Buckle up, peeps. It's a long one.
I've (29) been working as a dental hygienist in the state of Connecticut for 6 months now. I am not new to hygiene but I am new to the area. I have never worked in a dental office like this ever in my life.
It started out ok. Everyone was nice enough. Some people had attitude problems but didn't seem personal so whatever. About a month after I started the other hygienist (in her 60s) there called the dentist and told her that I was saying all kinds of nasty things about her. Mentioning how I didn't like the office, how I didn't like working with the dentist, etc. She would twist a lot of what I was saying into something completely untrue. The doctor confronted me about this and I was honest saying I don't know why she would say all of that. I asked her about it and she first denied it and said that the dentist must have misheard her or that maybe I was too emotional?? Idk. She eventually admitted she lied and called because I had asked for new equipment that was broken because I needed it to work, one of which is a chair that I sit on while I work with patients. The chair would sink to the floor and I couldn't get a proper ergonomic seating position on it. Other hygienist, that we will call Karen since she acts like one, was pissy because they ordered me a new chair. The chair she sits on is over $1000 and was given to her for free by the other dentist who recently retired. I was getting a crummy chair, standard chair and she got all jealous about it?? Mind boggling. The dentist told me that I was not the first person that Karen had done this to, not even then second one, and that people have left the practice because of her. Dentist assured me that she believed me and not to worry about it. That was only the start of a very long and toxic work environment.
I have endured quite a bit from almost every employee so I will list them each.
The assistant (37? ish):
•She constantly yelled at me about sterilization and cleaning instruments. I would often miss half of my lunch because I would be cleaning up after everyone since they left for lunch already. No matter how much I did, no matter how well I did things, it was never enough for the assistant. After the whole thing happened with Karen, the office Manager (OM) moved me to a different room, one farther away from Karen. It was set up as a dental room so I needed to move things around and convert it into a hygiene room. I got the direct ok from OM to do this. I see the assistant complaining about the sterilization area not being taken care of by me and hear OM say that I was told to focus on something else. Assistant comes up to me while I have a patient in my chair and screams about how I'm not pulling my weight and yada yada. My patient can hear everything. It's embarrassing. Best part is they're all her instruments! It's not like I'm leaving mine behind or something, that I'd understand but this is because I'm not acting as their personal Cinderella at all times. I don't mind doing everyone's instruments, it's what is expected at an office, we help each other out. But this place was unbelievable. •She would leave passive aggressive sticky notes everywhere calling others lazy for nothing doing things a certain way. •She screamed at me for not setting up her dental trays. I have never set up dental trays as I have never been an assistant. No one has ever asked me to do this. At 7:50am, as soon as I get into the office, she screams at me and asks me why I don't do this. I let her know that I didn't know I was supposed to and that no one has shown me how. She walks away yelling about how it's not her job to show me how to do things? •She came into my room when I was with a patient to complain about me using a specific x-ray sensor. I put it back where I found it and she said I was not to use that one as it was HER sensor even though it's for office use. •I let her know that we weren't following the manual's instructions on how to properly sterilize the instruments, something I brought up before but received push back on. She was screaming at me about how she's been doing this for four years. She doesn't care what the manual says, she will continue to do it the way she's been doing it.
Dentist (37):
•She would embarrass me in front of patients. I had one patient in my chair who said how much he enjoyed working with me and how thorough I was. When she did her exam she said out loud and in front of the patient that I had left a lot of tartar and to go back and get it. I don't even remember if there actually was any tartar there but I remember wondering why she said that. •She constantly would go against my suggestions for patients with periodontal disease saying they don't have bone loss or bleeding even though they definitely did and I would take intraoral pictures for notes to back up my argument. She once had me sit and show her how I measure the gum tissue, in front of the patient, after disagreeing with my treatment even though I still wholeheartedly believe he needed a deep cleaning. •She spent 30 extra minutes doing an exam on a patient, telling them they don't need deep cleaning, etc, and went into the next patient's appointment time. The patient left because of the wait and she came back and screamed at me for taking too long and how she could not believe I made him leave by taking so long. •She would go to Karen's room to do her exams and then not do mine. I often would wait over 30 minutes or more while waiting for an exam, making me run behind for my next patients. •I scheduled to get in house dental whitening. It was $312, no discount for us and that was fine for me. They applied the product 4 times for 15 minutes each. About an hour after treatment I was in such horrible pain. The worst pain I've ever experienced. Nothing would help at all, no pain killers even took the edge off. I called in the next morning because I was in so much pain. Dentist told me she never gets complaints about the pain and she's never heard anything like it. I notice after a day or two the whitening is already going back to my original color so I look up Opalescence online and it specifically says that they do 2 twenty minute treatments and sometimes 3 but they don't encourage 3 because it will cause sensitivity. I call up the whitening company and let them know what's happened. The representative says that the whitening didn't last because it wasn't applied properly. She also let me know that they should have given me whitening trays to go home with to continue the treatment as the initial in office whitening is meant to “open up the teeth” so to speak and take in continued whitening at home. I talk to the dentist about this and she says this is how they taught her in school. I ask her if she is maybe confusing it for another in office whitening called Zoom which does do 4 treatments of 15 mins. She changes her story and says how she started doing it this way because patients were complaining of pain when they did it the 20 mins way. When I talked to her a few days ago she said she had never heard of anyone getting sensitivity and pain but now it was so common she had to change how they did it? Her story then becomes how she also experiences pain when she does the whitening this “new way”.
