Search results for

#Fresenius

#1 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/10/2007

You know how some things are inevitable —— well maybe not all of them, but there are several things that one always watches for when starting a new job. #Fresenius

Computer Access: Well, we know you need to log on to the computer but we won’t give you the passwords or the network access right away —— so do your job on paper for the first week and then you can catch up later when we get around to doing what we should have done BEFORE you started the job. Since we will train you on paper you get no clue how to do it on the computer a week later when you finally get computer access.

Name Spelled Wrong: Although most of the gazillion forms have her name spelled right —— the Fresenius phone book has BOTH 1st and last name misspelled. Tracy Legal instead of Tracey Legel.

Paycheck Wrong: Although they managed to spell her name right when they finally got around to it —— she wouldn’t have gotten a paycheck at all if her boss hadn’t rushed one through at the last minute. Guess she “forgot” Tracey might want to get paid.

Benefits: They base her benefits like life insurance on the first pay check of the year —— since the first paycheck of the year didn’t exist and then was on the wrong payroll when she did get it —— Tracey now has a lot of red tape to get her benefits straightened out.

Name Tag: Oops —— they only knew for three months in advance so they waited until the day she started to start making her new name tag. Why plan ahead? So for the first three weeks on the job her name has the wrong title. That always makes a good first impression upon employees and patients when you first meet them. “Uh —— You SAY you are the Clinic Manager —— how come your name tag says something different?”

Company Cell Phone: They gave her a phone that was last used a year ago by an employee who quit. So the voice mail message is wrong, she doesn’t have the password to change the voicemail message or to retrieve her voice messages. Nobody seems to be in charge of this. Nobody sees any discrepancy in handing out phones without first making these necessary changes and there is no manual for the phone. Good luck. Tracey finally convinces somebody at Verizon to clear the password problem. Never did hear anything back from people at Fresenius who should have administered this in the first place.

The Doors Are Locked: The manager of the facility is supposed to be able to get in the facility? Tracey doesn’t get a key to the front door for the first week —— even though all the nurses have one. She has to wait until somebody shows up to let her in. Another bad first impression. “Ahhh —— I’m your boss but could you please let me in?”

Dumped on by Predecessor: It goes without saying the person Tracey replaced left a very large pile of work behind. After all, why worry about running the place for the last month or two you are there —— let the “new girl” deal with it. So Tracey spent the first week sorting through all manner of memos, manuals, etc. trying to determine what had been done, hadn’t been done, needed to be done and was so stupid you just throw it away anyway (like at least half of all corporate memos). Again, the vital first few weeks for that good impression —— employees and patients think she is “hiding in her office” when in fact she is dealing with a mess that should have seen her predecessor fired rather than promoted.

Training: On The Job. Don’t worry we will help you. By the way, there are several things we need you to do by the end of the month. Oh, don’t worry you’ll have plenty of time after we get you computer access and a key to the front door. What pile of papers? Well, I guess you will have to do that first. What do you do with them? Don’t worry I will help you with that. Training? What training would that be —— ?

Boss: Oh —— and I will be on vacation the first week you are on the job and so will one of your nurses and as soon as she gets back your predecessor has stolen away your other nurse. So —— you have all this work to catch up on with no training while you cover for the nurses who won’t be there. Welcome to management! Don’t worry —— what could go wrong?

MjL

#2 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/07/2007

#Fresenius
Tracey arrived home last evening tired of driving and sick of sitting. Sitting in meetings and sitting in the car driving.

It is truly unfortunate corporate America is unable to see the future as well as the average worker because anybody but an authentic office puke can forecast the outcome of all that driving for two days of meetings is going to be a lot of wasted time and a sore butt —— and that is about it.

Except for the bloated egos of those who get up in front of the meeting to share their stupid ideas with the people who already know what they are doing. Those egotists go home all smug and satisfied that they have imparted their wit, wisdom and authority (especially the authority) upon the unwashed masses of underlings expected to bow before their obvious superiority.

MjL

#3 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/14/2007

Tracey just left for work at 4:30 a.m. She won’t get home again until around 9:30 tonight. She won’t get paid any overtime. She won’t even get paid for the extra nine hours. She gets a straight salary now and #Fresenius is getting quite a bargain with all the free time she puts in. All across this country people are being forced to work for free to keep their jobs. I don’t see it getting better —— Maybe this is what they mean when they say,
“America - Land of the Free”?

MjL

#4 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/09/2007

Tracey has to go to Chicago again this December to attend a #Fresenius Southern Illinois Clinic Managers Meeting. In a minute the rant will come to you before I say it. (Pause) SOUTHERN Illinois Managers meeting in CHICAGO? The excuse given is that it gives them a chance to go Christmas shopping in Chicago’s wonderland of high-priced stores. Tracey is not looking forward to freezing temperatures in the Windy City in December!

She decided to try taking Amtrak this time instead of driving. I spent a little time on the Internets and booked a round trip ticket for her out of Bloomington. I was amazed that it was only $24 for coach class round trip. We upgraded her to business class on the way home just to see if there is any difference in comfort level. So, we paid an extra $14 for that. She will have to pick the tickets up at the station. I had thought about going with her just for fun but decided I’m not too interested in winterland Chicago either.

