Musical No-Chairs

In ones life there are always several defining moments that stand out vividly etched in the mind, easily grasped from within the memory, each time conjuring up emotion and despair.  Luckily, these moments are few and far between.  It (SHIT) happens to us, these are the things people say "If it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger".  Emotional distress, bullying, harassment, coercion are real issues in any workplace.  I have had many curtain calls to this arena of deceit and humiliation.  If you have not been subjected to any of this you are either oblivious, brain dead, you are the perpetrator, you are sleeping with the perpetrator or luckily you are very fortunate not to be in this precarious position.  This dastardly behavior is usually symptomatic of dysfunction, anger, or worse yet delirium; driving the acts against others which are perpetrated by one in a superior position upon others who are at a disadvantaged subordinate position.  We allow ourselves to be subjected to a limited amount of abuse for several reasons; chiefly "I need the job",  or "this will pass with time and things will get better", and then there is always; "this jerk abusing me will not last long", and then a few of us just like to play the victim and proclaim such for sympathy.  The latter often feeds into the situation by portraying a stance of I am weak therefore have at it and let me take all that is coming to me and more..."Thank you Sir and may I have another!"

The atrocities in the workplace are just getting worse by the day.  Basically, if you are working, you need that job because the very idea of public assistance, food stamps, EBT Cards, unemployment benefits is even more frightening that putting up with the workplace abuse.  Employers know this and no one knows this more like the back of their dirty hand and plays a dirty deck of cards like middle-management.  These folks are just in the right place at the right time now.  These are desperate times and more employers and middle-managers are exploiting employees because they know they can and will get away with it.  Some employees just feel helpless, say nothing, continue on and pray for a paycheck every week because that is what they need to sustain there family.  Other victims fight back.  They may fight back a little too hard...then people start getting shot, disappear mysteriously, poisoned, and other forms of retribution which is always categorized in the media as "Goin' Postal".

Unfortunately, these are some of the moments that stick in our minds, make up our work character going forward, we adjust our behavior, and take a cynical state of mind where no one is trusted - we trust no one - paranoia.  It was not too long ago I had to rid myself of such paranoia, distress, abuse, and just remove myself from a bad situation getting worse by the week; all at the hands of people who thought they had power over me enough so to coerce and stifle me into submission.  They were wrong, terribly wrong.  In the end, the separation was best for me; the immediate relief it gave me from the abuse was liberating. Another door opened at the right time and my career advanced positively.  The chance came along at the right time and with the right employer.  The escape I made from this death camp was never more urgent, the opportunity before me was never so great.  Post exit legal action taken against me was a last desperate act to discredit me after separation; the legal action was baseless and ultimately hurt the instigator. I am happy to say my current position is one of stability, security, professionalism, team spirit, and trust. The rewards are great.  The management are not psychopathic, no one gets hurt and everyone goes home at the end of the shift with all their limbs attached.

I say "Musical-No Chairs" is the title of this life experience because that childhood game we played at birthday parties was morphed into a sinister, devious act of distress, coercion, dastardly humiliation, and embarrassment.  The worst staff meeting I ever attended had several elements I soon will not forget.  The circumstance, the table with no chairs, the principle in power bringing one chair for a devious self, the irritation and abuse, the fatigue both mental inflicted and physical I felt by having to stand for several hours without a chair to sit in while being berated and barraged by insults.  Worse yet, this was not a one on one session of manger with employee; this was Genghis Khan inflicting himself on his subjects.  At the time it was happening, we all felt that we where adults, we were strong, it will not kill us to stand for several hours in front of the idiot.  But after the drama ended there were no awards for best supporting actor, humiliation set in, then anger, and great distrust of upper management in lofty places above this scourged group.  Why we were invited into an empty conference room several years ago to be abused is not as important as realizing what it was - straight up intimidation, coercion, and humiliation.

This circumstance came about after a few days of back and forth comments via email and yes we were guilty of losing ten points for stating the obvious about a workplace issue. Four victims were called into an empty conference room down the corridor from the main lab at this immense facility.  If  this death camp was not rough enough with thousands of specimens received each day all needing analysis to be completed by end of day, QC 1 SD of 0.2 on some assays, there was also an element of abuse to contend with from this upper manager.  As a lower manager at this facility, me and my cohorts were basically human shields between the techs and the staff who were in charge of global projects; folks who would ruthlessly throw any one and all except themselves under the bus on any given day.  These folks were the cause of many issues that plagued and disseminated into the lab work, making the daily work harder than it had to be and sometimes pushing the limits of good practices.

