End of an Era

Well – it’s happened! I finished work on Thursday. I can’t quite believe it myself. I’ve been there for just short of 7 years. I walked in basically straight out of school with no experience and said, “Can I do work experience please?” They said “yes.” I did work experience for 2 weeks, went and got my qualification, came back and the rest is history.

It’s been a good job for the most part. Not without its fair share of stress and frustration of course but a good job all the same. It’s interesting work and when everything runs smoothly it’s great and when things don’t go well, there’s generally a bit of yelling, a bit swearing, a few tears, a run to Maccas for a cup of sanity and a good deal of just getting on with it because at the end of the day we are there for the patients (though with some of the charmers I’ve dealt with over the years I’ve had to ask myself why I bother sometimes!)

After a shocker of a day of cranky patients, a billion phone calls, doctors being demanding, rude, abusive and/or asking the dumbest questions – (Ok no joke – I had this phone call once, “Hi this is Dr........... my patients symptoms are.................What tests should I order?” Ummmmmm – well give me a minute to download my medical degree off becomeadoctornow.com and I’ll tell you. I mean seriously – where do these people go to uni? I’m a high school drop out who chose not to go to uni so I didn’t have to know the stuff you’re meant to – talk to your consultant or look it up in one of those big manuals you schmuck! and just to toot my own horn I knew the answer but............seriously - come on people!)

So anyway back to my point – after a bad day is over we can laugh about it (and by laugh I mean shake our heads in a defeated manner) or at the very least threaten to resign and go home to cry before the next shift starts. So that was some of the bad stuff. Here’s some of the good stuff – meeting and working with some really great people, breaks with Loree and Rosie, making it through the day without a phone call from the medical director, making it through the day without spending hours trying to find a code for a test the medical director is trying to order that is actually not performed anywhere in the world just because he read a paper on it and being able to clear the bench and packing lists before 5pm!

Thanks for the fun and laughs and eventually I’ll be far enough removed from the bad days that I won’t tense my shoulders and get an instant headache just thinking about them!

This is me with Kev - the head of our department. He said some really nice things about me at my good bye morning tea and I got a bit teary and felt really honoured and appreciated.

This is me with my direct boss Sandy. She's a great boss. She calls us "lovely," knows when we need to just "walk away" and the way she works out our rosters is nothing short of miraculous!

Sandy with Rosie and Jacinta in one of our collection rooms - the place where
I observed my first blood collection ever! (that wasn't on me that is!)

Rosie and I doing our best to make Geoff as uncomfortable as possible :-)
I could write pages of stories about Geoff but I might just leave you with the image of
me yelling down the lab, "Geoffrey - what on earth have you done now!?"

Dee has brightened my days and encouraged me on many
occassions and I loved working with her.

Rosie and I - she's a real mate! (or "luvva girl" as she put it in my good bye card)

See little baby? - mummy used to do other stuff before gladly swapping it to

change your nappies, clean up your vomit, cuddle and love you!

Taking off my lab coat for the last time!

I was truly spoiled with good bye presents - I got a $60 voucher for a beauty place, a charm for my bracelet which is a dummy with the words "new mum" engraved on it and

a lavender gift pack to treat myself and a card filled with kind words

from my work family that bought tears to my eyes.