We had thought about taking Amtrak to Washington, DC this past summer instead of the West Coast but the Smithsonian Institute was closed for renovations. This train trip for Tracey will also serve to give her some idea if riding a train for hours and hours is better than driving a car for hours and hours. We are still thinking we might go to the Smithsonian if they are re-opened this next summer.

MjL

#5 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/14/2007

Tracey is putting in a very long week. She opens every day (4:30 a.m.) but Friday and will put in twelve hours a day for several of them.

She has been talking lately about the possibility that #Fresenius may build or lease a new bigger facility.

I told her she should tell them to keep “newer and bigger” and just settle for properly staffing the facility they have.

Still, she would love to get out of #PekinHospital and into a building of her own. She is tired of putting up with all their pettiness and limitations.

She is supposed to have enough supplies on hand to last two weeks but she can’t because they are on the third floor and have weight limitations to their storage.

They can’t expand by getting more dialysis chairs because there isn’t enough room. The list goes on a bit longer.

I think she figures it isn’t likely they will ever give her enough staff but if she could get a different faculty location it would solve some of her other problems.

MjL

#6 Click this link to see Blog page --> 12/07/2007

Tracey was in a meeting all day yesterday. The #Fresenius corporate chair warmers passed another asinine rule that the staff can’t wear Crocs or other shoes that have open heels or holes in the sides or top because they are concerned about needle sticks or blood contamination to the workers.

Now if these facetious bureaucrats were honestly concerned about the health and safety of employees they would hire enough workers so that their employees wouldn’t have to work 16 hour shifts. But No — they want to make them stop wearing comfortable shoes so their feet can hurt all the more on these long shifts.

Actually they never give a thought to how their feet ache or how much they miss their families because it never occurs to them —— just make some more stupid rules so it appears they are doing their jobs. Or in this case, try to protect the company from some imagined worker’s comp case.

It never occurs to them to check the records to see that their fears are unbelievably rare compared to all the real injuries caused by overwork. I guess overworking the employees must be cost effective enough to pay the worker comp?

MjL

#7 Click this link to see Blog page --> 02/12/2008

Yesterday was another example of how the short sighted policies of #Fresenius work to screw up Tracey’s work life. She had an employee call off. The employee said she was supposed to work early yesterday morning so Tracey got up at 4 a.m. and went to work only to find out the employee was actually scheduled to work late in the day. So Tracey comes home at 10:30 a.m. and goes back to work again at 4 p.m. and works until almost 10:00 p.m. That made for a really long work day.

Now if Fresenius hadn’t ruined her desktop software Tracey would have more easily known what the work schedule really was. And if they allowed her to staff properly she wouldn’t always have to cover for missing employees.

I’m sure they really appreciate her dedication to duty but they won’t pay her more for her trouble. In fact, they seem to be hell bent on doing whatever they can to make her job harder.

MjL

#8 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/04/2008

I know I have just about beat this subject to death, but I am gonna give it one more healthy kick for good measure.

We have finally received several checks from #Fresenius to cover all the travel and meeting costs that Tracey has had to pay out and then wait for weeks to get reimbursed.

So last evening I had to make a trip to the bank to deposit them. You may think that an odd thing to be grumpy about, but I NEVER have to go to the bank in Pekin for anything except to deposit Fresenius checks reimbursing us for their damned expenses.

I’m sure this all makes it more profitable for them leaving thousands of dollars out there owed to their poorly paid employees for meetings and travel Fresenius requires in the first place. Well maybe that was two kicks, but it does scorch my cookies!

MjL

#9 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/26/2008

Yesterday was a busy day. Tracey had to go to the #Fresenius clinic in Decatur all day to get familiar with their operation. The manager there is leaving and Tracey will be helping her boss fill in. It sounds like she will be making the almost two-hour (one-way) commute at least once a week and will also be working on some of their administrative stuff like payroll from home on her computer. All of this, of course, in addition to all the responsibilities she already has with her own clinic in Pekin. And also, of course, at no extra pay or overtime pay. All just part of the friendly service modern workers provide for free to greedy corporations too cheap to hire enough help.

MjL

#10 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/05/2009

#Fresenius
Tracey works another double again today. At least she had yesterday off. She will be up early again tomorrow to travel up near Chicago for two days of stupid meetings. A repeat of the PowerPoint presentations they did about a month ago.

Worse yet, her boss rented a van to haul them up to this fiasco so they can’t even gossip. It would be difficult to talk about the stupidity of the meeting while the boss is in the van with you —— maybe that’s the reason the boss is driving?

MjL

#11 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/07/2009

#Fresenius
I dropped Tracey off to catch her ride yesterday and she was the last one to get there so she had to sit up in the front of the little rented mini-van with her boss. I’ll bet she really loved that —— riding all the way to Chicago. I got a text message after I went to bed. It said her day was every bit as bad as she had feared it would be. She has all day today to endure this bureaucratic nonsense too.

