The GirlAlive Blog

The last few days have been full of rodent urine for me and my husband.  Neil takes care of the guinea pigs because I'm allergic to them.  Just today Elvis peed on him.  I take care of the hamsters, and Nobby pees on me as a hobby.  Several times a week.  I think I have the better deal because hamsters have much smaller bladders.

Have I mentioned that I hate my job?  I requested a temporary reduction in work hours, and my boss had, according to policy, 21 days to respond.  It's been 23 days.  24 on Monday.  So that's one more for the checklist of reasons for filing a grievance when they finally reject my request. 

My job is boring.  I hate maternity coding.  My boss thinks she's a kindergarten teacher.  The person "in charge" of maternity has the IQ of a mushroom.  I very much need a new job.

I've sent in applications and resumes and stuff all over town.  Most of them never even bother replying.  I think I'm unemployable.  I have a history degree.  What can that get me?  You'd think maybe one of the dozens of museum jobs I've applied for.  But no.  I have experience as a software tester and an HTML writer.  But it was a couple years ago so it doesn't count.  I'm forever branded as "medical paperwork girl".  I hate medical paperwork.  I hate working with people who are glad to have worked their way up into medical paperwork.  

The only good news I have at the moment, other than the comedy of my husband being peed on by Elvis, is that I finally got plane tickets to go back to visit my family in the US.  I haven't been in the US in years.  I miss Americans.  I miss people with morals and being able to afford to eat in a restaurant.  I miss root beer.  I want to go home.  Too bad I don't really have one.

Alana

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Posted by Alana at 05:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So the award for the best guinea pig ever goes to Homer.  Neil was clipping Homer's nails and Homer has dark brown paws where it is hard to tell how far back the clippable part goes.  He accidentally nicked a blood vessel and Homer was bleeding all over.  But Homer is so sweet and easygoing he didn't even squeak.  Right now we've got him wrapped in towels in half a piggy carrier on the couch enjoying a carrot snack for being such a good boy.  When the bleeding stops we'll put him back in the cage.

People have asked me to go a bit beyond "ehn" to explain the job interview.  It was fine.  I did a good job, but I'm not sure that job is the right match for me.  It would be a lot of talking on the phone and I might just be too naturally introverted for that.  I'm sure something else will come up, and in the meantime, I still have a job and a paycheck.

Back to keeping an eye on Homer.  Not that I really need to.  He's such a good boy he hasn't even tried anything mischevious while he's been on the couch.

If anyone thinks they have a really great guinea pig, it's just because they haven't met Homer.  He's the best.  (Not that I don't love Elvis, Spike and Fudge.  But Homer is still the best.)

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, how did my interview go?  Ehn.  I'd put my money on me not getting the job.  But we'll see.  Might not really be my idea of the perfect job anyway.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm frustrated with my job.  The management is appalingly bad.  For instance, the main head of coding decided we needed 10 new coders.  None of the hospitals wanted them or even had room for them.  They all got stuck in the hospital I work in.  Six of them don't have desks.  Three of them are in a room with no network access, so they don't have computers either.  And the manager (the same one who decided we needed these people) refuses to release the money it would take to wire that room.  So for several months, they've been sitting in a windowless room doing nothing.

This same manager decided we need to have everything done within 6 weeks of the patient being discharged.  She won't tell us why.  There is no urgency in coding.  We're just collecting statistical data.  Most of the patients don't have discharge summaries in the system within 6 weeks, and in the stuff I do a lot of the casenotes are still with the pregnant women if their admission was for something pre-natal.  So we're making stuff up.  We have to use the "first impression" notes from the emergency room and whatever one-word descriptions we can find in the ward admissions books.  None of it is right.  In a job where accuracy has always been more important than speed, our moron of a manager has dictated that we need to sacrifice all accuracy for the sake of speed for no reason.

I hate people who can't think logically.  Because of this, I've been looking for a new job for a while.  I don't like working in health care.  It's not what I always wanted to do.  It's what I did because I couldn't get a job as a software tester or web designer, and I needed to pay my rent.  I don't enjoy medical paperwork and the thought of doing it for the rest of my life makes me want to jump in front of a train.

