The Road Less Traveled

So, the economy and my life circumstances being as they are, I decided to start moonlighting… I recently signed up with a staffing agency and started my first job assignment doing data entry for a local hospital. On the surface the work seems fairly straightforward, almost simple even – should be a cake walk for somebody with my background and experience – but I am learning that things are never as they first appear; which I am discovering is true with most situations in life.

As a straight commissioned salesperson by trade and finding myself without the Bunny (i.e. a spouse who brings in a consistent salary into one’s household), I have come to the conclusion that living by the seat of my pants as I normally do is getting to be a bit too stressful and overwhelming for my mental faculties. Thus, the moonlighting. Now, the plus is that I have phenomenal data entry speed – most likely from years of piano lessons and, more recently, the hours upon hours spent working on my laptop. So my staffing counselor was more than happy to place me in this position. And at first I thought, “How hard could it be?”

Here’s the first issue. Two days of 8-hours a day typing, I began to notice my forearms feeling sore. I hadn’t even thought of the impact of doing eight hours of data entry five days a week on my body. This comes right about the time I have undertaken the challenge of learning to play music on the piano in order to accompany myself when I take on a singing gig for church (as in weddings, funerals, or just regular Sunday services). The last thing I intend to do is work myself into a state where I can’t play piano. So right off the bat I can already anticipate that this job isn’t going to be long term. For those of you who have worked as a temp before, the carrot is usually, “If you do the job well, the company may hire you permanently,” – well, needless to say I was on the phone with my staffing counselor on the second day and informed her, “In case anyone from the hospital calls you up and says they want to hire me into this position, please let them know that I respectfully decline.”

Second, there’s a certain stigma with being a temp… it doesn’t matter my experience, my skills, my degree, or the countless other things I know how to do that in other circumstances would earn me a very large salary – when you are a temp, everyone around you treats you like you are ignorant. This is the case with the woman I am reporting to. I can tell by her demeanor and the offhand comments she makes every so often that she figures a monkey could do my job… therefore, that must make me the monkey. In response, I simply smile in silence and remember that this is a paycheck, nothing more… but I know at some point in the near future, the likelihood of me losing my patience and popping off with some comment that has her on the phone with the staffing agency wanting to pull me from the job assignment is very likely. I’ve already decided that the next time she says, “It’s really easy,” in terms of the data entry work, I’m going to have to tell her I disagree – because it’s not just “entry” – half the forms I am working from have incorrect information, old numbers that now have to be entered as new numbers (so there’s a list), and in the middle of doing the entry, phone calls need to be taken and work orders created for people elsewhere in the facility that are having technical problems (the data entry is done in the Information Services – IT – department) – all that stopping and starting prevents me from having the higher numbers I would expect I am personally capable of producing.

Then there’s the actual job. My gut always told me – given my creative and high-energy nature – that I would not do well in a routine position like this one; doing the same thing day after day. That kind of job – not to say I could not perform the function well; I have the capacity to handle it – doesn’t really engage my mind; in other words, I get bored really fast. So as you can imagine, by the third day I was falling asleep in front of my computer screen, frantically looking around for a few sharp pencils to stick in my eyeballs… my mind now starting to brainstorm a way for me to get out of this predicament without coming across as a flake to my staffing agency – after all, they are helping me with regular income. I certainly don’t want to damage our business relationship.

But I guess the most disturbing aspect of this work environment is how my boss treats the other lady, Faye, who does data entry next to me. Faye has been doing data entry at the hospital for ten years. She has incredible entry speed, and even my boss has stated that she is extremely accurate. The problem is the boss doesn’t like Faye. When I say the boss doesn’t “like” Faye, what I mean by that is the boss takes everything that Faye does and says as a personal affront. Faye “bugs and annoys” her. I have literally seen my boss work herself up into a frenzy, frothing at the mouth, over something that occurred where Faye was involved, insisting that, “She does it on purpose!!” and then proceeds to rant and rave about it for a good ten minutes.

