The dirty old French peasant bitch is back.
I'm in the midst of a full out Madame DeFarge crisis.
What's that mean, you say? Yes, well, I guess it has been a long time but in fact these panic attacks were quite commonplace in the late '00s. As I define it here, it's basically a sudden and dramatic plunge in self-confidence and the desire to keep one's job. Heavily influenced by increased (or simply continued if already at high levels) drinking and hangovers, disliked or irritating aspects of a new job become much more than nuisances, they bombard each waking thought causing a full out freak out. It becomes so crippling that the mere thought of going in to work becomes a nausea-producing, sweaty-palm, heart-racing near impossibility.
I was starting to feel the Defarge symptoms last week when the monthly deliveries arrived and then the next day Marie (the departing Med Manager) had us taking care of the Expired or Discontinued meds. The deliveries were immense. Massive amounts of drugs we had to stock. It took hours. Then the 'Pops" as she called it, popping out the Expired or Discontinued pills into essentially a bucket which I quickly dubbed the "Valley of the Dolls" bucket. Thousands of pills and capsules. It was mind-boggling to think of the waste. And the potential risk of theft or abuse with that much uncatergorized, unidentifiable drugs. These tasks and the brute force style of inventory management Marie had employed made me freak out as to the potential for really bad, really illegal mistakes.
Then there was the old feelings of anxiety that arose due to the dynamics of a 9-5 office job. The traffic, the small talk, the water cooler gossip, the saccharin "good mornings", the lunch room table selection and awkward conversation, the late Friday afternoon weekend wishes and exasperated exclamations of TGIF. You know...the "Kathy" cartoon shit. ACK!!!
It seemed to get better by Monday and I felt more confident that it'd eventually work out. By Wednesday though, the knitting-needle wielding ol' crag was back in full force. Marie, an overly-bubbly, constantly-apologizing little Haitian lady was starting to turn on me. One of the classic potential saboteurs of new employees is the trope of the disgruntled, departing staff teaching the newbie. If the newbie points out inconsistencies, criticizes the former's techniques and methods or comes up with better ideas than the mentor, there's gonna be friction. By Wednesday afternoon Marie had turned into a hostile trainer. Not good. She was harping about all the negative variables I'd be dealing with in the job. She implied the fires she was constantly putting out were going to be conflagrations in the future. She poo-pooed every computer-based time-management tool I tried to set up and insisted it would fail.
By Thursday afternoon I'd had enough. Either by my own logic summation of how the job would fit in my life or due to the subversive influences of my antagonistic trainer, I went to Susan and confided I didn't think I'd be able to do the job. Naturally she tried to convince me otherwise and she said she'd support my decision either way, but hoped I'd stay on in the position. Helen later met with me and reiterated the same. I said I'd give it the old college try, so to speak, and went back to my dungeon with my evil taskmaster piling an enormous stack of new doctors orders on my desk that had to be processed within the next hour. I told her we had to slow it down, I wasn't able to absorb it all, it was too much. Her organic method of doing the job's duties by memorizing everything and spewing it verbally out to me in rapid fashion wasn't working. She became frustrated with me and no doubt saw me as an entitled white American, spoiled into wanting luxuries like classroom-style training and computerized inventory and time-management systems. And that's true, that's what I was expecting and what I needed. Pardon me for being white. And it probably doesn't help, in light of her ancestry, that I'm French heritage as well. She accused me of convincing Susan "behind closed doors" to give me preferential treatment and unrealistic promises of concessions and accommodations to alleviate the stress I was feeling. She had me there. That is what I did and I know that the things Susan said she'd do would eventually be unrealized.
Friday I came in but lasted only to noon. Though I was in fact light-headed and feeling faint due to lack of sleep stressing over all of this, I built it up and told Susan I had to go home sick. She was visibly disturbed that I'd not utilize the last remaining hours of Marie's time to gain a bit more her knowledge and expertise. If she only knew how she'd been deceiving them these past few years. Her method was not magic. It wasn't a "well-oiled machine". It was grunt work. Effective most of the time but overwhelmingly time-consuming and inefficient. Human error as slight as overlooking one pill bottle or a vial of insulin could result in medication unavailable for folks who need the drugs to function. So when the eventual mistakes arose, thus the fire-dousing campaign would commence...and the CYA email barrage.
I haven't quit. Susan texted me saying to take the weekend to think things over and we'd talk on Monday. I tentatively have 3 options as I see them. A. I tell her I'll give it my all and try to do the job to the best of my abilities. B. I plead with her for my overnight hours back, likely having to offer to continue in the position for a bit since pretty-much no one else can do it now that Marie is gone. C. Embarq.
I'm leaning towards B. I realize I should never have asked her for this position. I miss my hours of free time. I miss the solitude. I miss the sedentary life.
Not sure what will happen. I'm hoping to be able to right my wrong. But it could just as well be I'll be living off credit cards scanning the want ads in a week from now; quaffing ale and singing a ditty to Le Monsieur Guillotine.