The good news in all this is that I have an interview on Tuesday.  Today I took the bus to where the interview is and saw where I'm going.  I also got a nice new shirt to wear.  I want this job.  It's a position as a researcher and editor's assistant for a financial magazine.  It would be a creative job working with intelligent people.  And I've always wanted to work in publishing.  It would be ideal.

I'll let you all know how it goes.  I really need a new job.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This post is more serious/political than I usually get, but I found myself ranting about this to everyone around me, and they're sick of it, so I decided to just post it already.

William McGuire, the now former CEO of United Health Group, has been in the news lately because of back-dating stock options.  As my dad put it, "He pulled an Enron."  I used to work for United Health Group, and I can tell you that his greed and corruption isn't the only greed and corruption in that company.  In fact, it is only the tip of the iceberg.

I was a claims processor at United for about a year while I was preparing to move to Scotland.  I found nothing but corruption and abuse of employees.

In my team, we were behind in our work because there were about 25 fewer processor than we really needed, so the Bosses (the manager's managers, who we never saw) declared that everyone must work 10 hours a week of mandatory overtime.  At the same time that everyone was forced to work 50 hour weeks, quotas were increased to unrealistic levels.  At one point, the even implemented "quiet time", where for 6 hours a day we were not allowed to speak to each other.  It was a sweatshop with cubicles.  And why do the employees put up with this abuse?  In Northern Minnesota, United is literally the only place hiring.  There are no other jobs, and if there were, who has time to look for them when you're working 50 hours a week?

What really made me mad about this abuse was the reasoning behind it.  United has a policy of merit-based raises only.  If you do not meet or exceed the goals they set for you, you do not get even a cost of living increase.  The claims processors had to process over 300 claims a day with 99.5% accuracy, or they did not get a raise.  The middle managers had to get all of their employees to produce those goals, or they did not get a raise.  The Bosses had to meet their budget for the year.  Do you see the problem here?  I do.

The best way the Bosses can meet their goals and make sure to get themselves a hefty raise is to set unrealistic and downright abusive goals for the employees.  If the processors can't meet their goals, no one below the Bosses gets a raise, so the Boss gets a hefty raise because they stayed well within their budget.  If they did anything to benefit the employees, like creating a nice working atmosphere or hiring enough people to cover the workload, that would cost money.  There would be extra wages to pay and raises to pay if people started meeting goals.  And then they might go over-budget, and the Boss would have to give up his dream of a third summer home.  So because of upper-level greed, my friend Heidi didn't see her kids for 3 or 4 days at a time because she was working such long hours.  Several of my co-workers were hospitalized for stress-related illness.  (Think about that for a second.  A health insurance company overworked their employees into the hospital.)

United doesn't just abuse their employees.  They completely screw over their customers as well.  I worked in the mental health division.  There were a lot of health plans where people were actually paying for mental health coverage where they had a minimum of 20 visits and a $5000 deductible.  So they would go to visit after visit, and have to pay for every single visit until their deductible was paid.  And then by the time they had paid off their deductible, all of their claims were denied for being over the 20 visit limit.  There was no way any of their claims would ever get paid.  You'd be better off getting imaginary health insurance from a greasy guy working out of the back of a van.  At least then you'd logically expect to get screwed.

I now live in a country with national health care.  It has its problems, but I still think it is better than the deep corruption I saw in the health insurance industry.  I don't know if I could ever live in the US again, and the number one reason I don't want to go back is health insurance.  I hate the waiting lists and government red tape in the health system here in the UK, but it is merely inefficient and incompetent.  Health insurance companies are malignant evil pretending to be merely incompetent. 

Alana

Posted by Alana at 07:50 PM | Permalink

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I've learned some interesting things about childbirth at my new job.

One thing I've learned is that a lot of things can rupture and lacerate and bleed and explode when you're giving birth. But those things usually aren't too bad, or people would not have a bunch of kids.

People really do accidentally give birth at home. Sometimes into the toilet.

