Starting work
I'm having a quiet weekend today. Life has been really hectic the last two weeks and I didn't take too much of a chance to rest last weekend.
The reason things have been busy has been to do with the fact that I have a temporary job working with a company that provides referral facilitation for the NHS in Ealing, Hounslow and Brighton. In many ways, the work is simple data entry and it's been something that I can do even with the surgery holding me back. Sitting doesn't cause me too many problems and although I'm finding the schedule tiring, it's helped by the fact that if I start getting stupid, it doesn't matter too much.
Working has been interesting. It feels good to be part of a team, working to achieve targets and helping people out. Referrals are obviously important and I've enjoyed also using my brain to achieve things. There's lots of systems to understand and I've managed to be useful by understanding them quickly and moving across districts and tasks quickly. Plus it's been great to just be left alone to work, trusted to get on with things.
Different days have had different characters. I work late anyway, helping to get things ready for the people who have access to the NHS system to book referrals during the day time. When I joined last week, they were very behind. I stayed behind on Monday to help out, until 3am. It was appreciated.
On Tuesday I went through the day like a zombie, getting little done. I got given people to train and the next thing I know, I was managing them too.
By Wednesday, I got "managed", so I spent an hour taking things off the system, then two hours putting them back on. The person who told me to take the things off the system didn't even know about this the next day. I also had a manager who started micro-managing me, the people I had turned into a team around me got pulled away from me and then sent home, even though there was lots of work to still do (and they could have done it). Everything I tried to do I got cut across and, in the end, the only sane solution was not to try any more. Then myself and a trainee got told to do things in a crappy way and she predictably messed up, leading to over-reaction the next day.
Thursday I was still angry, but kept my head down and worked. By Friday, I gave up trying to do anything other than working on my little area and ignoring everything around me. Fortunately, the management people had started to get their act together.
It's been good to feel like I helped and made a difference. The rude shock today has been finding out that, in the end, none of it matters. In the end, it turned out I didn't fill out a form, I'll not be paid this week and they didn't generate the form to pay me for the previous week, either. Plus, the way the form is filled out, the uncertainty I feel plus my own natural reticence to stand up for myself means getting paid less than I'd hoped. Yey...
Still, I have money from the optician's work I did (she also offered me more, but I turned it down on the grounds that it would probably blow up in my face) plus I've had approval to get paid for the website I did for the veterans charity I worked for. Yey! I just need to write them an invoice.
The reason things have been busy has been to do with the fact that I have a temporary job working with a company that provides referral facilitation for the NHS in Ealing, Hounslow and Brighton. In many ways, the work is simple data entry and it's been something that I can do even with the surgery holding me back. Sitting doesn't cause me too many problems and although I'm finding the schedule tiring, it's helped by the fact that if I start getting stupid, it doesn't matter too much.
Working has been interesting. It feels good to be part of a team, working to achieve targets and helping people out. Referrals are obviously important and I've enjoyed also using my brain to achieve things. There's lots of systems to understand and I've managed to be useful by understanding them quickly and moving across districts and tasks quickly. Plus it's been great to just be left alone to work, trusted to get on with things.
Different days have had different characters. I work late anyway, helping to get things ready for the people who have access to the NHS system to book referrals during the day time. When I joined last week, they were very behind. I stayed behind on Monday to help out, until 3am. It was appreciated.
On Tuesday I went through the day like a zombie, getting little done. I got given people to train and the next thing I know, I was managing them too.
By Wednesday, I got "managed", so I spent an hour taking things off the system, then two hours putting them back on. The person who told me to take the things off the system didn't even know about this the next day. I also had a manager who started micro-managing me, the people I had turned into a team around me got pulled away from me and then sent home, even though there was lots of work to still do (and they could have done it). Everything I tried to do I got cut across and, in the end, the only sane solution was not to try any more. Then myself and a trainee got told to do things in a crappy way and she predictably messed up, leading to over-reaction the next day.
Thursday I was still angry, but kept my head down and worked. By Friday, I gave up trying to do anything other than working on my little area and ignoring everything around me. Fortunately, the management people had started to get their act together.
It's been good to feel like I helped and made a difference. The rude shock today has been finding out that, in the end, none of it matters. In the end, it turned out I didn't fill out a form, I'll not be paid this week and they didn't generate the form to pay me for the previous week, either. Plus, the way the form is filled out, the uncertainty I feel plus my own natural reticence to stand up for myself means getting paid less than I'd hoped. Yey...
Still, I have money from the optician's work I did (she also offered me more, but I turned it down on the grounds that it would probably blow up in my face) plus I've had approval to get paid for the website I did for the veterans charity I worked for. Yey! I just need to write them an invoice.