It was an email that passed amongst the small group of us in which the only mistake was inviting the upper manager into the discussion.  That was the trigger that gave this individual the lofty idea that an opportunity was at hand - the opportunity in his mind should not be wasted.  Late in the afternoon the invite came through Outlook for the "meeting" to commence in a few minutes.  Showing up on time to the empty conference room the four us were scratching our heads wondering who took all the chairs out of the conference room and for what purpose they, he or she did that? Several minutes later the principle walked in lugging own chair in hand and promptly sat down.

This upper manager commenced in a savage delivery of ugly adjectives, foul language (nothing new for this dastardly person), and insults in a diatribe that would have made Patton blush in front of his troops.  Gleeful as this person was in this self aggrandizing meeting paled to the overall terrible flavor of the dish handed out to the ones standing front and center.  Post meeting, I never felt such humiliation  in my life.  That was before I arrived home and told my loving wife about how my day went when she asked me that evening. She was angry and hurt for me.  As for what to do next, there were not many options.  Upper Lab Management and Principle Human Resources staff  were colluding together for more than a year.  Staff were brutalized with no avenue to turn down to stop the abuse.  Those who did venture to speak up were brutally beat down like a pop-up mole in the arcade game "Whack-A-Mole".  There were employees that arrived to work in the morning, sat in the car crying, and could not drag themselves into the death camp.  Regaining composure, they headed straight to their family physician to file for mental disability and got it.

The only option I had after 12 years of dutiful service was the quickest exit I could make.  I was not the first of this down-trodden group to "exit stage left".  I was not the last either.  After years of performance reviews  achieving scores of 4.4-4.7 out of 5.0, awards and accolades, nominations for the Presidents Award, annual bonuses in the range of $3,500 - $5,200, I was suddenly brutalized with laser guided bomb precision by upper management, Human Resources and Project Management until the day I tendered my resignation.  Turned out that that day was sobering and liberating at the same time.  I miss the employees I managed terribly, but I don't miss nor wish for that type of abuse again. Ever!

Good day my friends - Be good to each other.  Abusing subordinates is not becoming of a competent leader.

Note:  This employer cannot be identified.  Legal action taken against me by this organization post my exit was defended successfully by myself.  Any identification of this organization will probably bring new legal action from this bully.  I have no desire to defend against such baseless legal attacks nor would it bring any satisfaction to me to "Beat down this Lyon again".
The content in this post is 100% true and can be corroborated.  The content in all my posts is 100% truthful.
The Lyon has been maimed permanently by my responding legal defense.

What's Going On

The medical field is full of heart ache and tragedy.  If you work in a busy hospital or trauma center you will encounter the emotional distress of the  face to face interaction with grave illness, terminal sickness, trauma, and the like on a weekly basis.  Medical professionals all have a common core belief system; Provide the best health care possible no matter the local, circumstances, or situation at hand.

Even though, my time at St. Francis Hospital in Port Washington NY was short, it was a roller coaster of activity and emotion.  As my first professional employment as a certified Medical Technologist,
B.S.MT (ASCP), there were many acts of drama the helped to shape my professional character.  It was a winter night that I remember vividly.

A relatively young patient was admitted to the Heart Center and he was uncharacteristic from the norm for St. Francis.  Most patients were older 50+ with some sort of cardiac malady requiring open heart surgery by one of the accomplished thoracic surgeons.  This guy was different.  He was pushing mid-30's, thin, dark hair, and apparently sicker than his circumstance presented laying in a bed at a cardiac specialty hospital.  This poor slob not only had heart trouble but had viral trouble as well.  He was admitted in the afternoon and kind of was just there waiting around but in a bed.  I was called in early during the mid-evening shift to help out for some short staffing. My first duty upon arriving to the lab was to draw this man's blood to prepare transfusion cross-match testing.  He was destined for the knife the next day.

Arriving at his room, I had no idea what to expect from this unlikely candidate.  After introduction of who I was and my purpose, he laid out the ground rules.  He told me I must wear gloves to draw his blood.  I replied that I always do and it is required for all patients.  He then pulled up the half sleeve of his hospital gown to show me the marks on his arm; track marks.  He said, "I am HIV positive and who knows what else I have - You need to be careful!"  During the phlebotomy, he told me his brief story of drug abuse and how it has now ruined his heart valves.  His surgery for the next morning was to replace his heart valves.  I said good night and assured him he was in good hands with the best surgeons around anywhere.  He smiled and said good night.  Back in the lab I set up his bloodbank testing; 8 units of whole blood.