If you write a detailed "birth plan" and specify things like, "avoid using forceps" and "no episiotomy unless an emergency" and "I wish to use the birthing pool", that's almost a guarantee that you'll need a forceps delivery with a big old episiotomy in an operating theater. I've never ever seen a birth follow the detailed hippy "birth plans" that the parents write. In fact, I believe that God likes to assert his power over creation in births. Whenever parents make detailed plans about how it is supposed to go, God steps in to cause some obstruction of labor requiring forceps or a c-section just to show the parents that He is in control of life, not them.  So don't ever try to plan ahead for a birth and micro-manage your delivery.  It never works, and you're just begging for an emergency c-section.

Meconium is gross.

Try not to give birth during pre-eclampsia week. I had never seen a pre-eclampsia case in the first 3 weeks working here, and then I got 7 in one day, all from the same week.

I don't like hippies.

Using a birthing pool sounds like a nice idea until you remember that one of the last stages before the baby comes out is "rectal pressure".  You will poop in the pool, and then they'll have to drag you out of the pool quickly so that the baby doesn't get cholera from swimming through your poo.  Just say no to birthing pools.

Posted by Alana at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It would be against the law for me to show you a screen print from my
computer at work, so I'll have to use fake things to recreate what one
screen looks like.

On one screen in the maternity record, it is a summary of the baby's
information. It looks kind of like this:

Date of birth: 1/1/06
Sex:         2     [Girl]
Outcome:  1     [Alive]
Weight: 3500
etc.

So everytime a girl is born and is not stillborn, the system shows the
name of my web site. I thought that was kind of cool. Or maybe I'm
just easily amused.

Also one of my co-workers is a very nice Slovenian woman who is very
pregnant. She had a scan the other day, and her new adjusted due date is June
6. So if he (or she) is born on that date, it'll be 6/6/06. She says
that if it's a boy born on that date, she's tempted to name him Damien. 

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm starting to get used to the new job.  Today I even got to do some actual coding.  And I also eventually got my ID.  I'm still fighting to get things done.  I was supposed to have a workstation assessment because of the previous problems with my arms.  It hasn't happened.  I need a new chair, but that won't happen until occupation health does the assessment and demand it.

Aside from all the beurocratic crap, it's going well.  My co-workers are very nice.  Some have worked in health records for as much as 20 years.  I'm the young one in the office, which is nice in light of the fact that I will be 30 by the end of the year.  There's one girl who works in patient intake who looks like she can't be more than 12.  I'm getting old.

The worst thing about my job right now is that I have a tendency to get words stuck in my head, the way other people get songs stuck in their heads.  Yesterday, the word stuck in my head was "meconium" which is the medical term for a baby's first crap.  (I deal with maternity charts, so it comes up a lot.  More than I really care to think about...)  Today I have the word "protenuria" stuck in my head.  And I'm pretty sure that even in my head it's spelled wrong.  

It's not good to do the maternity charts when I haven't had any kids.  I didn't really need to know the extent of things that can split, lacerate, rupture and explode in my pelvic region if I choose to have any children.  I also didn't need to know that "aspiration of meconium" was a very common delivery complication.  In fact, I never really wanted to know anything about meconium.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After waiting over 2 months since I was accepted for this job, I was looking forward to today, expecting that someone would sit me at a desk, show me my login and password, and start showing me how to do my job.  Instead, I got, "Oh, so you are starting today.  We don't have a desk for you, but V----- should be going off on maternity leave soon.  In the meantime A---- isn't in today so you can sit at her desk while you copy the handwritten notes from her book into this book."

I don't have a desk.  I don't have a computer.  I'm still not doing the job I was hired for.  They have known I was going to be working there for over 2 months.  I could understand them not being prepared if I was starting soon after the interview process.  But it's been 2 months.  

My supervisor is off tomorrow, and I have maybe 2 hours more work to do on the copying a big book thing.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do for the other 5 1/2 hours tomorrow.  They made a big deal about being desperate for me to start as soon as possible, and once I get there, there's nowhere for me to sit and nothing for me to do.  I don't like working.  I want to stay home and sleep instead.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was my first day at the new job.  Well, I'm totally not doing my real job yet.  It was induction.  It was a lot like the induction/training/propaganda/brainwashing that I had at my last job.  In fact, they even use the exact same online training software.  Today I got to hear about the structure of the organization (yawn) and confidentiality (which I've heard at least 3 times before) and good patient care (which doesn't apply to me so much since I work with paper).  I also did online training courses on fire safety and how to lift heavy things.  I get more fire safety tomorrow, and more lifting of heavy things on wednesday.

