I am a graduate student and I took on a second part time job. Do I have time for another job? No, but I have less money than time so here we are and thus begins our tale of woe… or should I say “whoa”?
Today was my first day on the job and it was a shit show. The office is a private practice consisting of two people: The doctor and the office manager (who acts as my supervisor). I am now the third hire and this is not a new practice.
The office manager has worked solely to schedule the patients, run pre-authorizations, send out insurance info to a third party biller, manage the utility bills/rent for the actual building the practice is ran out of, and perform other odds and ends. I previously worked as a clerk at a large health organization for over a decade. I do find this amount of work doable for a single full time employee…except not for my supervisor. They are a HOT MESS.
I caught on quickly to the training and zoomed through scheduling patients. This does not attribute to my skill set as an employee. Instead, the problem may lie more so on my supervisor's disorganization and that they utilize the classic “boomer typing”. Ya know, where the person uses their two pointer fingers to press each individual key while looking up at the monitor and back down at their fingers as I sit by and internally scream…
About two hours into the shift my supervisor begins to disclose her entire LIFE STORY. When I say story I mean nitty gritty dets consisting of history of domestic violence and molestation.
Then, they tell me they were married to an affluent attorney for 25 yrs and recently went through a divorce one year ago. This is why they are working in this office. She says she went from living in a beautiful “half-million dollar home” to a small apartment way outside of town. Suddenly, as if the Oscar spotlight shone down from a split in the clouds – she looks up at me and begins sobbing “I never thought I would ever have to go to work”.
TLDR
My first day on the job, my supervisor disclosed that they spent their life married to a wealthy attorney, recently divorced them, and literally *ugly cried* that she never thought she would ever have to work. Meanwhile I, a young grad student who took on a second job to afford my fricken spaghetti-O's sat and listened (mouth agape).