Why I hate working in a GP surgery for the NHS
So, this is my first blog - ever. I figured my first blog should be something that's very relevant in my life right now, which is actually my job. I hate my job.
Basically my first blog is a mahoosive rant about why I hate working in the NHS, in a doctors surgery, as an apprentice, at 17. So, without further ado, here are 3 reasons why I want to quit sooo badly.
1. The patients - I am a person who likes to think the best of people, and that if I try my hardest for someone, they'll return that. In a GP surgery it doesn't necessarily work like that - sure you get the loveliest patients on the phone sometimes who are unbelievably grateful for you just giving them an appointment that's not 4 weeks away, and patient like this completely make my day. However a good 80% of my time working, someone has been shouting at me, or calling me useless, or saying remarks about how I'm just a receptionist and that they want to speak to someone who knows what they're on about (the last one i do understand, but if were telling you something 9/10 times its exactly what a doctors told us to tell you). As a receptionist the work is non-stop, there is always some query or demand you have to follow out for patients, and if you shout at me over the phone, its definitely not going to make me want to get on with it any quicker... Sometimes i just want to tell all the people screaming at me and calling me useless that I'm probably the same age as their daughter or granddaughter, just imagine if someone called her names for doing her job. Don't get me wrong, its fulfilling when people are appreciative when you get something done for them, but the bad times weight out the good for me on this one.
2. The doctors - Now I'm not saying that doctors aren't amazing people, they save peoples lives and help them and make sick people better, but the doctor who owns the surgery I work at is a pure d*ckhead! I cant tell whether its because I'm an apprentice or that he is too traditional and doesn't like my white/grey/sometimes pink hair, but ever since I joined this team I've been treated like an idiot by him. What makes it worse is that his wife (who is the most lovely and kind woman I've ever met) is the practice manager, so i cant really complain. A few weeks ago, word got out that he didn't like the way i sit in my chair LIKE HOW PETTY CAN SOMEONE GET? Needless to say that pissed me off and I haven't made him his daily cup of tea since.
3. The terms and conditions - I want to point out that this may not be the same for every GP surgery, but from what I've heard, we are all very underpaid in mine. Our phlebotomist could be on a lot more if she went to the surgery in the next village along. We're not allowed sick pay, were limited to one person off at one time in each department (which is a huge struggle for me who joined AFTER everyone put their holidays in for 2017), basically in the 6 months I've been there, 2 people have left their jobs, 1 went for a job interview, 3 nurses stayed with us for a day and 1 nurse didn't even show up. To top it all off we have a new locum GP with us every week! Personally as a 17 year old I haven't experienced this too badly - i have no bills to pay, being off sick and not getting paid isn't a big deal, however it does really piss me off how I've been declined holidays 3 times now because someone else has already booked them off, i understand that there's a lot of jobs and companies that have this policy but working in the NHS we are advised to use up all our holidays because we don't get paid for any that roll over into the next year, Just a bit hard to do that when the other 5 people you work with have already used up most of the days you can book off.
If there's any advice i could give to people reading this, it would be to order your bloody prescriptions in time ( I cant tell you how many people have gotten mad at me for saying i can only try and sort it out for them not ordering it earlier), please understand that the receptionists are just repeating what a GP or nurse has said 99% of the time and we are taught what to advise in certain medical situations, like if your having chest pains were told to tell you to go straight to A+E, and finally, be patient, we are all trying our very best, and especially with the cyber attack recently there's nothing more we can physically do to move things along faster.
All in all, I cant blame the NHS for this, it is struggling at the moment and honestly my GP surgery just isn't a great one, I adore (most of) the people I work with and I feel so guilty just thinking about leaving, but ultimately this is not what I'm cut out for, I definitely don't have the backbone and the motivation that's needed to work in a place like this. These reasons may not sound bad to some, but to me its enough to make me go back to college and follow my dreams. I applaud everyone who manages to stick it out with a smile on their face and can hold back the "fuck you" we all desperately want to say.