At least this induction is only 2 1/2 days, and not 6 weeks like at my last job.  And there was free coffee and cookies which was nice.  Plus, meeting people is easy because I'm American so that's always a good conversation starter.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm finally starting work on Monday.  I have been on the phone with HR since yesterday and it was looking like I might have to wait another week because everyone who needed to be contacted to give me permission to work was on vacation until Monday.  But Susanne got ahold of someone finally, and so I'm starting on Monday morning in the hospital where they hold the new employee inductions.

Finally I have a job and eventually a paycheck.  I'm still a little frustrated that it's been over 2 months since I was hired and I'm just starting now.  In the US, I'd be tired of my job by now.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Alana at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay, so this blog started when I was working in Duluth, so people who only read my blog have no idea about the crappy jobs I had before that one.

After college, I moved to Seattle because there was (theoretically) a better job market and I just wanted to live there.  For the first 2 months there, I was unemployed, and for part of that time, I was hospitalized with gallstones.  But then I got a job.

I was hired as an executive assistant/webmaster/slave wench at a movie camera rental house in Seattle.  It paid $8 an hour, with no paid vacation, no health insurance for the first 3 months, and no sick leave.  The guy who had the job before me was acting like a prisoner about to be paroled as he trained me.  I knew it was going to be a crappy job, but I needed money.

My boss was a psychotic cinematographer named Marty.  The company was losing money because Seattle was no longer the cool place to film stuff, and everyone was shooting in Vancouver instead.  My co-workers were all immigrants.  And the ones that seemed American were most likely Canadian.  He hired mostly immigrants because he'd get them to work for him under a work visa, so they'd be deported if they quit.  Only me and the receptionist were American.  And he went through 6 receptionists in the 8 months I worked there.

My least favorite habit that Marty had was his habit of never telling me that he had work for me to do until the day it was due.  I designed magazine ads for him, and he would give me a list of the products to be listed in the ad on the day it needed to be in to the magazine, then he would sit behind me and watch me work on it.  He nitpicked and whined about every detail until it was finally done to his satisfaction, and by then it would be 9:00 at night, and I'd have to walk half a mile to the bus stop at night through one of the worst parts of town.

One Monday he came in with his laptop and said, "I couldn't get into my email from home with this.  It's broken."  So I checked it out and told him, "When you're in the office, you have to use password A, but when you're at home, you have to use password B.  You used the wrong password."  He insisted that something was broken.  When I said, "The server says you used the wrong password.  One of you is lying," he threw a tantrum and stormed out of the room.

I worked on it all day to see if I could find anything wrong.  I couldn't.  So he called the "experts".  $200 an hour geeks for hire.  The first guy spent 2 days working on it and said he couldn't find a problem.  The second one spent a day working on it, and finally presented him with the verdict (and a massive bill).  The verdict: Marty used the wrong password.  Just like I told him 3 days and  about $4000 before.  No wonder his business was going under.

One morning I sat at my desk and thought, "If I stay here one minute longer, I'll either kill myself, or I'll kill him."  So I said goodbye to all the people there that I liked, and I walked out.  The web site hasn't been updated since I left.  I think he never did replace me.

Several years later I was working in health insurance (also in Seattle).  I had never seen a claim for anyone I knew until the last day I worked there.  It was a claim for Marty.  I can't tell you what his real diagnosis was, but when I left that job, the computer showed that Marty was diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, micropenis, and anal syphillis.

Alana 

Posted by Alana at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got offered the job from the interview yesterday!  I'm going to be a clinical coder working in a hospital.  I'm so excited that I think I may need to lay down and possibly have some tea.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had another job interview today.  This one was for "the job".  It's the only job I've seen advertised here that totally sounds like what I'm qualified for.  It's a job doing diagnostic coding for a hospital. 

