Part II

The Saga Continues…

            A materials management friend of mine left the hospital for a job at another hospital about 40 miles away. He told me that there was an opening for a lab manager and suggested that I apply for it. The pay was better, there was more responsibility, and the hospital was running in the black. I had taken my current lab about as far as it could go at that time and the job my friend had told me about sounded intriguing. I called about an interview and went over.

            I interviewed with the head of human resources, Mr. Meagan, the pathologist, Dr. Greg, and with the administrator, Mr. Richard. I was very bold about my faith and told them outright that I was a born-again Christian and if there were problems I went to Jesus first, then them. I guess that was okay for them and the hired me on the spot.

            Once again I gave my two month notice, but this time I really left my first place of hire after eleven and a half years. My good-bye party was nice, as was the “Thank you” plaque they gave me. I moved to the new hospital where the lab was more departmentalized in spite of being primarily in one large room, except for a separate bacteriology room.

            On my first meeting with Dr. Greg, the pathologist, he gave me an assignment. We were short staffed by five full-time technologists. He wanted me to do a study to see how many lab employees we really needed to be efficient.

            I studied the workload and interviewed each lab employee. I looked at the scheduling and immediately saw the problem. The 5 positions we needed to fill were vacated by exhausted and frustrated techs. The problem was that they were working seven days straight, and then got a 4-day-weekend, worked 3 days, and got 2 days off, and started the cycle over again. Working for seven days in a row is a lot, but the last three days was a heavy workload and the way they had been scheduled, they were half-staffed on the busiest days and nearly full staff on light work days.

The main problem was with the way the hospital had the pay week split. So, I made charts in living color, showing how we could alleviated the problem simply by changing the way the pay week was divided. With the change, I could reschedule everyone, when fully staffed, and meet the workload demands. The chart clearly showed that we still needed to hire the five vacant slots to make the model work, and I am positive I explained that to the pathologist when I showed it to him and it was clearly defined on the charts.

After my presentation to the pathologist, I began to hear that he was telling all the lab employees that I had “solved” all our problems, and I was going to change the scheduling and take away their four days in a row “off” time and split it up into two, two days off in a row… that was true. But he falsely told them that I didn’t think we needed to fill the five vacant positions, and of course he never mentioned that I’d increase the staff on the busy days and they wouldn’t have to work seven days in a row ever again!

So the pathologist began to influence the lab employees into a negative mindset towards me.

The lab was a mess when I arrived. The New York State Health Department Lab inspector and I knew each other from many years earlier, even before he worked for the state. He gave me two years to get the lab into compliance. I was shocked. Here was politics at work. At my previous lab, with almost total compliance, he hunted to find anything he could site me for because they wanted to shut the hospital down. Now I was in a hospital that had political pull and almost everything was out of compliance, and the state just looked the other way?!

I was flabbergasted to say the least.

We discussed the situation and Mr. Richards was surprised. He told me that he fired the last supervisor because Doctor Greg stated that she was power hungry and wouldn’t work with him as he directed. Mr. Richards now realized that it was a problem with Doctor Greg, and not with the supervisors. He assured me that he would speak to him and that the problem would be ended.

I immediately went to see Mr. Richards to report the problem. He was shocked. He called both of us into his office and in my presence, told him that he was not in charge of personnel, only over the technical aspects of the lab. Mr. Richards was over the personnel side of my job, and he approved of what I was doing.

Doctor Greg immediately accused me of being power hungry, but Mr. Richards told him he was wrong, that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. He finally told Doctor Greg that he was not to attend my staff meetings.

I held another staff meeting, thinking I was going to finally make some progress, but Doctor Greg came in and sat down. At the end he once again thwarted my efforts.

I reported back to Mr. Richards that Doctor Greg had repeated his act of sabotage at my staff meeting. Mr. Richards said that it had gone on long enough and that he was going to tell Doctor Greg to look for another job, and that his administration over the lab was not working. He did this quietly so as not to embarrass Doctor Greg.