MjL

#12 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/12/2009

Tracey mentioned that she has some of the best cost numbers of all the managers in the area so the boss decided she should be a “leader” of one of the discussion groups on costs.

The problem is the reason her costs are so well contained is that Tracey works for free covering the floor because she is so understaffed.

I told her to simply get up there and tell the truth. The only way they can match her numbers is to get rid of a nurse and then do that missing nurse’s job for free.

Since Tracey and the other managers costs aren’t included in the cost figures for patient care, whatever work they do to cover for absent or missing employees doesn’t show up on the fancy charts and graphs.

So it appears that Tracey is a good manager of costs and the reality is she is working herself 12 to 16 hours a day and only getting paid for eight hours a day.

Sweet deal for #Fresenius and now they want to get her to show the other managers how to work themselves to death too.

MjL

#13 Click this link to see Blog page --> 12/08/2009

#Fresenius
Tracey had originally planned to work a 16 hour day yesterday but found somebody to cover for her —— so she only had to work eight. This was the result of a conversation she had with her boss recently.

Tracey gets Personal Time Off (PTO) which she takes to cover for days off. Since she is salaried, she doesn’t get paid for overtime.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday she worked 35 hours in three days and put in for five hours of PTO to make her week’s pay a full 40 hours.

Her boss told her in the future if Tracey chose to work more than eight hours a day she would still only count that as one day of work and she would have to take PTO by the day. So instead of the five hours, in this example, she would have to take 16 hours to cover for the two days she didn’t work.

Meaning not only does she work overtime for free on a regular basis but if she takes time off after putting in extra hours, she also has to burn her PTO up by eight hour increments. Now there’s a real slap in the kisser.

On the other hand she is still expected to work eight hours a day, so she can’t just put in say 36 hours in five days for a week’s pay. This logic is never supposed to work in Tracey’s favor.

Her boss is more than happy when Tracey’s “numbers” are good because she often works for free. Yet she doesn’t want Tracey to “work extra hours so she can take a day off later”, as if there must be this ulterior motive for Tracey to work extra.

I suspect later she will be asking Tracey why she is paying overtime to other employees when she could have worked extra to reduce the overtime costs.

MjL

#14 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/11/2010

Tracey has been having grief with a delivery guy at work. She says he is rather rude and obnoxious and very clumsy.

He crashed into the elevator doors while making a delivery and the elevator wouldn’t work anymore.

This guy has cost #Fresenius a ton of money tearing up the floors, doors, etc. but they haven’t fired him yet. Go figure.

#PekinHospital has now said he has caused so much property damage in the past that he will no longer be allowed on the premises.

This will probably mean he will leave the stuff outside the door out in the parking lot and Tracey will have to figure out how to get up to the third floor.

MjL

#15 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/25/2011

#Fresenius
Tracey has been sharing the office gossip with me about a new doctor that has been recently credentialed at her clinic. It sounds like this guy intends to take over all the dialysis patients in Pekin and squeeze out the current doctors who have had these patients forever. That will put Tracey right in the middle of this fiasco. Oh Joy.

MjL

#16 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/13/2011

I just returned home from dropping Tracey off at work. She will have a long, long day today. She had to be in at 5 a.m. to start the water system and will work until 9 p.m. I would go on and on but you have already heard that particular rant. Suffice to say #Fresenius has a bargain in Tracey.

MjL

#17 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/25/2012

Tracey just left for two days of meetings in Westchester. She always dreads these trips. She is forced to ride up there and back with her boss driving. So the boss gets the mileage money and has a captive audience for a couple hours each way. This year they are also forced to share a room so she won’t get any time to herself. #Fresenius is a multi-national multi-billion dollar company so damn cheap it profits by the sacrifice and discomfort of its employees. And none of these meetings are worth a dime —— just another excuse for the bigshots to pretend they are doing something productive by forcing employees to listen to hours of bullshit.

MjL

#18 Click this link to see Blog page --> 07/27/2012

Tracey made her way home from the meetings last night. Next we sort out the receipts so she can get reimbursed for the expenses. She has to pay for her hotel room, meals, etc. out of pocket then hope to get reimbursed later. It is so thoughtful of #Fresenius to let their employees subsidize them.

MjL

#19 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/13/2012

We went to Monical’s in Pekin for supper then drove by the old Eagle’s grocery store building just north of the intersection of Parkway and Broadway. #Fresenius has put in a request to the state of Illinois to let them move Tracey’s clinic to that location.

The place is really big and very run down on the outside. We couldn’t really see inside very well. It would take a lot of work to renovate it I would suppose. It is also a little hard to get in and out of because there is a lot of traffic on Parkway and there is a curve in the road that makes it hard to see traffic coming from the north.

MjL

#20 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/06/2012

We went to Applebee’s for a late lunch / early supper and then drove to a couple more possible sites for a new clinic if #Fresenius ever decides which site and the state approves it.

I’ve always thought the site they picked on the edge of Pekin on El Camino (just off 14th St.) was too far from the beaten path.

Tracey sent an email that narrowed her choices down to three places: A block of the old mall on the SE corner. The old Hollywood Video building. And my favorite, the Dollar General store on Broadway Rd.

