Two weeks later, I was offered the job. I was shocked. I was so sure I wasn't going to get it that I forgot about the interview entirely. The phone call came just in time. I received the call the day after I got into a huge argument with my manager in dietary. I had woken up early that day to type up the entire argument that had taken place and turn it to human resources with my immediate resignation to quit. I was fed up with that place. I was fed up with the people. I was fed up with feeling terrible about myself every day. It was literally no more than five minutes after finishing this letter that I was offered the job. I was so happy that I was beside myself. I took one last look at the letter then deleted it. I knew that if I was going to take this job that I could not leave on such a bitter note. I held this job for 3 years. Future employers would be calling this place for a reference for a while. Last thing I need is for them to bring up the letter I wrote on my last day that ended with "Fuck You!"
I gave a respectful 2 weeks notice. But not before pillaging the place for free food for that couple of weeks. At the time I had a yellow VW Bus full of compartments for me to store my "borrowed" goods. I filled my bus with as much junk food that I could possibly carry out. It was my way of sticking it to them before I left. Nobody noticed.
It was odd leaving the place that last day. Everyone shook hands with me and said "Good luck." As if they believed in me all along when it felt like the past 2 years they were out to destroy me. I was overwhelmed with how happy everyone seemed to be for me. Although, I was extremely overjoyed to leave that place, a part of me was sad to depart. It was the hand that fed me so well during high school, fueled my ambition, and gave me a new perspective on what I wanted to do with my life. I had thought about staying PRN there just so I didn't feel like I was being "above" them in any way. I knew that wouldn't work. I would always be grateful for the experiences and people that helped me along my path there. But I had grown out of the job and was ready to move on. I got in my VW bus, started the engine and let out a loud whoop of joy as I drove away.
I had 5 days of downtime before I started my new job. I took the time to relax and buy my first pair of scrubs. I felt like a professional. As if I was part of the medical staff. I also celebrated my leaving of the department. My friends put together a party out in the desert that would turn out to be the most awkward party I've ever attended. (Another long and different story.) I was scared for this new job. I still had no idea what it was that I would be doing. The job description on the website told me nothing except statistics on Alta View Hospital, which is where the job was at. The interview didn't really say much about what it was except that it was in the medical lab.
My first day was scary. I wasn't sure what to expect. I walked into the lab where everyone there greeted me with smiles. I was fitted for a lab coat (before they made the lab switch to the crappy paper ones) and briefed on the job. It was nothing like I thought it would be. The job entailed tracking and sending lab tests to appropriate stations or hospitals. This was before IMC opened so lab tests went everywhere across the valley at the time. I had to memorize so much. I struggled with this job for the first few months. At first it was because I didn't get the job. Then I met a co-worker who I thought was a huge douchebag at the time. As far as training went, he was mean, condescending, and impatient. Nothing I did was right to him. Rightfully so, I wasn't doing anything right. Still, he wasn't nice about it. It was awful. I hated my job all over again because of this guy. He had a reputation for this sort of thing I had learned. He was an Iraq veteran who had been working at the lab while going to school to be a medical lab tech. He was a little burned out at his job. I soon came to learn that his hard nose approach to everything wasn't necessarily intentional. In a lot of ways, it was just the way he was. As I got better at the job, we got along a lot better. I really liked working with him in the end. When I look back now, I realize how much he taught me about my own sense of work ethic. I was so timid back then. I thought it was unfair how I was being treated. And maybe I was right to some degree. But for the first time ever, I was being trained to do a job that mattered. I was pushed to do it right. I was pushed to be good at this time. No one since has pushed me that hard to be good at a job. He was so good at it, knew everything about it. He was the go to kind of guy. I was nothing like that. But after that whole experience, I became a lot more like that. I didn't have the same type of bitter, condescending tones as he did. But every job I have taken since then has always been a huge push to be the best. When I train new people at jobs I find many of those mannerisms surfacing. I try to be nice about it though. But after writing this, I realized how much it formed me as a person.
Anyway, I got pretty good at the job after a few months. I knew what every test was for blood, urine and stool. I knew how to process them quickly. I had no problem handling urine, stool, and other fluids. (That took a lot of time to adjust to since I had no idea I would be handling that stuff on a regular basis.) It wasn't a bad gig. I was getting paid more, most of the people liked me, and I felt it had some importance. But it lacked hands on patient care that I had so craved. I had no contact with patients whatsoever. Also, my job felt boring and monotonous fast. I had to do something. But what?
