Kings and Queens

I am still ill. My motivation to do anything ebbs and flows like the tide. If the tide was heavily drawn to being out most of the time. So instead of getting stuck into the tsunami that is happening at work, I am just sitting here without even the energy to regret the past. Its now gone past being a giggle to sit in bed watching GMTV when I should be working, its now just boring. Which brings me to one of Auntie RLJ's stories of "when I was an assistant psychologist (this was all fields, and you could leave your front door open...)".

If you ask most APs what they will all too happily tell you is all about the interesting clinical work they have done, all the assessment tools they have used, and how much experience they have gained. What they are less likely to tell you is that there is often a lot of administration. Even less likely are the ones that will tell you "I spent the last 3 months entering numbers into a spreadsheet".

Audits suck. The consultants palm them off to the principals, who hand them over to the newly qualifieds, who palm them off to dearest YOU. The only thing that sucks more than audits is being in the bottom of the foodchain. If you thought your spreadsheet entering days had long gone when you did you handed in your last research methods project, think again. Audits are natures way of saying " Better not forget how to use SPSS!". The audit project I was on was in primary care, was about 8 months overdue and several peoples jobs were on the line. Yet, they very kindly waited until I was in post, until week 2 of my employment to give them their due, before opening a huge cupboard of paper and asking me to put it onto a virgin white spreadsheet. The spreadsheet that was empty.

...and people fight for this job?

So, CD in CD Rom tray and headphones in, I spent approxmiately 1/100th of my life upto that point typing in 1s and 0s into neverending columns. Sometimes I would forget to save and the ancient 486 used in the service (this was in the early 2000s) would creak to a halt, ruining an entire afternoons work. Needless to say I didn't make that mistake more than twice.

I think it was their way of seeing if I could hack it, and then allowing me to graduate onto real work. Although I am not sure how typing numbers into columns in anyway prepared me to do anything remotely client oriented.

Now, when I am not blowing impressive amounts of snot and phlegm onto my bedsheets, I instruct other people to enter numbers. Usually temps or the odd internship/work experience girl, but I still have immense sympathy for them. Not so much that I would do it again myself though.