Doctor Greg didn’t take the news well. He apparently went to the medical staff and told them a story that they all supported. It resulted in a petition by the entire medical staff to relieve Mr. Richards and me of our jobs! Of course this became an explosive issue, and a committee was formed to look into the problems.

Changing jobs is always stressful, but I had no idea of what stress was till I hit this mess. Dr. Greg had turned most of the techs against me, but there was another problem that made it even more complicated.

The stress level just kept going up and up and my health began to decline. I had back spasms and neck spasms and my back hurt so bad that I would close my office door and lay on the floor with my legs up on a chair for twenty minutes at a time. I had upset stomach problems and occasionally chest pains. (Eventually we would discover that I had fibromyalgia, which is worse during stress).

I had one friend in the lab, Annie. She worked directly with Doctor Greg as his histologist. She and I were both horse nuts and developed a friendship. Annie was the only other person in the world who knew the truth of what was going on. She was engaged to one of the physicians, so she would keep me updated on what they were thinking and doing. Then came a new problem. Annie’s fiancé forbid her from revealing to me what she knew because he was afraid that she would lose her job if Doctor Greg found out. That was helpful!

The committee meetings were underway and things were looking gloomy. I spent some quiet time with Jesus every night and read the Bible. One night He led me to:

Jeremiah 1:8

“Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you”,

declares the Lord.

        Jeremiah 1:19
        “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am
        with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

I was encouraged, but I always like to hear things twice or more to be sure they are really from the Lord. So I felt better that morning until my friend Annie reported that things weren’t looking good from what her fiancé said.

A day or two later, God gave me another encouraging word through scripture:

POOF! There went my confidence that the truth would come out and we’d be exonerated. That night in prayer and reading the Bible, the Lord led me to the passage that says:

The next morning as I began my near hour drive to work, I was encouraged. On my left the sky was black, but on my right the sun had shown through and created a dramatic, vivid, double rainbow. It was visible for my entire drive to work! Rainbows are a symbol of God’s promise. Originally it was a promise to never again flood the earth, but today I took it as a promise to bring me through this disaster.

When I arrived at the hospital, I headed directly to Mr. Richard’s office. What I found amazed me. Instead of the self-confident, determined man I had dealt with all these months, I now found a slumped over, meek, defeated man. He told me he was sure we’d both be fired. I was so encouraged by God’s promise that I rebuked him, and told him that God had told me three times that He was going to bring us through this victoriously. Unfortunately Mr. Richards didn’t believe me.

My time to go in to the committee was after dinner, and Mr. Richards was to follow. I spent about an hour before the meeting in prayer. I remember now telling the Lord that I didn’t have anything prepared, but asked for wisdom to speak whatever I should. Armed with only my diary, I opened the door to the meeting. I was surprised at how many people were on the committee, and then there was me.

The meeting began with introductions, and then I was asked questions. I am still amazed at the questions put to me. Only God could have written that script. I never had to tell them what happened, they already knew. They were just asking me to confirm. I left the meeting convinced that the committee knew the facts. I passed Mr. Richards going in and flashed him a smile and a thumbs up. Then I went home.

The next morning I went straight to Mr. Richards’ office and I once again encountered a confident man. He told me that the committee had told Doctor Greg to either resign on his own or he would be fired. Mr. Richards and I were to get back to our jobs! Then he told me something very personal. He admitted he was an agnostic and that his daughters were married to born-again pastors and they were praying for him.

Wow, God really bends over backwards to get our attention and demonstrate his love. I don’t know if Mr. Richards ever gave his life to the Lord or not, but I am hopeful.

We hired a new pathologist and he supported me whole heartedly. He even confronted our five rebel ladies and told them that if they didn’t like me as supervisor, they could leave. The two major trouble makers did just that. The new pathologist and I turned the lab around within two years and were in almost 100% compliance with NY State regulations.

I learned so very much living through this trial.  No matter what the odds are, God can deliver us from disasters.  I hope I never have to experience this kind of trial again, but my faith has grown by leaps and bounds. 

With God all things are possible!