The next night I was scheduled for night shift, arriving just prior to 11 PM at the hospital.  It was a crisp cold New York night with a slight breeze.  Pulling into the parking lot in front of the hospital I saw a familiar sight; the helipad lights were on meaning eminent arrival or I just missed a departure of a medivac chopper.  I parked and walked toward the building.  In the distance I could hear the whisper of an arriving chopper coming closer so I stood my ground to watch the arrival.  Descending quickly out of the dark sky was not the normal medivac chopper - it was a Nassau County Police chopper circling overhead once then diving in for a very quick touchdown.  Emerging from the cockpit was a pilot dressed in all black helmet to toe.  Quickly, rushing around the front of the chopper he opened the side door of the cab and pulled a white box with the all familiar red cross icon.  A blood shipment?  At 11 PM?  Transported by Police Chopper?  Something big was going down.  As quick as he entered the building the pilot returned to his running chopper blades a spinning, Jet-A fumes and all.  Within seconds the chopper was leaving the ground and headed into the darkness.  I knew then my night was going to be bad...even without the starting helipad drama this was going to be a solo night working the shift by myself.

Arriving at the lab I quickly took report and learned what was so big a deal this evening.  The patient who was the drug abuser had his surgery that afternoon and his condition was not good.  All 8 units I set up the night before were transfused, 6 more were set up during day shift of which he was given 4; two were left on the shelf.  The Police chopper just brought an additional 8 units of his blood type which was all that Long Island Blood Services would relinquish to St Francis for the day.  Drama was thick in the lab, lots of blood work for this patient and other patients who were post-op that day.  The drama was interrupted by the bloodbank phone ringing.  It was the BB supervisor.  He wanted report about what the chopper brought in and what was requested by the surgeon.  I said 8 received from the police chopper, 10 ordered by surgeon, 2 units still on shelf.  The supervisor told me set up all 8 - hopefully they will not need them.  He said I'll be in early before 6 AM.

It was not long into the shift when an ICU nurse arrived at the lab in hurried fashion requesting the two units on the shelf.  I had already started the cross-match process for 4 of the 8 units just delivered.  She said the patient is not doing well, he is bleeding, we need FFP and CRYO, and when can more units be ready?  I said you can have anything you want right now -  uncross-matched; just complete the form.  She said they are not ready for that yet - but hurry Please!  I started the cross-match on the additional last 4 units.  Now I had two sets of 4 units in various stages of the cross-match testing.  Just prior to the AHG phase spin what happened next I will never forget.  A small radio in the blood bank started playing Marvin Gay, "Whats Going On".  Just about 1 minute 40 seconds into that 4 minute song the ICU nurse returned to BloodBank.  There I was sitting in front of 8 whole blood units almost ready to sign them out for her.  She was not hurried, she was calm, she was distressed.  She came in and said "relax - he did not make it".  That is all she said.  She turned and walked away.  I sat stunned for a minute.  I looked at the scenery.  The lab, the bench full of whole blood units, the centrifuge spinning, the freezer full of FFP and CRYO, the two blood washers standing at attention against the wall.  That was it.  The song was ending.  Now just quiet.  Apparently there was some sort of technical difficulty with the station the radio was tuned to because there was radio silence for a moment.  The patient expired, the drama was over.  I placed the units of whole blood back in the refrigerator.  I left the bench to get a cup of much needed coffee.

Over the brew, I thought...what is going on?  A man destroys his body with drugs, another man tries to sew him back together.  Humpty-Dumpty's men and women could not put this man back together as whole.  The end.  I drew this patients blood less than 36 hours previous.  He would soon be occupying the morgue just steps away from me now.  Fortunately, there was plenty of room "At The Inn" tonight.

Life is fragile.  Take care of all around you.  Take care of your pets. Take care of yourself.
Good day my friends.

One from Column A, Two from Column B

Not all my posts are going to be about dumb co-workers, dangerous antics, nor dastardly management horror stories. With over 30 + years working in Medical Laboratories there are plenty of good heart warming moments to share.  While this entry is neither heart warming nor that good for the soul, it does point out an important ritual that goes on every year in teaching hospitals across this great land.

What I am talking about is "New Resident Transition".  Every year new resident MD's start their training at teaching hospital facilities and wind up spending the next 3-4 years advancing their studies in the hands on clinical setting.  Most common time of year for this activity is the mid summer, July or so.  For University Hospital at StonyBrook New York, the tradition was a coming of change every year for basically the whole facility.  Come July, new residents would start all over the place in various disciplines of health care.  It made for an exciting time, a chance to meet with and work with them in a professional capacity, and also a chance to "Show them the ropes".  Working in the Dept. of Pathology, Clinical Laboratories, Hematology section, I had great opportunity to guide some of these individuals through the clinical lab.