MjL

#21 Click this link to see Blog page --> 02/08/2013

#Fresenius
I forgot to mention earlier but the state bureaucracy finally decided Fresenius could build Tracey a new clinic. We have no idea when this might happen, but it should be built in the same building complex #Bergners is in at East Court Mall. Let us hope it doesn’t take the rest of the year!

MjL

#22 Click this link to see Blog page --> 07/17/2013

Tracey and I spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon and evening cussing and discussing the insanity of the new clinic plans. We even drove out there and took a picture to email to her boss.

They seem to have a three ring circus of nincompoops at #Fresenius to keep screwing things up the way they have. They continue to ask Tracey’s advice and then promptly ignore most of what she says.

She told them almost two months ago that the engineering plans didn’t match the lease plans. Now they have finally realized this and are trying to do a rush job to make new drawings and are making a mess of it in the process.

MjL

#23 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/15/2013

#Fresenius
Tracey worked from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. yesterday in Pekin and will be up early this morning to drive to Decatur to spend the day there. It looks like some long hours in her future to make sure her boss gets a good bonus.

MjL

#24 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/27/2013

#Fresenius
Tracey spent the day in Decatur again. It was almost 6 p.m. before she got home. I can just see Tracey’s boss rubbing her palms together in glee over all the bonus money Tracey is making for her with these extra unpaid hours.

MjL

#25 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/10/2013

Hopefully Tracey will get some word from the #Fresenius HR department as to the final outcome of her suspended RN from the weekend. Tracey has been covering for this employee and working from 5 a.m. until 5 p.m. today and probably tomorrow. I shouldn’t think it would take this long to make a decision about something that is probably already been a past practice. I guess the white collar crowd think long and solemn deliberations are necessary but those at the level where work is actually done would appreciate it if they would just do their job and get on with it.

MjL

#26 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/10/2013

And another gripe about #Fresenius while I am at it. We have over $800 in expenses owed that they still haven’t paid us. Tracey has had to use our credit card for hotels for employees that are covering for Decatur. And then she has to send in receipts to be reimbursed. In the meantime we have these bills to pay until Fresenius gets around to paying us. I really get tired of funding a multinational corporation.

MjL

#27 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/17/2013

#Fresenius
Tracey has to make the trip to Decatur again today. Her boss is still frantic about the possibility that the public health dept. people “might” show up and she wants Tracey to be there if they do. This is really getting old. It makes for really long days for Tracey having to drive back and forth from Decatur and in the meantime her work at the Pekin clinic keeps falling further behind.

MjL

#28 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/14/2014

Tracey is excited that she gets to tour her new #Fresenius facility again today. The water room is complete among other areas of the clinic and she is looking forward to seeing the progress. She can’t wait to get out of Pekin hospital and move to her very own brand new clinic.

MjL

#29 Click this link to see Blog page --> 02/01/2014

Tracey has a bunch of “year end” stuff to compile and tabulate for work and she asked me to write an #Excel program to help her figure out last year’s patient census for the year. She also wants to make it easier to keep track of all this stuff for the future as well.

They are supposed to keep track of things like gender, age group, ethnicity, race, and a variety of classifications of patient status such as new patient, transfer in or out, got a transplant, died, ETC.

It took me most of yesterday to figure out how to make it all work and we stayed up until midnight last night populating this spreadsheet with data for the year 2013.

Tracey has been going crazy looking for 1 category that is off by 1 person. We found him! Evidently somebody at #Medicare or #Fresenius or whomever decided this guy was dead or gone or whatever.

Medicare has killed off some of her patients over the past months and she has to call Medicare up and resurrect the patient’s information in the database.

MjL

#30 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/06/2014

#Fresenius
Tracey has been putting the hours in lately. Today is a full day of activity at the new clinic with workers repairing what they screwed up in the first place, waiting for the cable guy (again) and training her employees on the new water room equipment.

The last time she waited for the cable guy he only put in the Internet connection. The cable guy for today is a different cable guy who will hook up the televisions.

The phones get hooked up and the drapes put up and a bunch of other last minute stuff to be done before they actually open for business next Monday.

She will practically be living there all weekend while the final move is done.

They are paying some guy in Colorado to be the “project manager” while Tracey does all the work with many extra hours for which she doesn’t get paid. The “project manager” will probably get a bonus and a raise because Tracey did his job so well for him.

MjL

#31 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/09/2014

Tracey had a very long day of moving her #Fresenius clinic. The movers showed up with a truck that was just barely big enough so they spent several hours trying to fit everything into the truck to make it all in one trip. Since they were only going a few miles down the road it would have been much faster to just take two trips. Nobody could pierce the moving guy mentality to get this through to them. It was after 8:00 last night before Tracey got home. She is getting ready to go again this morning. Add to that the loss of one hour sleep and this is not a good weekend for Tracey.

MjL

#32 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/26/2014

Tracey has been anxious for the past few weeks about getting a new job. She interviewed for a position in the Education Dept. at #Fresenius.

She finally got a formal offer yesterday and she accepted it. There will still be a short wait to finalize the paper work and she won’t move to her new job for a few weeks but she is really looking forward to the change.

