that she confidently handles guns and would be deer hunting, but somehow didn't get out this (or none of the last 10 or so that we can recall) season. She seems far more in her element getting her nails lacquered with godawful colors and patterns, and sitting for hair coloring appointments.

I totally and cattily digress. Sorry. But I believe it was this episode, in addition to a decade-long reputation this person has of many sudden medical leaves, health crises, voluntary surgeries, continuing dramas with her teenage twin jailbird daughters and their revolving-door pregnancies that made her the obvious choice NOT to send to a week long instrument class. And be depended upon to support her coworkers in the months following go-live. And Art did finally come out and discuss all this with me. What he should have done was directly tell her that he was sending me and not her. He tried to drop hints. And it didn't work. For weeks. I was bracing myself for the fallout when she finally did realize she hadn't been picked. 'When did you offer to go?' she leveled at me during the morning meeting when it was finally spelled out for her. 'Oh, months ago,' I vaguely said. Which technically wasn't a lie. 'Well Art, don't ever say I don't volunteer for anything', she sniped.

Sheesh.

Anyway: It was hard work, and my brain hurt a few days, but it was fun. An overall positive experience. Roche treated us like royalty and gave us a good classroom and lab experience. The best part was the huge weight lifted off my shoulders when I found out I was NOT going to have to come back and train my coworkers, like 6 years ago. That's what took the years off my life, and that's the reason for the unenthusiastic offer to go. That sucked. This time around, we had reps directly from the company train everyone. And everyone had to take a CD course before training to get familiar with the parts, operation and terminology. Halle-flippin'-lujah. That's how it should be done.

Roche had only been using the Marriott East in Indianapolis for about a month to feed and house students, so they wanted to know any and all feedback. I had nothing bad to say. My suite was huge, had two TV's, and a ridiculously pompous phone in the bathroom. The food in the Skylight Bistro restaurant was quite impressive. We're talking gigantic white plates with fancy saucing on them, high end garnishes, including a quail egg on top of the crab cake appetizer. The white chocolate cheesecake and filet mignon were standouts, and repeatedly ordered during the week the various class groups. And apparently no limits on the meal vouchers. If you wanted multiple apps, entrée and dessert, it was completely covered. An all-you can eat breakfast buffet every morning. Room service? That, too. And unlimited alcohol was served, but only on two separate occasions. All other alcohol was on us. No more of the free drink voucher-strewn drunken evenings spent on Coulter's dime 6 years ago. They've long since stopped that little perk.

And the cafeteria at the Roche facility was pretty awesome, too. A spectacular salad bar that included spinach and mixed greens (including my beloved beet-tops) and a variety of lean proteins: chicken breast, tofu, salmon, and every kind of nut. Besides the usual burgers and pizzas and daily entrees. In short, you could craft as horrendously caloric or quality fuel dining week as you wanted. I guess I meandered my way down the center.

The Marriott had a nice exercise room which I actually did faithfully use every morning. To try to burn off the cheesecake, flourless chocolate cake, chocolate goodie boxes (a cute bakery box with a cellophane window containing cake pops, chocolate covered strawberries and  salted almond chocolate bark) served up the motel, and all the big, soft cookies we hoarded from the Roche cafeteria.

I wish I had gotten out to explore town a little more, but there really wasn't a lot of spare time. It would be an easy future weekend road trip, though. Childhood was the last time I visited Indianapolis. I seem to remember one last family trip to visit Bryan's sponsors, Uncle Gene and Aunt Carol but it was only Chris and I along. I was maybe 12 or 13? I remember the whole family going to visit them quite a few times through the 70's, playing with their kids Mark and Annie and their dog Mitzi. They had fireflies in their back yard, quite the exotic novelty at the time, because we didn't have them way up north in the wastelands of Saginaw. Nothing whatsoever looked familiar to me. It was a four and a half hour drive for me to get there, a lot of that through corn fields. All the Roche students got taken out to an Italian chain restaurant (Maggiano's) for dinner on Tuesday night, and I made a beer run to a place called Khan's for Tim on Wednesday. I never got to check out this Broad Ripple area I had read about. A lot of us took a pass on the excursion to the mall downtown. Sounded like it was like any other mall in any other large urban area. And we did mention that in our feedback on the last day of class: have outings to places and restaurants that are unique to Indy, and an already good thing will be improved.

There wasn't the intense bonding experience there was in Anaheim 6 years ago. But then our class was only in session 5 days, not nearly two weeks. If we had been together a second week there might have been more. Still, we all got along pleasantly like we'd known each other for years. I met other med techs from literally every corner of the country. CJ from Phoenix AZ (actually in the 8000 class), but the first to introduce himself and join me for dinner Sunday night. Judith from Prescott AZ, Jerry (in the preanalytic specimen line class) from Seattle, Beth and Maria from Mass. General in Boston (and their incredible accents), Madonna from St. Louis MS, Rhonda from Louisville KY, Bonnie from Pittsburgh PA, and Ashley, the only other classmate from Michigan. She and I swapped contact information, in case we needed to borrow emergency parts or reagents. And Eli from Florida. Short for Eliazar. He wrote 'Bob, Destroyer of Worlds' on his name placard in the classroom. A character? Yes. And a very helpful and supportive lab partner, in spite of his abrupt manner and rapid-fire thinking. He admitted he had a way about him that sometimes 'made other people feel dumb'. But we acknowledged what a talent he had of reading something once and immediately grasping the concept. A talent I wish we all had.

So, armed with my training book, operators' guide and head filled with both useful and useless information, we'll see how it goes when we go live with this new instrument in a couple weeks. I'm glad I went. I'm not afraid of this thing. I will hopefully be an asset to my coworkers. We've got so much more support from this company going in than we did with the other guys. I've been giving myself facial tics and hot flashes over the whole thing, and I realized here's a good opportunity to try to be wiser and more zen about a new instrument than last time. Let the challenges, questions, and troubleshooting just come. No way to know what or when or how, just deal.