After, the anticipation of late June musings about "New Residents" starting soon, there would be a calm before the storm period. These new folks really did not get introduced to the lab until mid-late July or early August for more timid of the resident kind.  Learning how to order tests was almost as challenging for some of them to figure out as what tests they needed to order.  Back in 1985, the PC was mostly a dream device seen in techy-science magazines much like someone would gaze at the pages of Car and Driver seeing the latest Ferrari or Lamborghini.  PC's were rare back then and very expensive.  It was not until the early-1990's that my brilliant Father in Law; Mr. Robert North told all us young adults "Computers will be the big thing in the near future".  He told us we would be able to shop for groceries via computer, pay for the groceries with a credit card via the computer, pay bills also, and have the groceries delivered to the door.  He was right and I have done all that and pay my bills on line; with my wife's help of course! We were so Techy-naieve back then.  But, back to the residents...Sometimes, there were over achieving Docs who would just order tests, numerous tests, and more tests just for the sake of being able to do so.  We would call that shotgun testing.  They did not know what was wrong with you so the Doctor would order a whole slew of tests hoping to find some abnormalities.  Other Docs were more level headed and really tried to control themselves after they got a smakdown from the hospital administration.  Working in Hematology I had direct access to the "New Hematologists" every year.  Hematologists, were special folks to us in the hematology lab.  All who could gather around would often do so to discuss cases, healthcare in general, discuss testing strategies, and review blood smears on a multi-headed microscope.  As a Lab Tech, being able to sit one on one with the Doctors at the microscope and discuss blood smears  was a wonderful experience. I will treasure those experiences the rest of my life.  Yes, we had some good times around the microscope!  Not to far off a year or two later Dr. C...pulled something out of his pocket while sitting at the microscope...oh that's for another story; I am getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, one evening; that is the shift I primarily worked at University Hospital (UH) (The Mecca -  as affectionately called by the lab folks) we had the pleasure of meeting the new Hematologist.  He was friendly and all but his ulterior motive was not to be social.  He had to order some tests on his assigned patients and he did not know how to do that.  So Dr. A... strolls into the lab that evening, introduces himself to us staff members and proceeds to shoot the breeze.  After a few minutes of niceties, he gets down to business.  "So" he says, "How does one order testing around here?"  "I have a patient upstairs that I need to do some testing on but I don't know what to do."  Well, being the helpful slobs that we were, we were more than happy to help him.  He signed onto the computer system.  Oh-wait let me explain...  Back then PC's were too expensive to own, but UH did have a"Main-Frame" IBM System for a Hospital Computer System.  There was a mysterious 14th floor of the hospital where the "Main-Frame" computer banks were housed and only a select few were lucky enough to even know what hallway to traverse to get to the computer room door.  It was so cloaked in secrecy if any of us lowly lab techs ever found the computer room we would have been shot on site.  Anyway, Dr. A... signed onto the "Main-Frame" with his ID.  Next he found his assigned patient and pulled up the medical file - we call that EMR & PHI now which stands for Electronic Medical Record & Protected Health Information.  Then we guided him to the ordering screen which was categorized by discipline such as Hematology, Serology, Flow Cytometry, Toxicology, Urinalysis, etc. etc.  "Oh!" he said - "I can order anything on these lists by just clicking the light pen on the test name?"  You see back then, cir. 1980's the computer mouse was not invented yet but we were special.  We had "Light-Pens!" Hard wired stick like devices that when pointed and tapped on the green monochrome screen, the test name would highlight with a strikethrough.  The light pen would activate on that strikethrough and viola; test ordered.  Well after a couple of clicks with the light pen Dr. A... was clicking Sed Rate, Platelet count, Chem 7, CBCD, Fibrinogen.  He had ordered about 10 different tests and profiles, when my co-worker yelled "STOP"!  "Do you think this is a Chinese Menu...ordering one from column A, two from column B, and TEN from column C?"  Dr. A.. said "Oh just one more test".  Click and he was done.  Well we all had a laugh, he got a valuable lesson, and Dr. A... became a good friend of the evening shift for his tenure at the "Mecca".

Those were the days of residents, the dawning of computerization in health care, and the antics of providing health care for patients on evening shift.  Those were the days.
Good day my friends...