Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Stop the Spinning Wheel, I want to get off!!


Nausea ad Nauseum

The Headache is keeping me up tonight. I'm excited about a project at work that we had a long meeting about today, but am hoping The Headache doesn't get in my way again. The nausea is pretty bad, but my legs have quit being jumpy from the pain. I've medicated as far as I dare to this evening, so no more medication no matter what for another 4 hours. Got the head spins - similar to the bed spins but no bed and no alcohol!

I am amazed at how many blogs entries I have posted so far this year! 150! And I didn't think I would keep it up over a couple of weeks when my niece dared me to start a blog last winter. I'm glad a few people think to read my blog, and have had some very helpful comments from them, but I think I would keep it up even if nobody read it because my niece was correct - it is therapeutic. It feeds my inner muse and allows me an artistic outlet as well. I might be able to have the same effect with a paper journal, but online is more fun! I have made acquaintences with some very astounding intelligent, informed and dedicated bloggers.

I don't know if I have ever gone into my own background as what I do for a living. I work for a small company that installs information systems in hospitals. My specialty that I manage for them is medical billing. I have worked all aspects of healthcare - as an administrative person at a VA outpatient clinic, as a billing supervisor, as an accountant for a large healthcare entity, as a systems analyst and trainer for a healthcare IT department, as a private consultant specializing in process change and analysis, as a special project manager for BCBS, as an operations manager over claims for BCBS, and now I work for this small company and our clients training new users, fixing problems, working as a consultant for billing and general patient accounting, as internal advisor on all things billing related, and as a project manager and programmer when needed. Before The Headache interfered I was more than halfway to my masters degree in hospital administration with a subspecialty in project management.

I love my job and these months where The Headache has required working less aggravates me. The only solace is that when I am feeling better I can turn work out very quickly! I don't have anyone that reports to me and that's great too!

My days at the claims circus at BCBS wore me out on people managing. At one time I had 74 direct reports and 16 seperate specialty work queues. That many direct reports is pretty hard to keep track of, and personality conflicts in a cubicle setting can get out of hand pretty fast. Somedays you just wanted to give two people who were feuding a couple of pocket knives and let them have at it in a locked room, and whoever came out alive still had his/her job. I think there probably was some rule against that in their employee manuals, drat it all! 99.9% of my employees were exceptional and worked great together but that .1% could cause more havoc than the rest combined.

Don't know why I am blogging about this stuff - I am sure it is as exciting to read as watching paint dry or waiting for water to boil. I met an ex-employee of mine today who was in the .1%, and perhaps that revived my PTSD - Post Traumatic Supervisory Dysfunction. Must've reminded me of Blood Sweat and Tears - Spinning Wheel!

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