Comedic-tragic

It was 60 hrs this week at the real jobbie, and zero hrs on the homer M.Sc. jobbie. I don't have time for lunch in the day jobbie, and substitute approx 4 smoke breaks of 2 mins each during these days. No spare capacity for the homer after arriving home at 8pm or 10pm except to use the bathtub and CBT, or in extremis temazepam, so I can sleep.

Last 2 days, I've been slightly shitty to the casual staff for whom I'm responsible, by pressuring them to respond within a week for fuck's sake to emailed shift rotas, and to let me know when they're on hols so I don't waste time offering them shifts they know they can't (but I think they might) do. They owe me nothing. Most of them are unaware that I earn a less per hr than they, but still it doesn't feel good. Their keys don't work, which pisses them off, but they probably don't appreciate that new ones can only be cut if I personally make time to go to a locksmith and personally pay out (in expectation of reimbursement 2 months later) the £150 necessary.

Quite rightly, the casual staff tell me that the security light on the back porch has burnt out, that the Freeview reception in the pt bedrooms is crap and that ants are marching in the kitchen, when I have 10 studies to score between constant pt calls, random queries and appointments.

Today was a motherfucker.

Day before, I'd been stuck at work for 13 hrs, doing the usual daytime work followed by an evening training session with the clinical trial monitor. Today I was committed to my 8.30am start to conduct all-day daytime tests on a clinical pt, but also knew I'd be sharing my workspace all day with the clinical monitor, and that the Big Boss from London would be conducting his monthly clinic upstairs. So I knew I could expect at least a triplet of slavery expectations that day.

And so it came to pass.

On arrival, the night assistant asks if his duties are finished, and says he's washed the breakfast dishes. Ten minutes after his exit. I find the unwashed dishes in the pts bedroom, and dealing with those is another 10 mins gone and eaten up which I could've spent either smoking or eating before the onslaught from the clinical monitor and Big Boss.

Our trial co-ordinator is taking some well-deserved time back (after a continuous 60 hr shift this week), and by her absence making me 'it' for the monitor.

The clinical pt requires an hour of testing at 2-hourly intervals through the day. It's also my job to fetch the pt's, the monitor's and my lunch (though I won't have time to eat mine), and account for these in cash and receipts on my return to two separate accounts.

In between, I signed off CRFs, worked on the backlog of clinical dictations, researched and communicated that a stock-control fuck-up on equipment replenishment wasn't mine, discussed the technological implications of the wee bosses' plans for a continuous 3-day legal monitoring, commissioned two professional tech reports from a colleague on his behalf, organised and emailed out off the current May rota.

Still it's not enough. The Big Boss tries to hand me a CPAP education and
CPAP issue (inc. paperwork) on this hellish day. I tell him I can't do it in between nap tests, and that I have no backup today. He still pushes so I have to tell the patient face-to-face it's not a simple procedure, and that's it's not in his best interest to take a second best CPAP edu in half an hour rather than 1.5 hrs. They're pissed off, but not so badly as me.

I finished up at 7pm. I was left alone with a patient for two hours, which is supposed to be a no-no. At 5pm the wee boss was out for his exercise, and by 3pm the Big Boss was taking a nap with instructions I should wake him at 5.30 pm. Where's my fucking nap or lunch break?