I don't know how I did at the interview.  They seemed to like me, but they didn't ask very many questions.  They also seemed to mean it when they said, "This is a casual chat, not an interrogation."  I tried to just be myself and answer the questions.  

After that last interview with the university, I don't know how I did anymore.  Maybe they didn't ask many questions because they already ruled me out.  Maybe they didn't ask much because they already could see that I was qualified from my application.  I don't know.

I guess I'll find out by the end of the week.  They said that I should hear hopefully by Friday.  It would be really nice if I could get this job and not have to worry so much about how much money my web site is making.  I'd like to have an actual salary to add to our little family instead of just the odd $50 here and there from my shirt shop.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a job interview on Wednesday.  It was for a part-time job doing medical data entry.  I rocked the interview.  Medical data entry is all I've done for the last 4 years.  I was charming and funny.  I gave good answers to all their questions.  They interviewed 7 people and they were going to call 3 people back for a second interview.  I got a straight-out rejection.  Not even a second interview.

What can I learn from this? I have no idea.  I was fully qualified for this job, and I couldn't even make the first cut.  Maybe the interviewers want someone stupid and unqualified.  Maybe my personality is repulsive.  Maybe they hate fat people.  Maybe they hate Americans.  In any case, I'm starting to learn that no matter how qualified I am, I'm never going to find a job in this country.

My fingers are frozen because we can't afford our heating bill.  I'm almost completely out of money.  And I'm just a big stupid unemployable drain on my husband.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Posted by Alana at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so I'm unemployed.  I've been unemployed a lot before and I've always gotten through it okay.  It's mostly the same being unemployed in Scotland, but there are a few differences.

1. Health insurance is not a problem.  I can still go to the doctor and I can still get my prescriptions dirt cheap.  I got a whole years' worth of birth control for the equivalent of $11.

2. No one thinks that it is a bad thing that I'm unemployed.  Most of the people here are somehow living off the government.  They get housing allowances and disability payments for papercuts and it seems like most of them are on some kind of unemployment or welfare.  I think that this is because the taxes here have gotten so high that people reached their breaking point, and they do whatever they can to get some of their money back.  But it does not work for me because I am an immigrant.  I can't get any government money, and neither can my husband because I am an immigrant.  In America, when I was poor my friends and family helped me out.  Here, no one offers to help because they all assume that we'll just get in line for some government money.

3. They call resumes "CV's" for some reason.  

4. People think that I am overqualified because I have a college degree.  They don't realize that everyone in the US has a college degree.  They didn't fight in Vietnam, so they didn't have the educational inflation that happened when everyone went to college to avoid the draft.  In the US, I worked with a janitor with a doctorate and a data entry clerk with a master's degree.   I just have a history degree.  That qualifies me to work at McDonald's.

In a lot of ways, being unemployed is the same as back home.

1. Daytime tv is still bad here.  I watch Mythbusters at noon and then go upstairs and play on the computer and watch old tapes of Mystery Science Theater.

2. Being poor sucks.  My husband and I are trying to get into Costco as guests so we can stock up on rice and baked beans.  We can afford most of our bills.  As long as we don't eat.

3. I'm still really bored.

4. I still have occasional panic attacks about running out of money and losing our house and getting deported.  Okay, so back in the US I had to worry about moving back in with my parents instead of being deported.  Other than that, it's the same.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

P.S. If you want to help me out, buy some t-shirts and crap. 

Posted by Alana at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 12:26 p.m. - 2005-12-22

So if you hang out at my main web site at all, you may have noticed that I'm more, um, "forward" than ever with begging for money and selling stuff. There's a reason.

First of all, in the last two years, I've moved from Seattle to Minnesota and from Minnesota to Scotland. I've had to visit Scotland once and pay for 2 weddings. My husband had to fly to Minnesota twice. I had to pay obscene amounts of money to get a visa and to ship all my stuff. Bottom line is, I'm all kinds of broke.

Stuff is more expensive here in the UK, and I don't have a job. And due to the fact that I'm an immigrant, we can't get any government kind of help.