If it all works out she will have every weekend and holidays off work and no more 4 a.m. phone calls.

MjL

#33 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/26/2014

#Fresenius
Congratulations Tracey!
Sue and I have been feeling for you and the ridiculous hours you put in.

Michael T.

#34 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/26/2014

#Fresenius
Hi Michael,
She is really looking forward to this just for that very reason. It is a sideways move for almost the same pay but it will actually be a raise if you consider she will be making the same salary for 40 hours a week instead of 60 hours a week. There were a number of other issues but that was the biggest one.

MjL

#35 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/27/2014

Tracey has a confirmed date to start her new #Fresenius job on the first Monday in January. Lots of excitement around here about that!

It is almost hard to imagine what it will be like with a regular schedule. She has never had a job that allowed her to take weekends and holidays off. And she has been “On Call” most of the time.

MjL

#36 Click this link to see Blog page --> 12/10/2014

#Fresenius
Twenty-six days and counting down to Tracey’s new job. She had yesterday off because she has to work the weekend so she went clothes shopping. She will be able to get rid of most of her scrubs because she will be wearing real clothes in her new job.

MjL

#37 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/02/2015

#Fresenius This will hopefully be the last day Tracey will have to get out of bed at 4 a.m. in order to get to work on time. This should also be the last day for her to work as manager at the Pekin clinic. She is REALLY looking forward to starting her new job in E. Peoria.

MjL

#38 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/03/2015

#Fresenius
It would appear that Tracey’s job will go out with the same staff worries that have plagued her for the past ten years.

She got a call last night from the only nurse she has on staff presently. There is a possibility this nurse won’t be able to work today because of problems with her family and Tracey might (or might not) have to work today. And if it persists Tracey is concerned she may not be able to start her new job Monday.

So it goes with her incompetent boss who keeps all the clinics understaffed and overworked. Tracey spent last night worrying about whether she would have to work at the clinic next week.

I think Tracey should simply block all phone calls from her old boss come Monday since she won’t be working for her.

MjL

#39 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/05/2015

Today is the big day. Tracey starts her new #Fresenius job in E. Peoria and it sure turned out to be a cold morning with the temperatures barely above 0°F.

She leaves her old job in the midst of short staffing. Her boss already had to close the clinic last Saturday night and we had to go to the clinic yesterday afternoon to hunt up some phone numbers for her boss to find a nurse to work today.

MjL

#40 Click this link to see Blog page --> 01/10/2015

Tracey completed her first week at her new #Fresenius job and thus far finds it quite peaceful in comparison to the past decade. She has received no calls or messages about her new job —— although she is still getting information requests about her old job. Although she may eventually get bored with mundane routines I think less daily drama is far better.

MjL

#41 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/02/2015

#Fresenius
Today is the travel day for Tracey to go to Minneapolis for a couple days of meetings with her new boss.

She is a bit ticked off that she will have to make a connecting flight in Chicago. She will have to wait 3.5 hours at the airport between planes.

One of her co-workers insisted they take this flight so it arrives later in the day instead of taking an earlier flight that was a direct flight with no changing of planes. Now that co-worker is sick and is not going. Kind of adds some insult to injury as she will have to sit waiting in Chicago and hope the flight doesn’t get canceled because of weather.

MjL

#42 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/03/2015

#Fresenius
After spending yesterday dealing with airports, airplanes, rental cars and hotel rooms Tracey sent a text that she had finally arrived at her destination at the Holiday Inn Express in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. That’s right. Coon Rapids - which is about forty minutes from the airport.

MjL

#43 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/19/2015

#Fresenius
Tracey will have to leave this coming Sunday to go back to Madison, WI, again. Her co-worker threw her under the bus. He should have gone but gave their boss a bunch of excuses why he couldn’t do it so Tracey will be driving 3.5 hours each way next week. I won’t be going with her this time. Although this job is far and away better than her last position as a clinic manager she still has to deal with covering for people who can’t or won’t do their jobs.

MjL

#44 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/26/2015

I’ve received an occasional email update from Tracey the past couple of days. Sounds like she is putting in long hours helping the Madison, WI, #Fresenius clinic train nurses and techs on how to operate the new replacement dialysis machines. She said she should be able to start for home around one o’clock this afternoon. It is at least a 3.5 hour drive. She will be tired.

MjL

#45 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/27/2015

Tracey arrived back home around 5:30 yesterday afternoon and she was very tired of driving. She shared some of the teaching experiences she endured while in Madison. As is usual #Fresenius suffers greatly from a near total lack of command structure.

Nobody seems to be in charge and everybody thinks they are in charge all the while too few of them really have any clue what they are talking about. I wish I had a dollar for every time she finished with, “But that’s not my problem and I couldn’t fix it.” Amazing anything ever gets done with that corporation.

MjL

#46 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/09/2015

Yesterday was “Test Day” for Tracey at work. She was supposed to administer the final test to her new hire students and she always anguishes over this because sometimes they don’t pass and she feels bad for them.

Unfortunately the computer system at #Fresenius decided not to cooperate so nobody got to take the test. And this was Fresenius nationwide. Another technology glitch that had to have cost them many dollars.