Basically my first blog is a mahoosive rant about why I hate working in the NHS, in a doctors surgery, as an apprentice, at 17. So, without further ado, here are 3 reasons why I want to quit sooo badly.
1. The patients - I am a person who likes to think the best of people, and that if I try my hardest for someone, they'll return that. In a GP surgery it doesn't necessarily work like that - sure you get the loveliest patients on the phone sometimes who are unbelievably grateful for you just giving them an appointment that's not 4 weeks away, and patient like this completely make my day. However a good 80% of my time working, someone has been shouting at me, or calling me useless, or saying remarks about how I'm just a receptionist and that they want to speak to someone who knows what they're on about (the last one i do understand, but if were telling you something 9/10 times its exactly what a doctors told us to tell you). As a receptionist the work is non-stop, there is always some query or demand you have to follow out for patients, and if you shout at me over the phone, its definitely not going to make me want to get on with it any quicker... Sometimes i just want to tell all the people screaming at me and calling me useless that I'm probably the same age as their daughter or granddaughter, just imagine if someone called her names for doing her job. Don't get me wrong, its fulfilling when people are appreciative when you get something done for them, but the bad times weight out the good for me on this one.
2. The doctors - Now I'm not saying that doctors aren't amazing people, they save peoples lives and help them and make sick people better, but the doctor who owns the surgery I work at is a pure d*ckhead! I cant tell whether its because I'm an apprentice or that he is too traditional and doesn't like my white/grey/sometimes pink hair, but ever since I joined this team I've been treated like an idiot by him. What makes it worse is that his wife (who is the most lovely and kind woman I've ever met) is the practice manager, so i cant really complain. A few weeks ago, word got out that he didn't like the way i sit in my chair LIKE HOW PETTY CAN SOMEONE GET? Needless to say that pissed me off and I haven't made him his daily cup of tea since.
3. The terms and conditions - I want to point out that this may not be the same for every GP surgery, but from what I've heard, we are all very underpaid in mine. Our phlebotomist could be on a lot more if she went to the surgery in the next village along. We're not allowed sick pay, were limited to one person off at one time in each department (which is a huge struggle for me who joined AFTER everyone put their holidays in for 2017), basically in the 6 months I've been there, 2 people have left their jobs, 1 went for a job interview, 3 nurses stayed with us for a day and 1 nurse didn't even show up. To top it all off we have a new locum GP with us every week! Personally as a 17 year old I haven't experienced this too badly - i have no bills to pay, being off sick and not getting paid isn't a big deal, however it does really piss me off how I've been declined holidays 3 times now because someone else has already booked them off, i understand that there's a lot of jobs and companies that have this policy but working in the NHS we are advised to use up all our holidays because we don't get paid for any that roll over into the next year, Just a bit hard to do that when the other 5 people you work with have already used up most of the days you can book off.
If there's any advice i could give to people reading this, it would be to order your bloody prescriptions in time ( I cant tell you how many people have gotten mad at me for saying i can only try and sort it out for them not ordering it earlier), please understand that the receptionists are just repeating what a GP or nurse has said 99% of the time and we are taught what to advise in certain medical situations, like if your having chest pains were told to tell you to go straight to A+E, and finally, be patient, we are all trying our very best, and especially with the cyber attack recently there's nothing more we can physically do to move things along faster.
All in all, I cant blame the NHS for this, it is struggling at the moment and honestly my GP surgery just isn't a great one, I adore (most of) the people I work with and I feel so guilty just thinking about leaving, but ultimately this is not what I'm cut out for, I definitely don't have the backbone and the motivation that's needed to work in a place like this. These reasons may not sound bad to some, but to me its enough to make me go back to college and follow my dreams. I applaud everyone who manages to stick it out with a smile on their face and can hold back the "fuck you" we all desperately want to say.
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