For the moment we've been mostly paying the bills and I've been draining my savings to buy food. I had a job interview that was very promising yesterday. I'm hoping to get it. It's a low-level slave kind of job, but it looks kind of fun, and it isn't typing numbers in a box.

In the meantime, I'm trying to scrape together a little extra cash by selling crap on the internet. I've sold some shirts and magnets and stickers and stuff. I also published my cookbook, which has brought in a few dollars (literally).

I just wish that this whole "making a life together" thing was easier. Right now we don't have phone service, and there's a good chance the electricity could go out for part of today. (The electricity here is on a retarded system where you buy little cards to buy enough electricity for a week or so. If the money on your little electricity box runs out, the electricity goes off until you stick in another stupid little card. It's a deeply idiotic system.)

Anyway, I'm off to drain the savings on the makings of a nice Christmas dinner. We're going to have a nice Christmas if I have to start selling plasma to do it.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:17 a.m. - 2005-09-16

I hate the customer service people where I work. They can't read. They can't tell an O from a zero. They never know what they're talking about. They can't spell anything to save their lives. Some can barely speak English. I've seen sentances in the claim notes like "Her is a MD," and "Family don't got no other insurance." And I've cleaned up the spelling in those.

Here is a short list of the spelling mistakes I've seen in the last month that I've been working on resub claims.

The first in each line is what they wrote. The second is what I think they meant. (Excuse the formatting. I'm too lazy to make a table.)

reinburst______reimbursed
upply____________apply
your____________you're
were____________we're
do__________due
Airleins_______Airlines
rpeorcess_____reprocess
parody____________parity
shoe____________show
reporcess_____reprocess
patinet ________patient
reoconsider _____reconsider
deneid __________denied
aith ____________auth
chares ____________charges
piad ___________paid
que __________ queue
cue __________ queue
excess __________ access
folliwing ______following
calid __________ valid
clam ____________ claim
hre is a md ____she is an md
becasue _______because
socnce __________ since
erquired __________required
clauimds _______claims
claism _________claims
uopdated _________updated
RPEORCESS _________reprocess
claom _________ claim
Claism ________ claim
timly _________ timely
noone __________no one
thnak __________ thank
calim __________ claim
paymeny_________ payment
thansk _________thanks
cliams ___________claims

I never knew there were so many ways to screw up the word "claim".

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 9:20 a.m. - 2005-07-11

Okay, so I'm a little anal-retentive, but I'm getting really annoyed with the complete lack of English education.

I can forgive a typo here and there. Clumsy fingers happen to anyone. But one of the managers in my office has spelled "apply" as "upply" for an entire week. When writing about more than one queue, she keeps writing "queue's" instead of "queues".

Why do we give people high school diplomas when they can't even write in their native language? Please notice that I didn't write "in they're native language" or "in there native language". There are correct and incorrect words to use in a given context, and they are not that hard to learn.

Your = something belonging to you
You're = contraction of "you are"
Ur = not a word in English

There = in that location
Their = belonging to them
They're = contraction of "they are"

Hear = comprehend sound
Here = in this place

Bare = naked
Bear = carry a heavy load, or a large furry animal

Its = belonging to it
It's = contraction of "it is"

My break is done now. (Break = a fracture or dysfunction, or a momentary pause; Brake = a device for stopping a car.) I'd better get back to work.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diaryland entry 2:08 p.m. - 2005-03-21

This morning I realized that I have lived far too many scenes from "Office Space."

A few years ago I was working as an HTML coder and tester at an internet company. The whole company was about 8 people. Then they hired a receptionist. They ended up hiring this really freaky guy who had a habit of standing in front of peoples' desks and just staring, not saying anything. Anyway, he got fired for being too Office Space-ish the day he sent an email to the entire company demanding to know where his stapler was.

Then there's my current job. Every time I make a mistake it's like that bit about the TPS reports. First the QA person sends me an email saying I screwed up and I should fix it. (Which is fine; that's her job.) Then the girl who thinks she's the boss (but is not the actual boss because my actual boss is really not such a bad person) emails me to tell me that I screwed up. Then she tells my trainer, who emails me to say that she heard I was having a problem with whatever I screwed up on. So if I have one momentary brain fart, I can expect to hear about it from at least 3 different people, none of whom are actually in charge of me.