This happens to control freak corporations who decide to centralize ALL of their operations on one computer network but don’t hire the brains necessary to keep the network running. Lots of people sitting around and getting paid to do nothing.

MjL

#47 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/08/2016

#Fresenius
I drove Tracey to the jail last evening after she got off work. She has to get an RN license in Iowa and they sent some fingerprint cards. She had to have them done at the jail house.

It seems odd to me that she now has a license for Illinois and Minnesota and neither of those states required fingerprints but Iowa does.

Even more odd is that she has worked in Wisconsin several times over the past year and never has gotten a Wisconsin license. So she will have an RN license in three states so far. Two of which she has never been to. Bureaucratic red tape.

The fingerprint guy was surprised this was the first time she had ever had it done. Probably because she has been an RN far longer than the fingerprint law was enacted. More security theater I think.

I have a very telling illustration of how ineffective this fingerprint nonsense is but I shall wait to tell it until after Tracey gets her license from Iowa. I don’t want to jinx her by ridiculing the process too much. Stay tuned. In fact you might have to remind me to tell the “rest of the story”.

MjL

#48 Click this link to see Blog page --> 04/27/2016

Tracey is caught up in a turf war at work. Some time back it was decided by the upper echelon at #Fresenius to move the Decatur and Springfield clinics to the St. Louis region in their education system. The problem is the educators from that region don’t have Illinois RN licenses and that education manager has decided to foist the training off on Tracey’s boss.

This trickles down to Tracey and now she will spending another day in Springfield teaching. A classic example of the decision makers not really thinking things through when making decisions.

MjL

#49 Click this link to see Blog page --> 07/23/2016

About a month ago Tracey applied for a job that was posted in the bid system at #Fresenius. It was for a new position as Regional Education Manager. This position was added because new clinics were purchased by Fresenius in Iowa and Wisconsin. This position would be to a management position at the same level as Tracey’s current boss. Which would mean Tracey would then be the boss of her current co-workers.

It seems there was some confusion at the upper levels as to whether this new position had been properly approved so there had been no movement forward. Tracey’s boss told her recently the red tape had finally been overcome and Tracey could expect to get a call for an interview for this position. Time will tell but it sounds like Tracey has a very good chance of getting this promotion. At least her boss seems to think so.

MjL

#50 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/02/2016

Tracey called on her way home from Moline yesterday afternoon and we agreed to meet for supper at the Cracked Barrel. She received a phone call on her drive home. She accepted the long awaited job offer to be the #Fresenius Regional Education Manager. She will be responsible for the educators from south central IL to the suburbs of Chicago and the eastern part of Iowa. Her home office will still be in the E. Peoria clinic but she will move into her own office there in about a week.

MjL

#51 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/03/2016

One of the next decisions Tracey has to make regarding her new job is which #Fresenius office she is going to move to and which clinic that office will be in. So far there are two offices in the E. Peoria clinic and one in the Pekin clinic to choose from.

The Pekin clinic is obviously closer and more private but she wonders if she should be closer to the classrooms in E. Peoria.

Decisions. Decisions.

MjL

#52 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/14/2016

#Fresenius
Tracey says she finally has an office to move into at work. The previous occupant has been very slow to get his junk out of her way. She will also get to order some new furniture to replace the old stuff that has been in the office for many years.

MjL

#53 Click this link to see Blog page --> 02/20/2017

#Fresenius
Tracey will be heading north near Chicago for three days of meetings with her fellow Regional Education Managers. They are supposed to get some information regarding the realignment of her upper management.

She is not too so thrilled that the entertainment for one evening is to go bowling. Tracey is not fond of bowling. She is hoping they will let her sit and watch.

MjL

#54 Click this link to see Blog page --> 12/05/2017

#Fresenius
Somebody above Tracey’s pay grade decided to alter the training schedule and this has caused some last minute scrambling and extra work for Tracey and her educators. She had to drive to Spring Valley today to help pick up some of the slack.

It had been determined earlier that there would be no training classes for December. The clinics were supposed to hire qualified people only for their job openings or wait until January.

Inevitably somebody couldn’t find any qualified people (or specifically wanted a specific new hire that needed training). So the plan was changed. This is all well and good for those people but it is Tracey and her staff that will suffer for this poor planning.

MjL

#55 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/17/2018

#Fresenius
At Tracey’s trip to Indiana almost a month ago (Indiana, not Texas) she was told she had to keep secrets from her employees and it has been bothering her ever since. Yesterday the veil of secrecy was lifted.

The upper crust decided there were to be big cuts in staff because they are launching a “virtual classroom” so fewer educators would be needed. They were putting their heads together to determine where to make those cuts and ultimately who would be cut. It was thought important that this news be kept strictly secret so as not to upset everybody until the “final announcements” could be made.

Obviously many of the educators knew something was going on and were getting impatient with having their questions ignored and getting the run around. Tracey felt bad about all of this.

To complicate everything even more HR had to butt in and second guess every decision to be made, including not allowing Tracey to let go of her worst employee. So not only does Tracey have to keep the slacker but also has to lose a good educator instead. Typical.

