Saturday, January 13, 2007

Update on the lunching situation

I brought my lunch on Thursday and simply took it with me to the diner - I felt a little silly so I got some fries too. (They do have good fries.) Then on Friday I didn't have enough time Thursday night to make the lunch, so I ended up spending another $7 for pizza. But there are also two new people who want to go to lunch with us (although we have not been able to locate them at the proper lunch time) who both bring their lunch, so I think between all of us we will start a movement here! Part of the problem is that there is no real place that we can sit in the office - there is a kitchen but it doesn't have any chairs and the table is covered in crap. They have co-opted another department's lounge though and that seemed to be OK, so perhaps we will do that next week.

A bit stressed about the job at the moment - my supervisor has been on vacation all this week, but over the weekend before she left she sent me an email about what people's thoughts were, and apparently people got the impression that I was not particularly excited to be there. I am not naturally a hugely effusive person, and I didn't think I came across as terribly excitable in the interview, but they were concerned that I wasn't interacting much with the patients (exactly what am I going to tell them?) or with the other clinical people when we were up on the hospital floors (who don't know me - and if you've ever worked in that situation, people are generally so busy that you chit chat and then as soon as the conversation is over, you mutually ignore each other and get back to work. So if the chit chat is just "hello, nice to meet you" then it's over pretty quickly.) My supervisor brought up in our meeting on Friday that there were other places that I could move to if this wasn't a good fit - at the time I thought she meant to a different working group (groups are arranged by type of cancer) but now I am wondering if she means out of my position entirely, and into doing data coordination or regulatory, which would involve no patient contact or even leaving the room much. So I don't know what's going to happen - I feel overwhelmed because I have to learn so much, and I don't think it's really fair to make my first week dictate that I should be moved immediately. I realize they don't want to waste time training me if I won't be any good, and my supervisor said that if it's too overwhelming and I'm not happy then I won't stay very long and that's not what they want, but if I get moved to another position that I end up hating, well, then I won't be there very long either.

3 comments:

Denise Mall said...

wow - hold on. I think I would tell the supervisor "that a week is not significant enough to judge the fit yet" and "that I feel confident in my move thus far, but true only time will tell".

Don't let them shake you! You know what you are doing - so do it. You can do anything, other peoples judgments at this time (so short) are unimportant and unvaluable information. Keep that in mind. I know more about my UPS driver than they can possibly know about you at this point.

Stay tall, stay strong and do what you know to be right. Supervisors are not always the best leaders.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

I agree with "d" above, it's hardly been any time since you joined this new job. Stick to your grounds and just face them and tell them confidently about what you like (if you really like doing what you like).

Your supervisor might be just testing the waters...go over a bit extra to show her that you really like this job and she will get the message. Don't let this bother you much...I have seen similar a*s-bosses before.

Anonymous said...

Completely agree with what's been said above. Don't go overboard or worry -- maybe you're misinterpreting what your sup has in mind (though if she's been polling people about you, I have to say that's a bit strange).