Today they decided that to take care of the "problem" of old claims, they'd run a report of all the claims over 10 days old and have us do them. The problem is that all of them had just been put in the work queues yesterday, and by the time they handed out the reports, all the claims had already been done in the normal course of work. So they complain that not enough claims are getting done, and the solution is to take me off of claims processing for an hour so that I can look up a bunch of claims that have already been done.

While they're at it, why don't they call a 3-hour meeting to discuss why we've fallen behind in our work?

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

diaryland entry 2:11 p.m. - 2005-03-09

The worst "creative" spelling of the name "Crystal" is "Krystle". I've seen this spelling twice, and both times that I've seen it, my mind doesn't correspond it to the name Crystal. It corresponds it to the word "gristle". So if you want to name your child Crystal, do her a favor and spell it Crystal. Then people will think of pretty shiny things. When you name her Krystle, people like me will invariably think of the disgusting mass of inedible connective tissue left behind after someone eats a steak.

Today I found out that the chocolate milk in the vending machines at work only costs a dollar. And you can see the expiration dates through the glass, so you know you won't be getting a bottle of chocolate flavored cottage cheese. I'll be drinking chocolate milk a lot more from now on.

I'm supposed to be doing 32 claims per hour. Today I've been doing 21. This sucks. I'm not trying to be slow either. It's just one of those days. Grr.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

originally on diaryland 2:15 p.m. - 2005-03-07

Ways to Make My Job More Fun

1. Give everyone a nickname. Like strippers.

2. When you leave your cube, you enter an armed paintball conflict. Everyone would be carrying paintball guns and dressing in cubicle camoflage.

3. During meetings, play "duck duck goose" around the conference table.

4. Naked Fridays.

5. Instead of numerical diagnosis codes, use little cartoon pictures depicting every diagnosis.

6. Put sword swallowers and jugglers in the lobby.

7. Give each team a mascot by making the bosses wear big furry animal suits.

8. A puppy in every cubicle.

9. Cabana boys to bring us cold beverages.

10. A morphine drip.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally on diaryland  6:51 p.m. - 2005-03-03

At work I saw the worst name ever. There was a psychiatrist named Richard Odor. But you can call him Dr. Dick Odor.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally on diaryland 9:42 a.m. - 2005-03-03

Okay, so my dad was driving me to work this morning in the usual way. Well, usual except for the duck in the back seat that wouldn't shut up. (But that's another story. And he was mostly muffled by the jacket and tote bag my dad packed on top of him.) Anyway, we went by the gas station across the street from where I work, and the sign in front said, "Denver Omelets $1.49". Why is the gas station selling omelets? I very much doubt that they have a French omelet chef in the back making them. And any thought about what a gas station omelet might be like beyond that is just plain horrifying. It just sounds like an invitation to salmonella.

So then I got to work, and there's an email from my boss saying that they're going to be hiring more people for our department and asking if any of us had any referrals to give. Did she really think I'd inflict this job on any of my friends? I tried to think of anyone I hate enough to recommend. But my boss already works here.

Last night I was talking to my friend (let's come up with a nickname for him on the fly so I don't have to use his real name) who we will call Poopsmith. We were discussing excuses I could give to my boss for my lack of productivity since the overtime was initiated. (The real reason is that the compressed nerves in arm can only handle 8 hours of work per day before the pain becomes so excruciating all I can do is stare at the wall.) But the best excuses I came up with when discussing the issue with Poopsmith were:
1. I have gone crazy from the syphillis.
2. I have the leprosy and if I type any faster my fingers will come clean off.

Last night I was pondering the possibility of getting revenge on my boss by poisoning her coffee (just enough to give her the runs). Maybe the gas station omelet is the answer. "Look boss lady! I have bought you some breakfast!"

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Originally on diaryland  12:27 p.m. - 2005-03-02

I'm stuck at work again. Now they've decided to extend our mandatory overtime for two more weeks, and increase it to 10 hours per week. I'm seriously considering dropping my id card on my boss' desk and walking out. This is sweatshop labor. Mandatory overtime should be illegal.