Tracey is just so happy that the cat is out of the bag so to speak and no longer has to avoid answering questions. Except, of course, she now has to guard herself from blurting out that her whiniest employee wasn’t kept because she is “valuable” but because HR was afraid of her.

MjL

#56 Click this link to see Blog page --> 04/27/2018

Tracey returned home around 3:30 yesterday afternoon and promptly sprawled on her couch for a short nap. Too much activity for the past few days and a long drive home.

She explained some of the activities at the #Fresenius conference and basically felt the whole thing was poorly planned. Again. There were over 4,000 people at this event and they didn’t plan well at all on how to transport and feed this many people at the various events.

The entertainment one night was The Goo Goo Dolls, an alt-rock band from the 80s that most of them had never heard of. At least it was really loud.

The night at the museum was a disaster as far as Tracey was concerned because they blared rock music so loud they couldn’t talk to one another, there was no place to sit down and there were huge long lines for the food which was placed haphazardly throughout the place. And the lights were turned off in most of the exhibit halls. Weird.

Tracey was there as an instructor for the clinic managers so she didn’t get any information except for the one class she taught over and over again. Basically she was just labor for the event anyway.

MjL

#57 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/01/2018

#Fresenius
Tracey asked me to do voice narration of her latest PowerPoint presentation. The presentation needs to be set up almost like a video to be run automatically so it can be viewed as a part of the virtual learning program. One click and it goes through the slides and animations with narration all timed together.

We ended up taking a crash course in how to record the audio and get it applied to each slide with the proper timing. As usual #Microsoft doesn’t have straightforward menus and options. It has all been made very pretty to the eye and almost useless to operate without a lot of backwards thinking.

I’ve had to learn how to pronounce a whole bunch of new technical medical terminology and I now know way more about how dialysis works than I ever really wanted to know.

MjL

#58 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/03/2018

After a short afternoon nap I finished my narration of Tracey’s PowerPoint slides. I had a real bad time with some of the technical jargon on one of the slides and didn’t’ think I would get through it without flubbing it up.

Tracey finished editing it and then uploaded it to the #Fresenius site where her co-workers will get a chance to view and offer suggestions or changes. I may have to do some of the narration over again.

MjL

#59 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/21/2018

#Fresenius
Tracey worked from home yesterday so we could work on the narration of her PowerPoint slides again. We had a devil of a time getting a particular slide to advance automatically without several seconds of delay.

Some time on the Internet revealed this is a rampant problem with the latest versions of the software. #Microsoft is aware of the problem but has done nothing to fix it for the past three years because they evidently think it is a user problem. I get so sick of dealing with all the bugs in their malware.

I read in several different forums where the common user fix is to go back to PowerPoint 2007. Go figure. Unfortunately Tracey doesn’t have that option; she is stuck with the latest version whether it works or not.

Tracey finally fixed it after hours of messing around by changing a voice transition parameter that has no obvious connection to the slide and is completely different than all of the other slides which work correctly. Hopefully it will work with the dozen or so previous versions of PowerPoint that don’t seem at all compatible.

I hate Microsoft.

MjL

#60 Click this link to see Blog page --> 11/11/2018

After spending millions to protect THEIR profit #Fresenius now cries poor on giving employees raises and bonuses?

Measure to Cap Dialysis Profits Pummeled After
Record Spending by Industry

MjL

#61 Click this link to see Blog page --> 02/18/2019

Tracey gets today off for Presidents Day. Actually just an excuse for #Fresenius to deplete her personal time. Not a problem though, she needs to be pushed to take time off.

She will have a short work week because she is also taking Thurs. and Fri. off to supervise the kitchen remodel. Joe, the remodel guy, has already surrendered and no longer asks me questions. He has finally realized she is the boss. I’m just a consultant.

MjL

#62 Click this link to see Blog page --> 04/03/2019

Tracey and I spent some time yesterday morning registering her new corporate credit card. She really hates that her boss made her get this credit card and it only adds more trouble to getting her work expenses reimbursed.

Having a “company card” sounds so cool, but in reality it is just another credit card account out in the wild, in her name, to be hacked or hassled.

Instead of us paying for the hotel rooms, plane flights, whatever —— with our own cards or checking account —— now she has to pay with the corporate card. It is still in her name and she still owes the money.

Instead of reimbursing her, now they will pay the “approved” amounts on this new card. Ultimately though it is her responsibility to make sure the balance, including any interest, is paid.

All it does is to (supposedly) make it easier for #Fresenius to approve and account for the billing of her expenses. I think it is nonsense myself. She is still paying out of an account in her name regardless of how she gets paid back. It’s just one more thing she has to keep track of.

MjL

#63 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/17/2019

For the first time in a long time Tracey will have to work a Saturday. The servers went down at #Fresenius for a while and clinics throughout her region couldn’t enter data into the system. They wrote it all down and now all that data has to be keyed in after the fact. Somebody decided people in the Education Dept. could help with this chore.

She was told she would be compensated for working on her day off.
I won’t hold my breath.

