So my boss isn’t exactly my favorite person. That’s quite often the case, I hear. I work in a nursing center. We (as in me and my co-workers, etc) constantly hear how great our facility is, in all aspects. It doesn’t smell, it’s clean, the people are friendly and helpful. Specifically, I work in the kitchen. We’re always hearing that our kitchen is so clean and organized and that our food is so tasty. I, for one, would think that with all the "oohs" and "ahhs" we get, the boss would be very proud of us. Maybe she is but she does not treat us so. Sure, we’ve had meetings where she’s said as much, about how great a job we’ve done, but when it comes to speaking to us daily, according to her, we never stop messing up. I say it’s okay to keep us on our toes, it’s okay to suggest a new way of doing something. But it is not okay to put us down all the time and in any way possible. If she has to stretch the truth a little bit to be able to say you’ve done wrong or if she has to just disagree even if it’s not something that can actually be disagreed with and it be true, she will. She will not listen and she will not be made wrong herself. I could give you so many examples. I will give a few. I come in after stock has come and usually most or all of it is put away. I put away what is left and I take all the cardboard and mess out to the dumpster. One day I came in and did just that. My boss called me into her office. She asked me what I do when I get there on stock days. I told her. She almost interrupted me saying that to argue with me. She said, oh no! When you come in you put up the the leftover stock! In my head, I thought, what?! That’s what I just said! You don’t argue with her though! It turns out that there was some that was taken out in the hallway to be put away into the chemical room and I wasn’t aware. By the way, I was tattled on, we’ve got tattletales galore if you need one. If they see that you haven’t done something you’re supposed to, even if it’s a possibility that you just haven’t gotten to it yet, they go straight to the boss. It really keeps you on your toes, you definitely want to be aware of every little thing. There was also this time that she had been especially hard on me for a while after someone had tattled on me saying that I didn’t clean my floors well, among other things, lies, for example, that I disappeared before my break in the evenings everyday and no one knew where I was at. Everyone knows where I used to go on my break, to my car to read my books. One day I had just came in and I went into the stockroom for bread bags. As I went in she came out of her office, they are like straight across from each other. She followed me in there practically yelling, Beth! Are you okay today? Is something wrong? She acted as if I had been avoiding her or ignoring her. I was just like, um, no, I’m okay, I came to get some bread bags. And then she fussed at me again for some previous matter, talking about if I couldn’t do better, it’d go on my evaluation, told me she’d be checking in with me in three weeks. She never did by the way, if she says she will take care of something at a later time she never gets to it, no matter what it is, so if it’s important you better be prepared to hound her which isn’t fun as I’m sure you could imagine. Another time we were all sitting eating, taking our supper break. There is a door to the right of the table where people can come in and out of the courtyard. Here she came, the door was locked. Everyone looked up to see who was knocking. Note: I was farther down the table, not closest to the door. A co-worker who was already up said she’d get it and went. My boss came in, came straight to me, and said, why did you look at me and then look away? Everyone’s mouths dropped, mine included. I stuttered I was so shocked, and told her that so and so was already up to get it. She just kind of looked at me in a horrible manner and left. That is one of the craziest things that she’s ever done to me, it made no sense to single me out like I had done something wrong. And here we are getting to my point of this whole thing. The other day we were short staffed, a co-worker called in. It turned out to be one of those especially busy days, where we have countless visitors coming through the lunch line and we can barely keep enough dishes washed to serve everyone. I took a phone call. A resident wanted soup and sandwich to go with their meal. Right, I’ll get to it, I thought. I take phone calls like that all the time and I do usually get to it but it was so busy I completely forgot all about it. My boss came to me after our own lunch and asked me about it, I explained and she didn’t seem too mad at me and suggested that I should have told someone else since I was busy, which would have been impossible, everyone else was just as busy, that’s why I didn’t do it right away, I couldn’t leave! Of course, I just apologized profusely and nodded and all, like I said, don’t argue with her, or even make your own suggestions! Okay, later I took another phone call. This one was from a resident that always calls and orders her meals from our menu because she has so many food allergies and it’s hard to keep it straight as to what and how much of what she can have. There is a pad of paper by the phone to write this particular thing down on. I did so. Later I came back to the phone and it was gone. No one knew where it went. Well, someone did something with it! No matter though, because I remembered what she told me and I told the cook. Right before our back line started I was trying my best to complete an order from one of the halls. I hardly know how to do it but we’d been short and whoever was supposed to do it hadn’t done it and they had called and complained (they were very rude as well.) You don’t see me tattling! Believe me though, if the right person had taken that phone call someone would have been in the office. I just tried to take care of it and I did. But as I was doing that a co-worker called out to me, where is the list for so and so resident? I called back that I wrote it down but later it was gone and as I was getting ready to say that I remember what she ordered so it’s no biggie, my boss came out of her office to tear me down. She said to me, then I needed to march straight down to the resident’s room and ask her what it was she ordered. She said to me that that was the second phone call that day I’d taken that I had screwed up on. The first call I could understand. But this one? No, I didn’t do anything wrong. No one noticed but I cried as I finished that order, I couldn’t help it. I try so hard to please my boss and everyone else there. I want to be known as a good worker. I know that I’m a good worker and I know that I deserve more. Not that it’s all I’m seeking, but I see some people that get the employee of the month and I wonder what it is I do or don’t do that I can’t receive it. Some of these people work hard, sure, but they have terrible attitudes and I know I don’t! I never complain, I always do what I’m told, I never call in, I’m always on time, and I don’t tattle even if it’s well deserved, I just do what needs to be done and ignore the drama! I went home depressed and talked to my husband about how unappreciated my boss made me feel and others. Actually, some of my exact words were, I just want to cry for a few days and eat a whole lot of chocolate. The very next day, I was back and forth, left and right, trying to give everyone service out on the line at supper. There is a woman, a nurse I suppose she is, that comes through fairly often. I don’t even know her name. She is slim, dark haired, and beautiful. She’s so friendly to everyone, she’s always cheerful. I say all this because there are so many that don’t smile and aren’t friendly. And she always wants a 12 ounce cup of fruit. So I passed that over to her and she passed me a dollar and said something about a tip. I kept hold of it, thinking she was joking, and went down to the end to ring up her meal at the register. I straightened out the dollar ready to use for her total. She said, no, no, that’s yours! I was astonished. I tried to give it back but she wouldn’t take it. I was like, are you sure? Why? She said because I want to! You work hard, you deserve it. I thanked her and told her my husband would think that was definitely something, I got a tip, of all things, a tip! You don’t normally get tips working in the kitchen at a nursing center! Later that night I thought to myself, oh God, thank You! I think it was His way of saying, Beth, don’t despair, you are appreciated. My tip for you? Trust in God with all your heart.
-ladyworpledinker
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