The front desk (60s?):
•Scolded me about not following procedures in front of the patient I just worked on even though I absolutely DID follow the proper procedure. •Told one of my patients she had to charge him for something else even though I did not do that treatment. His insurance didn't cover it and he never came back. •I had a 19 year old who requested the use of nitrous oxide for her cleaning. I was told we were out of nitrous so as she was checking in, I let her know that we did not have nitrous and asked her if she wanted to do an exam and x-rays today and to come back for nitrous when we restocked it. She agreed but she started to cry and asked if she could step back and call her mom. I said, of course, and went to set everything up. When I came back to receive her, front desk is yelling at me (in front of the waiting room) about how cruel I am and that my patient is crying in the waiting room and I need to comfort her. I let her know that I already comforted her and she asked for a moment to call her mom. I bring the patient back, we get along great! She gets her cleaning done without nitrous and is so happy since she's not gotten a cleaning without nitrous in over 10 years. She says she wants to see only me when she comes back. Before front desk leaves I let her know that I know she comes from a good place and that I appreciate her but she can come off as patronizing. She proceeds to tell me that she doesn't care, I didn't handle the situation properly and that she will never change. Ever since then she literally did not say a single word to me. This was several weeks ago.
Office Manager (50s?):
•Wrote “What somebody thinks about you is none of your business” on our break room white board for some reason. •Whenever I would approach her for guidance regarding the constant harassment from the other employees she would make excuses for them and somehow turn it around on me. When I tried to discuss with her about front desk she said she agreed with front desk and that I did not handle the situation properly. I reminded her that the patient was very happy with how everything turned out and I didn't want to bring her to the back with all of the sharp instruments everywhere as I felt that would have been overwhelming to be around if she had dental anxiety. Her only response to that was “she didn't seem that happy when she came up to check out”. That's because she had a cavity…. but I digress. She also used this as an opportunity to tell me that I was no longer allowed to get up to let the dentist know I was ready for an exam and that I had to wait for her instead.l because it is “unprofessional”…. •I let her know that our medical history charts in the system are almost always incomplete. I alerted her to a specific instance where Karen wrote down the the patient had a knee replacement and was unsure if she needed to take an antibiotic before cleaning in her notes but it was not in the chart. I had to go searching for it which is not something we should have to do. It was also incorrect, she had both of her hips replaced and she DID need an antibiotic before treatment. OM came back at me about how it's the patients' fault that their health history is not correct. No idea what her mental gymnastics was to get to that conclusion, but ok. •The dentist called out for possible COVID-19 and OM and front desk made me lie to patients saying dentist was out due to a family emergency. •I caught covid from the dentist and my area was completely out of tests. I had a fever of 103.2 for almost 5 days. Every single day I was harassed by OM about how I didn't know it was covid bc I didn't have a test and asking me if I could go into the office. I had a panic attack outside of an urgent care because they would not see me and she kept encouraging me to go back in and argue with them, call them, etc. •When I went to discuss with her about the dental whitening I received, she made me feel stupid. Even after I showed her the website where it specifically says how to apply it. I still haven't gotten any apologies or reimbursement for that.
Karen:
•Started the rumor mill about me. •Kept asking me if I fucked my boyfriend on his birthday. She asked me if I “gave him a birthday delight” and I awkwardly laughed and walked away. She came up to me again and asked “so? Did you give him a little treat??” I told her it isn't much of a treat if he already “gets it” every other morning. I was so uncomfortable with that question but felt that if I didn't answer she wouldn't drop it. •Would constantly bother me about how I got up to let the dentist know I was ready for an exam. •Would constantly hear her and the assistant trash talking me. Saying they couldn't wait for me to leave, they're not going to help me with instruments etc. •Went into the waiting room and told a patient that was in my schedule to request her next time. Patient expressed to me that she wanted to see me again but felt pressured into seeing Karen for her next visit because of her going up to her. When I brought this up to OM, she said “I've never seen Karen do that”. •I prefer my instruments to be bagged in the larger pouch because I noticed they puncture less. I don't share my instruments with Karen so shouldn't be a big deal but for some reason it is and becomes a thing with her.
And all this brings us to yesterday. Yesterday I was doing my instruments and noticed Karen put her polishing hand piece in the ultrasonic bath. I know you probably don't know what that means but they shouldn't go in there as it will damage them. Went over to her and said “hey don't forget that these don't go in there” and she literally came at me. Very aggressive, screaming at me, throwing her hands in my face etc. I said “ok sorry just drop it” and she literally followed me around the office screaming and putting her hands in my face. I went up to the front to talk to OM and said hey can I talk to you she says “can it wait?” And I say “no it absolutely cannot” and she gave me attitude. So I said in front of everyone including patients. “after this next patient, I'm going home. I quit”. I go back to my op to set up for next pt, OM comes back to try and talk to me. I'm wiping and cleaning, om is in the doorway and the Karen is behind her screaming and throwing her hands around. OM keeps trying to talk to me while Karen is screaming. She leaves and comes back to scream again. Finally OM gets her to go away and she makes excuses for her!! She talks about how they've been cleaning them for years like this etc. Why does it matter. I show her the damage it is doing to the polishers and I remind her that we had to replace 2 of them after only a short time of use. OM goes on to tell me that I'm not friendly because I don't say good morning every time I am in. It was just bullshit. Finally I told her this is why I don't talk to her and to leave me alone. I finish the patient, I clean up. Finish my notes, and I leave.
I was supposed to have a meeting with the regional manager about the issues in the office and the doctor under diagnosing periodontal disease at noon but I couldn't even make it 10am. I ended up talking to him anyway but even that is a whole nother story in itself.
tl;dr constantly harassed at work by nearly every employee. HR did nothing to help even though I have been consistently vocal about these issues. Quit after coworker was screaming and throwing her hands in my face.