The bottom line is this: the boss has absolutely no respect for Faye, regardless of the fact that Faye does her job extremely well. She treats Faye as if she is less of a person… and I also note that this could be somewhat culturally impacted by the fact that Faye is Vietnamese and my boss is African American – there are certainly differences in communication style, and it doesn’t help matters that Faye has a pretty thick accent.

On Friday (my third day on the job), my boss was out for the day on account of one of her kids was sick. I noticed a few things. First, the day ran much more smoothly (my boss tends to chatter constantly with one of the technicians in the office; both of them sitting directly behind us in a room that’s probably 10 x 20 feet. Very small… shoebox small). Almost pleasant, as far as the environment goes. I had the chance to find out a little bit more about Faye’s life – she had mentioned to me that her mother had died two years ago, so I told her about the Bunny’s accident and how he spent three weeks in ICU before he died. I could see the sympathy on Faye’s face as I told her my story, and immediately she said, “I’m so sorry!” (read one of my earlier posts about the significance of other people acknowledging the death of my husband)

Born in Vietnam, Faye spent twenty years in France to escape some kind of unrest in her home country (think: war), and spent the last thirteen years in the United States. She had suffered some type of accident that almost took off her right ear (she showed me the scars on the side of her head where her ear had to be reattached), she had some type of surgery on her tongue which affected her ability to speak clearly, and she had trouble hearing out of that right ear (I’m sure, related to whatever ripped it off her face in the first place). Her husband works in some capacity as a therapeutic counselor for the Vietnamese community, and she has two children – a son in his early thirties and a daughter in her mid- to late twenties. I want to say her daughter took a job in Kentucky or some other state; and while it’s clear that Faye is proud of her daughter, she obviously misses her.

Because it was just the two of us – Faye and myself – in the office (the technicians run on their own schedule), I was forced to answer the phones so she could go on lunch. The plan is that as my entry speed increases, the boss will have me take the majority of phone calls (she doesn’t like how Faye speaks). So Faye went to lunch, and when she returned she instructed me on what information to get from the callers, how to go into the system and create a work order so the technicians would be called out and fix the caller’s problem, etc. It took me a few phone calls to get the hang of it, and to help me not get too twitterpated, I wrote some notes on a little yellow sticky and stuck it to the wall right above the phone.

And so, the rest of the afternoon passed in this manner.

At the end of the day, Faye and I are shutting down the computers and putting all of the paperwork away, she stops for a moment and tells me, “Shirley, please don’t tell the boss that I told you about answering the phones and how to do the work orders. I know she wants to tell you how to do that, and I don’t want to get yelled at.” I touched her arm and I reassured her, “Faye, don’t you worry, I have your back. I will make sure I pretend I don’t know how to do anything. I’m not going to get you yelled at, I promise.” Faye looked over at the yellow sticky by the phone and asked me to throw it away. At my look of confusion, she told me that the boss didn’t like paper stuck on the wall. Curious as to why that mattered to the boss at all, and if it helped us to do our jobs what was the big deal… but I did as Faye requested and threw the sticky in the trash. She immediately relaxed, and then she smiled at me.

I was telling my niece Jessica about this situation recently, and there are only two things that keep me going back to this job every day. First and foremost, I need the paycheck. That’s a no-brainer. But now, I feel like Faye needs my help; not just with the data entry - she needs an ally. The director of the IS department returns next week from some conference… maybe I can plant some seeds about what I've observed and the boss’ obvious lack of people and management skills (clearly, this woman should NOT have human beings reporting to her). And I’ll hang out as long as I can… though I already mentioned to Faye that this is “not the kind of job I like to do.” As we are working, Faye tells me all the time, “You are smart, Shirley,” – I ask good questions, I remember the answers, I catch myself when I am about to make a mistake, etc. It’s nice to be valued and appreciated. And I know Faye appreciates my being there.

I still have a few other irons in the fire… and timing is everything. With any luck I’ll earn a bunch of good karma points; for sure though, I know I am learning to be patient (as a rule, patience is not one of my strong virtues).