Daily Grind
I haven't written much about work so far, I've been there for over a month and never really said much about it other than to explain what it is that I do.
Maybe it's time to bring my worklife into my bloglife.
The plasma center that I work for recently came under new management, they took over and weeded out the slackers. Then they replaced them with us newbies. Plasma is an interesting field, let me tell you. We are regulated by the FDA, therefore we do a lot of initialing in little boxes, and even more error-correcting (this means lining out mistakes and put our initials and the date next to the lineout). Very tedious. The entire process is immensely detail oriented, cause the whole freakin company is in trouble if standards are not met. So as a donor processor I check the work of the person doing weigh-in, I check over the entire file for old mistakes that have gone unnoticed, I screen the donor following a highly ritualized process, then I recheck my entries for errors, then send it to the "control" desk where it is checked over another time in it's entirety, then labeled with matching UCN codes, and sent to the donor floor (this is where the vampirism occurs). Once on the floor that phlebotomists check everyone's entries: weigher, screener, and controller. Somehow though despite all of this mistakes still get through to the Quality Team or even get past them and aren't found until the next time the chart is pulled and we begin the process all over again.
Does anyone else here see this as a completely pointless cycle?
Throughout all of this we are constantly pushed by the management to be faster, faster, faster. We are told that no one will be getting overtime, then are kept late and asked to come in early, and one of the newbies is already being let go... meaning that everyone else has to pick up the slack. Our management team, although I like them very much and think they are great people, are all on a different page in terms of what they are trying to achieve.
The other night they asked me for suggestions as to how to improve our system in the screener area.
I suggested we have one person out front to field phone calls, control charts, find files, and weigh-in. Other than the occasional desperate search for a chart that has disappeared, this is simple enough to do, we don't often get more than one phone call at a time, controlling takes about three minutes per chart, and weighing-in takes even less. One person could handle most of this themselves, and if they needed assistance then they could ask management or have us control a few charts as needed.
I suggested that the closer should have the additional duty of stocking the rooms with extra boxes of supplies, we have our tabletop containers in the screening rooms, and we fill them every night, but we often go through an entire box of kimwipes or lancets in less than one day. I hate having to make a donor wait while I run to the front desk to grab a new box of gloves or something because I started the day with one that was half empty.
Lastly, I suggested that management work harder at keeping up with our breaks, four hours is too long to go without a break. Not having that 15 minutes to relax and wind down, smoke'em if we've got'em, and get a drink of water is absolute torture. It slows us down, and slows down the whole process, which makes management angry at us for not speeding up and the donors angry at the management and us for not getting them through sooner.
All of my suggestions were met with praise by both the general manager and the regional manager. Yes, they said, great ideas we'll do all of that starting tomorrow. Lisa, the general manager offered to take on the front desk duties. All of them. I know that she thinks that this is the best way to handle this, and that she is superwoman... but she also has management duties. It would be much easier if one of the screeners did that job, or if we traded off who was screening and who was running the front day to day. She cannot handle all of it, and when she tries something always takes her away from it, and leaves the rest of us high and dry trying to wiegh-in, screen, control, answer phones, and wondering when one of our managers is going to notice that it's an hour and a half past our break time.
They managed to hold it together for three whole days, today was day four.
There wasn't a manager to be seen, lunches were late, second breaks were late, one of the best screeners we have left during the morning due to some sort of family crisis, and we were left here to fend for ourselves. Kalie and I. All alone until 3:30 when Lee showed up and helped out a little. Then at 4:45 (15 minutes before I was scheduled to go home) Jamie took over long enough to cover our second breaks, I didn't actually get to leave until 6:30.
I don't mind the overtime, but it should be my choice. If we had had the managerial support we needed to keep up with things we never would have gotten that far behind and I wouldn't have had to rack up overtime. Especially after them bitching about everyone pulling overtime and how nobody was supposed to be doing it.
Maybe it's time to bring my worklife into my bloglife.
The plasma center that I work for recently came under new management, they took over and weeded out the slackers. Then they replaced them with us newbies. Plasma is an interesting field, let me tell you. We are regulated by the FDA, therefore we do a lot of initialing in little boxes, and even more error-correcting (this means lining out mistakes and put our initials and the date next to the lineout). Very tedious. The entire process is immensely detail oriented, cause the whole freakin company is in trouble if standards are not met. So as a donor processor I check the work of the person doing weigh-in, I check over the entire file for old mistakes that have gone unnoticed, I screen the donor following a highly ritualized process, then I recheck my entries for errors, then send it to the "control" desk where it is checked over another time in it's entirety, then labeled with matching UCN codes, and sent to the donor floor (this is where the vampirism occurs). Once on the floor that phlebotomists check everyone's entries: weigher, screener, and controller. Somehow though despite all of this mistakes still get through to the Quality Team or even get past them and aren't found until the next time the chart is pulled and we begin the process all over again.
