Oncall people

and ppl that call in for the oncall people for that mater.

are you stupid? really? are you so brain dead that the instant you hear the words 'answering service' your brain shuts down totally?

This wont be a long post, I'm too sleepy for it today. Just a couple of really simple things I would like to point out. Mostly to the people that are either on call for companies, or are the ones turning the phones over to us, the office Ladies we'll call them.

Ladies- you fall into 2 categories. The first is the same, day in, day out. No matter if its lunch, leaving for the day, you always know your shit. You know who is oncall for the night, if they are gonna be on a different phone, if the office will be closed tomorrow or if the dr will not be in. Thanks, you make my job a lot easier.
The others.... First of all, all of you, wth are you thinking? When you turn the phone over, I have had to ask you nearly every time 'who is on call?'. You suck your teeth, rolling your eyes to the other halfwits in the office while you shuffle papers and try to see where you left the paper the dr gave you for the service, that you were too busy txting your babydaddy to bother actually sending us so we dont have to ask. OR, you give us the WRONG information. Now... few things bother me more than this. When I have an emergency call, and I call it to the wrong person (or txt it, or send a page or whatever) and it results in whoever I have called calling back and being rude, believe me when I say I will remember that. When someone asks me for a referral to a Dr in the area, I will make sure they know you are a dick after hours. I will make sure they know your office staff is about as bright as a cardboard box. They dont pay me to put up with your shit. Make sure your office knows who is on call, and is able to communicate that to me, and I promise not to call you at 1030 on a friday night when you're not on call. Unless whoever IS on call is not answering. Which brings me to ....

Oncall people. If you are on call, and you KNOW you are on call, answer the fucking phone. No, really. We have a really recognizable 866 # that shows when we call. Its been the same # for 2 years. How do I know? Our phones require us to make one outgoing call before we can answer any incoming calls. I call my cellphone. Every. Single. Time. SO yea I do know what the number is and yeah i do know it hasnt changed in 2 years. How hard is it to program it in so that our name comes up? And if you have caller id? IT DOES come up. So no excuses. We leave voicemails, we leave txt msgs, we leave answering machine messages. So dont think that not answering a call for an hour and making me call the backup person or the owner/dr/manager themselves, you are gonna get me into shit for it. You wont. Know why? Every time I call you, I have to note it. Every. Single. Call. That means when your snotnosed lil brat answers and says 'mommys busy' and hangs up? It got noted. And recorded. When I paged you 10 times, once every 5 min as your manager requests we do for all calls? Yup. again. Noted and recorded. I understand being on call is shitty. I understand that half your patients/customers wouldnt know their asses from a hole in the ground. That is not my problem. I left you 4 voice mails, paged you 8 times and sent you a text. Don't try to tell me or my boss that you didnt get any messages. They got recorded. This makes sure my ass is covered with the Hospice calls we get. (if they dont go out, people can die. while i can be a complete bitch, i dont need that on my conscious. thx)
When, by some chance, some of you DO answer when we call, or call back, just a couple of simple little things to keep us both sane.
First off, this phone system is on a delay. That means theres a pause of about a second (sometimes 2) from when I speak to when YOU hear it. Its been this way for 2 years. You know this by now, dont get shitty when theres a pause, or when you try to speak over me and I ignore the crap out of you. I will give you all of the information I have. If you have any questions, ask them after I've given the info. If you want me to repeat something, ask it after i've gone thru the info. I speak slowly with you, I spell out names, and I repeat numbers twice. This way you dont have to call back. And if you are one answering for the mental health line or a dr ofc, If the pt is very upset, incoherent, crying or any other form of distress, I will tell you this. (no really. I've been there, even if they act like a raving lunatic, i have been there. You will hear about it, it may be someone just out of surgery on some heavy duty kick ass meds that are making them act like a flaming retard but still letting them feel the pain. trust me, that shit is not cool and you WILL be told they sound pretty bad off)
Tho if that one dude doesnt stop calling and telling me all about how the CIA and the Judge are out to execute him because he knows too much, I may end up routing his calls back to the psych ward nurses station. Srsly? WHY THE FUCK does he have access to a phone line? (tho eddie the atty? you amused me. feel free to call again in the middle of the night. you make me laugh at what is the deadest part of my shift on weekends.)


Also, no I am not a dr, or a nurse, vet, hvac tech or plumber. Im in college for psychology, im useless with anything mechanical that is not windows or apple compatible, and have never been pregnant. So when I tell you that I dont know exactly what that medication is for and that the patient didnt want to say? Believe it. When i tell you the homeowner just said 'weird noise'? Believe it. When I say they 'think their water broke'? Believe it. I dont know, I'm not there with them, and even if i was? I still wouldnt know. This is why YOU are the dr/vet/plumber wtfe. Youre the one getting paid $$$$ to deal with this shit, while i make $ answering the calls and dealing with weeding out the nonemergencies so you dont have to deal with them too.


All in all tonight has been slow, 7 hr shift of which I am now in the last 10 minutes. (actually 8 and counting till i bail). Could have been worse, but i'm thankful it wasnt.