Not only does the mandatory overtime suck like Paris Hilton, but it isn't doing any good. On an average 8 hour day, I process about 275 claims. My record was 366 claims, and that was in a 7 hour day because I left early for a doctors appointment. Yesterday when I worked for 9 1/2 hours, I did 243. I hate working. My primary motivation to do work is the fact that I get to leave. The earlier I leave, the harder I work. So now they're paying me more money (about $25 a day more) to sit in this box and process fewer claims than I would in a regular day.

Oops. My lunch hour ended 5 minutes ago. Watch me not care.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 12:17 p.m. - 2005-03-01

If America is supposed to be a capitalist country, why is there so much communism in the workplace?

I work for a large company, we'll just call Untied Health Care. I work in a claims processing team of about 35 people. We have a quota. We have to process 32 claims per hour. If we're consistently lower than that, we get fired. But what reward is there for working above that? None.

If I put in long days and process 40 or 50 claims per hour (which I could do), it doesn't really put much of a dent in the 30,000 or so claims that come in each week. And most of my co-workers can't do more than 32 an hour. If the "team" falls behind, they institute mandatory overtime. Mind you, I was never behind. I was doing more than my share. But we all have to work insanely long hours, regardless of our performance during those hours.

So if you work hard and do your best, you're still punished for the slacking of your co-workers. Which leads those of us who are capable of quality work completely unmotivated to do any more than the same slow pace as the rest of the team. If we're going to be punished regardless of performance, we might as well put in no more than a minimal effort.

This is communism. This is why the government of the USSR fell. With no rewards, there is no incentive to work. How do they expect to get our best effort if we have no real reason to give it.

I think I'll just do 32 claims an hour and save my energy for more interesting things, like watching tv.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally Published on diaryland 12:29 p.m. - 2005-02-22

Elvis keeps following me into the bathroom at work.

This is the weirdest trend I've noticed at my job. All day while I type numbers, I listen to my mp3 player. It is strapped to my arm, hanging around my neck, or in my pocket most of the time, so I don't take it off to go to the bathroom. And every time I go to the bathroom, an Elvis song plays. I have it on random, and there are only about 3 Elvis songs on the thing. Yet every time I go into the bathroom, I hear Elvis. It's not like Elvis makes me have to pee. It can be playing anything when I walk into the bathroom. Radiohead, Sixpence None the Richer, silverchair. But by the time I leave the bathroom, it'll be playing Elvis.

It's kinda starting to freak me out. I think that the ghost of The King likes to watch me pee.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 2:15 p.m. - 2005-02-18

Okay, so I've been processing claims all day. Like most days. I have just 2 things to say to the world right now.

1. Unless you are old and have Medicare, do not bother with secondary insurance coverage. It will cost you more than it will pay out. I promise. It's a big waste of your money and my time.

2. Stop going to non-network providers. It will cost you a fortune in the long run and make your claims pay a lot slower, and probably pay wrong. Just don't do it. I'm sure you could find a network provider that is good if you just got off your lazy butt and tried.

That's all.

Alana
www.girlalive.com

Posted by Alana at 07:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Originally published on diaryland 1:31 p.m. - 2005-02-11

Hi.

I'm a medical claims adjuster. I pay and deny medical claims. So most people kind of hate me. But I'd just like to say that if you're going to hate anyone, hate your employer. They're the ones who sign you up for crappy coverage.

At work, I only process mental health claims. It's nice cause I don't really have to know much. But some companies give their employees really crappy coverage. I have seen claims for people who have $2000 deductibles, and then there's a limit of 30 visits per year. So they had to pay towards the deductible for about 28 claims, 2 claims got paid at 80% and then they had to pay everything after that because they had maxed their benefits. The company HR guy who picked that health plan for his employees should be beaten badly.

But my job isn't all bad. I have seen funny things. Did you know that there is a doctor named Leif Leaf? Today I got a claim for a psychiatrist named Dr. Love. I would not go to a psychiatrist named Dr. Love.

I have a doctor's appointment later today. I hope that my doctor does not hold it against me that I am a claims adjuster.

Posted by Alana at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)