If youre reading my blog Im fairly certain you know my past history with jobs. If not I can sum it up pretty quickly; Im the hard worker who gets fucked over. It started out as a semi-funny coincidence - I mean, really, what are the odds of having two corporate music store jobs stab you in the back with such vengance that youd swear you mustve kicked their puppy in your past life only to watch those stores close within a years time? If youre Jesika, those odds are 100% attainable, my friend. By the second time around the semi-funniness had lost its novelty so I decided to really mix it up. Id go from being able to use my music know-it-all-ness to putting stickers on various bodily fluids and parts. Work, work, work, new, new new.

By now Ive moved up a bit in the blood business. I got hired as a Tech I, slowly moved up to a Tech III and farily soon after that my job changed to the very important sounding Problem Resolution Specialist. I got shit done, I figured shit out and I mostly kept to myself. Most importantly, however, I started doing the job of two people. My counterpart (lets call him Shitty Dude because he is) has health issues that, while out of his control, have allowed him to use what must be unlimited FMLA. That isnt the problem so much as a factor of a more intricate one - you see, it wouldnt matter if he was home sick or at work...the results would be the same as far as his job performance goes. Yep. Hes one of those. Two hour-long lunch breaks? Definately not out of the norm. Compromised samples? More frequent than Id like to admit. Passing off what little work he should be doing onto me? Daily, if not hourly from the guy. Ive done my best to take it in stride because, hell... its not like hes there that much anyway, right? I might as well just do the job, cover my own ass and keep myself busy - what he does will (hopefully) fall back on him. (Oh, optimism!)

Fast forward to this morning. I wander into work to find the hasnt-been-at-work-in-at-least-a-month offender sitting at his desk as if it isnt at all strange to suddenly have him there. We dont care for each other much, so there are no words exchanged. Then the Big Fat Problem happens. Im called into the bosses office and told that unless I switch to a seven days on/seven days off schedule that I will be asked to step down as a Problem Resolution Specialist and will have to endure a 10% pay cut. As for the slacker, never-there coworker? Well, he's already accepted the schedule change and will face no pay changes what-so-ever. A 7/7 shift is impossible for me. I live far from work and public transit in this city on the weekends probably hasnt improved since dinosaurs roamed the valley so...I guess the pay cut and being demoted is my only choice.
"But what do I do when Shitty Guy isnt here like he should be? What if some mislabeled samples get brought to me and I know how to fix them before a patient gets the wrong test results? Since that isnt my job anymore but the person who's job it is has called in for the third week in a row...do I just...well...what do I do?"
"Just make copies of the issue and give it to the evening shift person to take care of."
"Hours later!? When its way too late to do anything about it before hypothetically the patient gets put on the wrong medication for a disease they dont even have?"

Apparently.

If it was just me getting fucked over, sure, itd still be horrible. It still wouldnt be right that I get a pay cut when someone who cant pull his weight gets off scott-free. But what about the person who just had a bone marrow biopsy and is waiting to find out if they have Lukemia but has to wait another day because Shitty Dude isnt there to correct the mislabel while Im just sitting there watching a sample pass its expiration? How is that fair to the person waiting to find out if their HIV test is negative or not? It might not be my job to care, but my morals dont give a fuck about that. My options are pretty limited. Do the same amount of work for less pay vs. ...well, nothing really.

Im getting good at excersizes in patience. Im getting even better at finding videos on YouTube that always, always, make me feel better.