I’ve been working in the front at a small (less than 15 employees) medical practice for about 1.5 years. Since I started, it has increasingly become toxic and unbearable. I’ve been belittled and demeaned and overworked to the point that I am stepping outside to cry multiple times a week. It’s affected my mental health, my confidence, and my self-esteem. I’m an introvert at heart, but work is so exhausting and draining that all I want to do on nights and weekends is stay home on my couch. I feel like a complete recluse, and it’s starting to affect my relationships at this point. Overall, this place has completely broken me. Here are a few examples of the crap I have put up with:
One week, I worked 39 hours in three days with no breaks at all. Management did not even notice this, let alone acknowledge this.
One of the printers in the front desk area was having an issue that caused papers to have a small wrinkle along the long edge. Other than that, the printer worked fine, and we had another printer that was working perfectly. The day after this issue started, the owner of the practice came up front, called the printer tech support, and started fixing the printer. It was only 9am (we open at 8:30am), and there were only two of us up front when we normally have three people. We were feeling a little overwhelmed with the normal early morning rush. I thought, “Wow, that is so nice of him to help us out. He must have noticed that we are super busy up here!” He proceeded to fix the printer, I told him thank you, and he left. About 30 minutes later, my office manager hands me an invoice for $150. I was confused because I had already bought the new part for the printer, and the owner had fixed it, so what was this for? She let me know that I had to pay the owner $150 out of my front budget (it’s only $600/mo), since fixing the printer should have been my job and he should not have have to do it for me. Never mind the fact that I had already taken steps to correct the issue. He just wanted to bust a power-move on me. The money went in his own greedy pocket too, not to the practice.
I was promoted to a lead position a couple of months after being hired, with the understanding I would receive training in areas like insurance and billing- areas I did not have as much experience in. I was really excited, but I quickly learned that being the Front Lead meant being the scapegoat for all the issues up front. The office manager also over-delegated EVERYTHING to me. I was extremely overwhelmed, and brought this up to her multiple times but she would always tell me things like “just don’t let stress get to you” and “you have to learn not to take stress home”, without ever giving me concrete ways to alleviate the pressure I was feeling. Six months later, I had never received the training I was promised, despite me asking about it multiple times. Due to constantly being short-staffed, I had filled multiple roles at a time, while maintaining the numbers we were supposed to be hitting (production, case acceptance, etc). Out of the blue, I was demoted- without any real reason. The OM claimed the reason was the schedule not being full enough, even though we were $200k over our production goal for the year. It made no sense.
Like I said, I have been at this practice for a little less than 1.5 years. Aside from the owners, I am the second-longest tenured employee. There is one other person who has been here for about three years, but that is it. I have seen 16 people quit since I’ve been here. Our turnover rate is insane.
So anyway, last week was the final straw for me. My office manager pulled me aside to let me know that we don’t have enough money to make the second payroll for this month. As a result, everyone’s hours were cut drastically. I normally work about 45 hours a week, and this week I will only get 15. Thankfully, my husband and I will be okay. But there are several single mothers who work in this practice who I know depend on every single dollar. It’s infuriating.
Anyway, I turned in my two weeks as soon as she told me about the payroll issue. I have busted my ass over and over for this practice and received nothing in return. Thankfully, I had received a job offer for an amazing, local non-profit the day before, so the timing was serendipitous. I feel so relieved and ready to move on to a place that will treat me like a human-being, not just some cog in a machine.
TL;DR- I’ve worked at a shitty business for way too long, and I finally had the ability/guts to quit. And it feels good!