It was during this time that I had started to take my EMT-Basic course. I fell in love with it immediately. I didn't like the instructors as much. But I loved how practical the knowledge was. It was scary for me. But I'll come back to this part later. I had an interest in radiology and eventually got a job doing that. I also got a job doing EKG's at the University of Utah shortly after. Both jobs were PRN. The lab was a part time job. I'll come back to both of those jobs later.
My job at the lab mostly had uneventful stories. I never really got close to anyone there. I mostly had to amuse myself in order to stay sane through the monotony. One way I kept entertained was as simple as abusing the privilege of the department label gun. My manager liked to label things for some reason. Just really ridiculous things like the drawers, files and computers. But I took it one step too far by labeling everything I could get a hold of. Pens, armrests, keyboards, desks, etc etc. I took it way too far and got in a lot of trouble for it. But it was totally worth it.
Another label gun related incident happened when I labeled my lab coat "Johnny Walker, MD". I thought this was funny as well since it was a sticky paper label on a cloth lab jacket. One day the fun of it ended. I went to the OR to pick up specimens. On my way out, a surgeon stopped me. He was an older man, with a scowl that just screamed "I hate everyone." He looked at the paper label on my jacket and said, "I don't think this is funny. Impersonating a doctor is serious business. You should be ashamed of yourself. You're lucky I don't call the police about this." He then proceeded to rip the sticker off my coat, throw it on the floor, and then step on it and grind his foot into it. It was a very dramatic gesture for a harmless prank. No one would have mistaken me for a doctor unless they were senile or just incredibly stupid.
Eventually, I decided to quit at the beginning of 2007 to focus on school. It didn't matter that much to me to leave a job this time. I wanted to be full time school and scrounge on the money I had. This idea would really fail when I decided to move out on my own 2 months later and realized how expensive it was to live on my own. My PRN radiology and EKG job would not support me. By chance of fate, I would run into my lab manager months later while looking for a job to support me again. She offered me my job again at the lab and I took it for just a few more months.
My real last day before I got hired in the ER was glorious. I was so burned out by the management there, I could have cared less what happened. That day wasn't supposed to be my last day, but they rearranged the schedule the day I got there so it would be. I was pretty sure they did it so they didn't have to tolerate and pay me for another 2 days of work. I was ecstatic of the news. So I made the best of it. To celebrate, I rummaged through the lab coat rack to see if I could find a new one. One that would signal to everyone else that I was going out in style. It wasn't long until I stumbled upon a chefs coat that somehow got mixed up on our rack. It had happened once before. The laundry service that washes the lab coats also gets chef coats from catering services. Every few months a chef coat would manage to wind up on the lab coat rack. I had worn it once but my manager caught me and wrote me up for being unprofessional. However, this was my last day. It had to have been fate that reunited me with this wonderful piece of cloth that was carelessly misplaced on our lab coat rack. I put the jacket on slowly to savor it. It fit perfectly. As the day went on, no one noticed my fancy chef coat. It was slow so I didn't care as much. Since it was my last day, I did something that I always wanted to do. I drank a tall cup of hot chocolate in the lab. This was a huge violation on so many levels. No food or drink in the lab! If I was caught, the worst they could do was fire me. The odds were stacked in my favor today. Fate was smiling upon me. They day was a couple of hours away from ending. I sat back in my chair smugly sipping my hot chocolate in my chef's coat. I reminisced about my past experiences there and how much I had learned. But my nostalgic moment was cut short. My manager and co-manager walked in to check my progress. I was able to sneakily hide my hot chocolate behind a computer. But they caught me in the chef coat. I got a stern lecture about professionalism and JCAHO regulations and so forth. I was forced to take off the coat and surrender it to the laundry service. I was helpless in the matter. I couldn't help but wonder if I had had the chef hat to complete the ensemble, things would have gone differently. They would have laughed and understood it was my last day. It was a comical one time thing that they could let slide. But no, I was screwed. That's not how things panned out unfortunately. With my chef coat gone, my happiness was in jeopardy. I then remembered I manged to hide my hot chocolate while they were lecturing me. It suddenly seemed to taste much sweeter since I had gotten away with it.
My last day came to an uneventful end. I said my last goodbyes and took one last look around the place. It had been awfully good to me. I went to the staff white board where notes of the day were taken to remind oncoming shifts of what to do. A smile crept across my face as I wrote on it in big bold letters:
"Johnny was here, Johnny was there, Johnny was everywhere! I'm watching you."
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