Our Government At Work

I was at work today and noted with disquiet that the nurse's office was dark.  She is always there, scrambling to cover for the doctors (one of which we just lost) and arranging this, that and the other for clients -- usually figuring out prescription problems. 

And she wasn't mentioned on the wipey board they use in the front office to list who's out sick.

So after searching around to see if she was at a special meeting or something, I asked where she was.  She mentioned to me only yesterday that she was afraid she was going to get fired, and that crossed my mind as well.  They said, she's getting trained. 

In what, quoth I?  

She's getting trained all day today, and a whole day next week, to perform a mental-health assessment related to functionality in various specific areas of life.  That's part of my job, not hers.  She does the pills; I do the shrink stuff.  For her to get trained on doing that assessment is like asking me -- who has nothing resembling a medical degree -- to get trained in pharmacy.  She would not only never be required to do the job -- she would actually be forbidden to do it.  And yet here they are, spending two days of her paychecks in training her on this.  If she just needed an overview in how that assessment works and what it means, I could have explained it over lunch, for free.

This is not especially surprising given that the doctor who just quit was thrown in front of a computer terminal and asked to use a complex system she has never been trained on.  In fact, I believe she CANNOT be trained on it because nobody here knows how to use the system.  That doc lasted only 2 days.

REST ASSURED: EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL.