Fricken Prozac Queens (and Kings)

The BBQ Pit
1

Friday night, I was confronted by the supervising nurse. She took pains to take me into her office, where she condescendingly told me I was being much too “negative”. Apparently, I had made some sarcastic remarks under my breath that some people thought weren’t very “positive”. I had to explain to her that I was spending sixteen hours a day at the hospital, and was rather exhausted, which explained my sarcastic mood.

I want to emphasize that first of all, I am not by nature negative. I have been praised several times by several different people for my outstanding patience and good customer service skills. I am known by my own superiors for having an outstanding attitude and willingness to do my job. I also fail to see how positivity or negativity correlates with the ability to do my job or my ability to work with patients, doctors, nurses and other professionals.

So far as I can tell, emphasizing “attitude” over “competence” or “customer service” is just another management nostrum to deal with overwork, lack of pay, and high turnover rates. Of course, we could all benefit our employers by becoming numb, Prozac-ingesting, benign, pleasant, passive nebbishes who don’t do a damn thing but have “positive attitudes.”

I spit on the altar of “positivity”!

Robin

2

I am not talking about people who genuinely need Prozac, or any anti-depressant for any psychological problem. I am simply using Prozac as a metaphor for people who think a pleasant “positive attitude” is all that is necessary.

I now return you to the pit.

3

Now, now, you are obviously not a team player.

4

Mayhaps you need to be more positive about your negativity?

5

Know exactly what you mean, Robyn. I had a supervisor that decided that any and all moral problems in our department were my fault. I was negative. I took the mood down. Etc. Etc. Etc. Basically, she just didn’t like me and decided to blame me for her really shitty management skills. So I transferred to another department where customer service skills, competence, efficiency, etc. are prized and not ignored. Team-player status and attitude do count, but my new super doesn’t see me as negative, full of bad attitude, etc…

6

You should only speak about the positive aspects.

Are you positive that this woman was a numb, Prozac-ingesting, benign, pleasant, passive nebbishes who doesn’t do a damn thing but have “positive attitudes.”

7

I was constantly in trouble at my old job (call center), see I had ‘too much personality’. They wanted a robot, a non-person. NO negativity allowed. If you went to your supervisor to unload after a bad call (like you were supposed to!) they logged it in your records as you having a bad attitude.

I have been at the paper for a year, and went from advertising sales to National Advertising Coordinator for the 4 dailies in the province. I guess I dont have too much personality here.

Have you thought about changing jobs?
There could be a place out there that respects you as a human being, moods included.

8

So I see the subject and I see kellibelli as the “last poster,” and all I can think is, Oh shit, kelli is laying waste to someone… :wink:

Yer pal,
Satan

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, one day, 12 hours, 28 minutes and 15 seconds.
3700 cigarettes not smoked, saving $462.60.
Life saved: 1 week, 5 days, 20 hours, 20 minutes.

9

On the contrary you spaz! I can be very supportive when the occasion warrants it.

Wanna hear something funny?
I cleaned out my closet yesterday and found a printout of the thread by chrisctp about heatherlee’s obsession with sex, you remember the thread, where ‘ruthie’ and ‘troy’ popped in to offer their support and undying devotion.

Oh, I laughed till it hurt!

(have I told you lately how proud I am of you not smoking brian? I am very proud of you :slight_smile: )

10

That’s the advantage of working at a noisy industrial site most of the time. I can actually bitch pretty loud with no danger of being busted. Hey, I take these little victories where I find them.

11

I’m beign forced to attend a 90-minute long “Diversity Training” next week.

I get to listen to people (on video, no less) tell me just how committed my comapny is to “Workplace Diversity,” and just how diverse we really are.

No really. No, I mean it–we’re really, really diverse. Really.

It’s a fucking research laboratory! We have a lot of old white men!! Get over it and knock it off with the fucking warm fuzzies!

12

Ack…I hate the goody-goody, love everyone, perky, a positive attitude ALL THE FRIGGIN’ TIME is the most important thing in life types. Up until last month, I was a floating secretary, and one of my supervisors was like that.

Picture it: December 1999. I had just graduated from the medical secretary accelerated coursework part of the training program and I’m sent to this particular office for the next step in training. I get along well with my coworkers, and after my 3 weeks of training, I am asked to sub there for a couple weeks. I finish, I get a glowing evaluation, everything is perfect, not a flaw in it. But: I was new to my job, I was shy, I expressed no dissenting opinions. Fast forward to 4 months later. I am called back to this department to fill a desk that they were trying to hire someone for. Coincidentally, it’s the same desk I subbed in back in December. I figure, hey, I got a glowing eval from the supervisor during my first stint there, I know the desk, I’m a shoe-in. Ha! I forgot to consider that in the 4 months preceding my return to this department, I had loosened up and gotten used to my job and gained confidence in my abilities as a compentent, capable secretary. I’m there a month, and was not even granted an interview. My eval read that I was “not a team player” and had “personality conflicts with my coworkers.” As if…the only person who had a problem with me was the supervisor. I got along smashingly with everyone else, including the doctors I was working with, both of whom had nothing but praise for me. Just because I had an opinion on some issues and wasn’t too shy to express it anymore, and just because I have a dry, sarcastic, slightly morbid sense of humor, I’m not a “team player.” Gah. Then, when I showed the slightest bit of emotion at having the job I was practically guaranteed at the beginning (and it was implied strongly that I would be chosen when I started) ripped out from under me, it’s suggested that I go to Employee Assistance Services and see a counselor. Well, excuse me for having feelings, and pardon me for not being able to take insults such as those dealt by that woman with a smile.

I am happy to report that I am no longer in the float pool, and have a permanent desk in a wonderful department, where having a personality isn’t frowned upon. (Plus, we were voted the #1 department of gastroenterology in the U.S. by U.S. News and World Report! Weeee!) Oh yeah, and my current supervisor’s response when she read the eval from the aforementioned evil supervisor? “Ehh…it’s no big deal. You seem to be doing a great job to me. I’ll make my mind up about you based on your work here.” YES! THANK YOU GOD! A REASONABLE HUMAN BEING!

Fuckin’ A, it’s a miracle…

13

kellibelli wrote:

I sure hope nobody’s smoking Brian. That sounds rather painful. Even if he is Satan and, therefore, spends most of his time surrounded by searing flames.

14

I know a lady who’s like that–100% happy-happy-joy-joy-positive attitude. She’s the manager of a restaurant near my home town. To quote her, she “just doesn’t care.” In this case, it’s medicine-induced (some relative of Prozac). This attitude gets on my nerves. After some idiot rear-ended my Jeep, she told me that “it’s just not worth it to get that bumper repaired.”

It pissed me off so bad that I moved to Raleigh to take a summer school course at NC State (I have an A+ so far!).

15

Relax. Have fun with it. Wear a fatigues and a green camouflage hunting vest with a big NRA button on it. Talk under your breath a lot and throw in a few audible phrases like “Ryder Truck” and “Postal Service” once in a while. Sing Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred” during the role-playing exercises. Accuse them of supporting the Illuminati and burning the American flag. Make them know that they’re the ones who aren’t being Diversity Correct.

Keep in mind that the people leading this training are the bottom, the lowest, the catfish-food dungheap of the HR department that think “network” is a verb and don’t understand that Stuart Smalley is a joke. They can come up with an parade of endless strings of babble that almost makes sense, but not quite, of such things as “success comes in can’s, not in cant’s”. And phrases like “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt” which would induce any grade school grammar instructor (or geography teacher) to have screaming fits and psychotic nightmares. Pity them, because the Worm has eaten their brains; it often happens with HR people and management. Meanwhile, we are in the back of the room and our brains are going off on various tangents, wondering “If I’m going to be successful, how do I get the can open when I didn’t bring an opener?” and “How did they get the Sphinx up the river with all that sand in the boat?” and meanwhile they’ve been talking for fiteen minutes and you don’t have any friggin’ idea what they’ve been talking about. Then you start worrying about whether they are going to have a test on this crap afterwards or if they’ve noticed you dozing off and thinking about the work you could be doing.

Not that that’s a bad thing…

16

I don’t want to change jobs. Prozac Queen is the only person I’ve run into that cares this much about such nebulous things.

For the most part, the other nurses are as sarcastic, if not more so, than I am. It’s a survival technique. The patients can’t get to you if you don’t let them, and sarcasm is often a shield against that.

Robin

17

Count yourself luckly our “Diversity Training” last 2 Days :frowning:

I really hate P.C. stuff . I’m polite , and respectful but sometimes it goes a bit to far .

As to the OP my workplace is full of that shit aswell . Anytime a manager is questioned they inveriably will hint ( or sometimes just tell you ) that your being negative . :mad:

18

I think you’d get along wonderfully at our office… if the patients ever heard what we say about them, we’d be out of business in no time. But hey, that’s what happens when you have to deal with the indigent, the unintelligent, and the belligerent for 9 hours a day.

19

This will make me about as popular as a case of clap in a convent, but things aren’t always quite that simple.

Yeah, yeah, I hate the mandated, PC, warm-fuzzies stuff, too. It’s no less insulting and degrading to employees just because it’s a nifty new managment bandaid. Stress, crappy conditions and clueless bosses? So what? Smile, be happy!

But before you pick up that Uzi and climb the water tower, I have to admit there are some real lines to respect here.

  1. No matter what, those crazed/rude/unwashed/hostile idiots are the purpose of the job. Bonding w/ fellow workers who understand the stresses of dealing with jerks is fine. BUT I can’t agree with an ethic that draws a hostile line up front between “us” employees and “those” others.

That kind of attitude shows, no matter how well you think it’s disguised. It’s unprofessional, unkind and frankly unethical to lump patients/customers/whatever into a convenient, disdained category. At some time or other, we’re all the “other outsiders” of some group, and I don’t like–at all–being neatly categorized.

  1. True fact, sharing the stresses can help. But after a while bitterness and complaining get old. I’ve worked with too many people who couldn’t say a positive word if it killed them. The job is rotten, people are dolts, managment is stupid, coworkers are lazy, yadda yadda yadda. Whatever reward the work itself holds gets drowned out by the incessant carping.

I’m not suggesting that the facile, instant happy face crap is an answer. But if the job is that lousy:

  • why are you staying in it?
  • what are doing to improve it?

I dunno. The culture of complaint teeters on the edge of professional victimhood, seems to me. If you can’t improve the job, then move on. But no matter what, anyone in a service profession who holds the public (customer, patient, whatever) in automatic contempt is in the wrong field.

There is a line where each individual has to decide to suck it up and stay centered on the real purpose of the job, or not.

And that’s my opinion!
Veb

20

tracer – “I sure hope nobody’s smoking Brian. That sounds rather painful. Even if he is Satan and, therefore, spends most of his time surrounded by searing flames.”

That is one of the funniest comebacks I’ve seen in a long time!

I do think attitude has a lot to do with not only your job performance but how you interact with others. No, I’m not suggesting that you walk around with a big old I’m-secretly-an-axe-murderer-smile on your face but it’s hard to deal with someone who is negative or grumbling all the time.

I don’t think being sarcastic is negative. At times it can really get other folks to lighten up. But that goes back to your overall attitude. If you got called on the carpet for one sarcastic remark I think your boss needs to check HER attitude! If other’s are telling you that your attitude is fine than I’d take their word over this one person. Perhaps you should direct her to get a reality check from some of your other co-workers? Just because one person complained she should really check it out before jumping your butt.