I work in healthcare. Specifically, I’m currently working as a substance use disorder counselor and case manager at a shitty corporate psych hospital. And while it is shitty and corporate, I love my job…or, rather, I love my actual job, as in the work I do with and for patients. And I love my team of core employees on my home unit.
I work on the toughest unit in the entire facility. My unit is very much a quick turnaround unit, where the longest length of stay is usually no more than 4 days. It’s high stress and super high staff turnover bc most people just can’t cut it given the conditions. Patients can be aggressive, combative, and difficult. But me and my staff make it work nonetheless. We have our system and we do everything in our power to help our patients and set them up for success so they hopefully don’t ever have to come back.
As for me, I’ve received nothing but glowing feedback since day 1. My reviews with my supervisor are exemplary. I lost count of how many patients have gone out of their way to leave me good reviews and thank me. My colleagues trust me and know I’m great at what I do. My reputation in the field is awesome. And yet…
A few weeks ago, my clinical director told me corporate had come in and said I need to “justify my position.” So now I also have to work another floor in addition to my own unit, partially due to the gross incompetence of this other units team. But hey, I do it. Then, my clinical director goes on vacation. The second she does, the famously detached-from-reality CEO and his admin douche cronies announce to THE WHOLE HOSPITAL that they will now be “sitting in” on my units treatment team (subtext being we are too stupid to do it right). They immediately proceed to start fucking with us, criticizing us for things they have no clue about and really just showcasing how little they know about how things actually work. Last Friday, there was a huge blizzard that resulted in an insane number of car accidents across the city. My team texted each other and said we were all going to be late. One by one we trickled in. Then out of nowhere the CEO just loses his shit. Like, in an embarrassing way. Fulll on screaming at us for being late and belittling us. I made the mistake of attempting to defend my team by pointing out there was a blizzard. He then began attacking me personally, hurling insults and calling me essentially stupid. It was beyond unprofessional and humiliating.
Today, I was called into the CEOs Office. I was given a final warning despite never having been written up in my entire length of employment. The reasons given were being late and “not doing my job.” I attempted to tell him that he was super wrong on all his claims as I did in fact do my job as I always do and some of the things he referenced weren’t even my clients or things that happened when I wasn’t even working bc it was my day off. He literally didn’t even try to pretend he cared about the truth. I had to leave because I couldn’t stop crying. I think he’s trying to lay the groundwork to fire my as retaliation for speaking up and to have someone to blame for his failures as a CEO. I don’t want to lose my job. Everything was fine before those corporate fucks came to mess with us.
I hate corporate more than anything in the world.