I was hired to be a single lab tech at one of our satellite doctor offices. The headquarter office has a big, beautiful, functional lab with 8 techs.
When I got hired and saw the room I’d be working in, I felt disappointment. Think of a simple doctor’s office room where you wait for the doctor to come in. That’s my “lab”. There’s no windows and it’s tiny. I have no room to work. It’s in the very back of the building away from the rest of the office, so I am often left out of mingle and chit chat. I’m also the last to know that there’s office catering because people forget I work back there. Only one wall outlet… so all day long, I have to reach under a table to plug/unplug all my lab equipment. And that’s after I was given a power strip. I’ve blown the power in the room several times. It’s pretty ghetto to say the least. Much of my lab equipment is broken or on its way out – my cell counter squeaks and the reset nozzle keeps falling off. One of the microscope lens is completely cracked and unusable. I asked to get the cell counter replaced, only to have my boss send me an even older one. Sigh.
So I’ve been in the satellite office since August, and they’re moving me to the headquarter lab in July. Yay. I’m currently training my replacement. He’s been here for two weeks, and the day he entered the “lab,” I saw the look of disappointment. He said “oh this is … different.” And I can already tell he’s not a fan of this work environment the more I train him. (Fun fact, I’m not really qualified to train him because I’m still not fully trained myself). Before I was hired, there were two techs that worked there. Both quit after just 8 months.