I am utilizing my lunch break to gather my thoughts today. Unfortunately, for those of you reading my blog, that equals a rant. A somewhat humorous rant, but it’s a rant just the same.
I work in an office where medical claims are reviewed and processed by registered nurses. I am the assistant to the Nurse Supervisor and provide clerical support to the remaining nurses. Today, in an effort to keep my eyes off the computer screen for a bit, I assigned myself the daunting task of thinning and purging our files.
It should be simple really. The filing system is not complicated.
Let’s say you have a file for ABC Medical Group that you’ve reviewed and made a decision on. You would take that file, locate the drawer labeled “A”, locate the first expandable folder in that drawer, also labeled “A” and labeled 2011, because that’s the year we’re in, and you would place your claim in the front of that first folder. It doesn’t even have to be alphabetized within the A’s, it just has to be in the A folder with newest claims first. How hard is that?
Anyway, the result is, I should be able to open up the file drawer labeled “A”, go to the back of the files and pull out everything for the year 2009 by removing a single folder.
This didn’t work today. Their method of filing this year has been “Pick A Folder, Any Folder Labeled A and Stick It In There”. Now I’m mad and I swear after a moment resembling Linda Blair in The Exorcist, spinning head and all, I think I shot laser beams from my eyes.
After lunch I’m going to attempt to shoot fireballs from my fingertips.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
How ‘bout this one? Let’s say they want me to locate a folder for The ABC Medical Group. I should still be able to locate it in “A”. But no, not with these college educated girls. You know where I’ll find that one? It will be filed under “T” for THE!
Or, what about….
Yesterday, I walked into the office to find five women scrambling around their desks in complete panic. It looked something like a scene from Chicken Little, except they were women in heels and not chickens.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
You know what the problem was? The IT people changed Office Communicator to something called Lync, and when they logged on a box popped up on their computer screen offering to give them a tutorial for the new program.
“Oh no! Erica, what is this? Have you seen this? Is this supposed to be here? What should I do? Is this a ‘security incident’? Should I report it?”
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?
I wanted to tell them to step back, as their computer screen would self destruct in five seconds. They probably would have believed me.
But that would be wrong.
Except I really would have enjoyed the chaos that followed…
And one of them would probably have pulled the fire alarm and evacuated the building…
And then a bunch of red neck Arkansans would have been featured on the national news and portrayed for the dumb hillbillies the rest of the country already thinks we are.
(Have you seen the Clinton Library? Even Jay Leno and David Letterman have had a good golly time referencing that big trailer in the sky.)
Someone please tell me how people like these ladies get a college degree? Is this why they’re “paper nurses” and not “clinical nurses”?
Am I supposed to be amused and not annoyed?
Is filing really that difficult?
Do you think Chicken Little is offended by the comparison?
I feel sorry for you. I am a total organizational freak. I have my own system and become all Linda Blair if anyone touches it. I think I would have told them it was going to self destruct unless they all danced on one leg and did the macarena. lol
ReplyDeleteMy experience w/ that today: I get a call from one of the ladies on my routing list who has used this same program for over a year.
ReplyDeleteProblem: The word document's zoom was set to 47%.
So she calls and says, "I'm trying to review this document, but it's just so far away. Is anyone else having trouble with this?"
So, I put on my sweet southern drawl, and said "It's alright sweetheart. When you open it up, at the bottom right of your screen should be a plus and a minus sign w/ a bar in between that'll let you make it as big or as small as you need it."
When I worked for my previous employers, I was on the night shift. The two shifts shared the same computers. Before I left one night, I flipped the screens to all the computers. The next night, I get there to a red faced boss (because he's laughing so hard) telling me how he walked in on one of the ladies literally trying to turn the monitor upside down so she could work. For the sake of the old biddies I worked with, I never did that again. :)
And that, Bri...is exactly why I like you. lol
ReplyDeleteDafeena, that's excellent advice. I might try that. I'll let you know if I'm unemployed afterwards. :)