Does anyone else here see this as a completely pointless cycle?
Throughout all of this we are constantly pushed by the management to be faster, faster, faster. We are told that no one will be getting overtime, then are kept late and asked to come in early, and one of the newbies is already being let go... meaning that everyone else has to pick up the slack. Our management team, although I like them very much and think they are great people, are all on a different page in terms of what they are trying to achieve.
The other night they asked me for suggestions as to how to improve our system in the screener area.
I suggested we have one person out front to field phone calls, control charts, find files, and weigh-in. Other than the occasional desperate search for a chart that has disappeared, this is simple enough to do, we don't often get more than one phone call at a time, controlling takes about three minutes per chart, and weighing-in takes even less. One person could handle most of this themselves, and if they needed assistance then they could ask management or have us control a few charts as needed.
I suggested that the closer should have the additional duty of stocking the rooms with extra boxes of supplies, we have our tabletop containers in the screening rooms, and we fill them every night, but we often go through an entire box of kimwipes or lancets in less than one day. I hate having to make a donor wait while I run to the front desk to grab a new box of gloves or something because I started the day with one that was half empty.
Lastly, I suggested that management work harder at keeping up with our breaks, four hours is too long to go without a break. Not having that 15 minutes to relax and wind down, smoke'em if we've got'em, and get a drink of water is absolute torture. It slows us down, and slows down the whole process, which makes management angry at us for not speeding up and the donors angry at the management and us for not getting them through sooner.
All of my suggestions were met with praise by both the general manager and the regional manager. Yes, they said, great ideas we'll do all of that starting tomorrow. Lisa, the general manager offered to take on the front desk duties. All of them. I know that she thinks that this is the best way to handle this, and that she is superwoman... but she also has management duties. It would be much easier if one of the screeners did that job, or if we traded off who was screening and who was running the front day to day. She cannot handle all of it, and when she tries something always takes her away from it, and leaves the rest of us high and dry trying to wiegh-in, screen, control, answer phones, and wondering when one of our managers is going to notice that it's an hour and a half past our break time.
They managed to hold it together for three whole days, today was day four.
There wasn't a manager to be seen, lunches were late, second breaks were late, one of the best screeners we have left during the morning due to some sort of family crisis, and we were left here to fend for ourselves. Kalie and I. All alone until 3:30 when Lee showed up and helped out a little. Then at 4:45 (15 minutes before I was scheduled to go home) Jamie took over long enough to cover our second breaks, I didn't actually get to leave until 6:30.
I don't mind the overtime, but it should be my choice. If we had had the managerial support we needed to keep up with things we never would have gotten that far behind and I wouldn't have had to rack up overtime. Especially after them bitching about everyone pulling overtime and how nobody was supposed to be doing it.
posted by AnywhereEden | 7:32 PM
3 Comments:
Where the fuck were the managers? I think you need to go after a management position, chickie. You've obviously got a handle on where things break down and how to make things run more efficiently.
I remember a job I took in the late 80's -- during the interview I askd for a run-down of the heirarchy (because I knew I wanted to move up & make more money) and I asked the two managers interviewing me what the hourly workers' general attitude toward management was (I wanted to know what to expect from my co-workers when they realized I intended to move up as quickly as possible.) I knew what I wanted before they hired me, and after they hired me I behaved accordingly: dressed like my manager (superficial, but it works), worked efficiently, offered suggestions, extended myself to help my co-workers with their tasks, etc. I checked in with my manager and my manager's manager at least once a week with a "how'm I doing, what else can I do to help, I noticed this problem or this kink in the system, do you mind if I try doing things this way...etc. blah yada. When co-workers started drifting away from me in the lunchroom, I didn't blame them; I took it as a sign that I was moving in the right direction. When the next possible promotion was posted, I made it clear to my manager and my manager's manager that if the job was still open on the day my 3-month probation was over, I would like an immediate interview. I was told they had no one else in mind for the job, and that I would have to go through the formality of another set of interviews, but I was a shoe-in.
Then my husband got transferred and we had to move out of commute-range.
All I'm saying is it can be done quickly if you know where you want to go and how to get there. Also, it helps to keep track (records) of your own performance for when you make the move up within the company, or decide to interview with another one.
But I know you know this shit.
Too much coffee, I guess. Again.
Hang in there chickie! I'm proud of you!
Wow... you have some really good ideas for ways to improve processes.
I'm impressed they listened and didn't blow you off. That's super cool- means they are taking you seriously as well. Hang in there :)
You'll make it up to head Vampire someday *smirk*
I think everyone has those communication glitches. We definitely do. I think it would be less with a MUCH smaller company, like 5 people, but I'm sure it still happens.
Post a Comment
<< Home