MjL

#64 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/19/2019

Tracey continued to check her work email yesterday and received occasional text messages and alerts on her phone. It would seem that operation “Network Down” has been a rousing failure. Tracey assures me that when the dust settles #Fresenius management will declare success and take any and all credit available. And they all pray there will be no public health inspections or audits for last week.

MjL

#65 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/21/2019

Now that #Fresenius upper management has become involved in the network problems from last week they have named the problem “Downtime Data Entry” and are using the acronym DDE.

They have only now discovered that when the computers go down many of their clinics don’t write down all the information in the patient record. This could cost them millions they can’t bill to Medicare or insurance because they have no official record of the treatments. Eventually they will fill in the blanks (falsify the record), enter it into the computer and all will be well until the next time.

I seriously doubt they will rectify the problem and hold all those employees accountable for not doing their jobs in the first place. Or put in place a backup computer solution.

MjL

#66 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/23/2019

#Fresenius
The uproar over DDE has died down for Tracey.
It will be back to business as usual by next week.
Nothing was resolved to keep it from happening again
next time the network goes down. History repeats.

MjL

#67 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/26/2019

Tracey called the #Fresenius IT people at work to see if they would install the drivers and software so she can use her new scanner at home. They said they would have to “check and get back with her”. I can’t imagine the lost productivity and profit caused by these anal retentive people.

MjL

#68 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/27/2019

Tracey worked from home yesterday. She finally got IT to install her scanner software but the guy couldn’t make it work. We spent about ten minutes looking at it and figured out how to make it work.

#Fresenius does a very poor job of budgeting their travel money so once again Tracey couldn’t get her people together for their yearly meeting. It seems the upper echelon uses the travel budget up for their extravaganzas and leaves the worker bees to do without. This year Tracey decided to change things up a bit.

She told her people to work from home for two days so they wouldn’t have any distractions and they did conference calls for a couple hours at a time. Since they don’t get the free meals, etc. she let them have a two hour lunch and let them quit an hour early. Considering travel time and entertainment she still got more work out of them this way than if they had traveled. I think they were all happy this year.

MjL

#69 Click this link to see Blog page --> 10/02/2019

Tracey is still in the dark about the #Fresenius management shake-up at work. She says her boss doesn’t know what is going on either. She has learned she will lose one employee in the Chicago area and she will now be covering St. Louis too. No word on how much travel or if they expect us to move down to the St. Louis area. That might be a deal breaker.

MjL

#70 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/22/2020

There is another round of #Fresenius management changes on the horizon with Tracey’s work. True to corporate form, there are many rumors and few facts with managers claiming they can’t tell the secrets until some unknown future date. I’m sure productivity takes a huge hit with all the gossip and worry. I know it always did where I worked.

MjL

#71 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/09/2020

Tracey has survived another management shake-up. As usual, #Fresenius has restructured the various departments with no rhyme or reason, forcing out the better employees and promoting the slackers.

It doesn’t appear very much will change except she will lose all virtual instructors and will have to pickup the Home Dialysis educators. This means she will have to learn all that now too.

MjL

#72 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/25/2022

Tracey’s work computer is almost three-years-old and the battery will no longer hold a charge. Over a month ago she called #Fresenius tech support and it was decided to replace the entire laptop.

The first computer got lost by UPS. She finally got the replacement yesterday and hooked up both to the Internet so the old could be cloned over to the new. That went well.

Later in the afternoon she started swapping docking stations, monitors, etc. There was trouble getting both monitors to work. We couldn’t get the D-style video port connection to work and we ended up scrounging another HDMI cable to connect to the new monitor.

She now has a sweet dual monitor setup and will likely spend today getting used to the new computer.

MjL

#73 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/31/2022

Tracey is still doing battle with the #Fresenius IT department. About two weeks ago she was the victim of two concurrent IT fiascos. Getting a new computer and the email name change. Both totally screwed up.

Today when she logged on to her email she sees her name in the title box but the email listed is for another person with her same first name. She put in a ticket only to have it immediately closed out with the comment that her name is correct in the title.

Idiots. I keep telling Tracey she needs to get hold of somebody in the upper ranks of this misfit department. It shouldn’t take two weeks to get this stuff taken care of.

MjL

#74 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/09/2022

Tracey is up and about early this morning. She has to go to Davenport, IA, to do a survey of disgruntled workers. Upper #Fresenius management is concerned about the turnover in clinic nurses and techs, so they think a survey will help. The problem is always overworked, underpaid, and the low moral of the constant churning revolving door of new employees and employees quitting.

I doubt they can fix the problem without first fixing the culture.

MjL

#75 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/10/2022

Tracey survived her #Fresenius “survey trip” to Iowa yesterday. Monday she will have to distill the list of gripes into a report that will basically say they are sick of bad scheduling, no scheduling or last minute changes to the schedule.

MjL

#76 Click this link to see Blog page --> 12/02/2022

#Fresenius has moved Tracey’s 401k to another bank. This is the third year in a row and it is tiring creating new accounts every time.

MjL

#77 Click this link to see Twitter Roundup page --> 02/23/2023 #11

#Fresenius Obviously this doesn’t sound good for Tracey’s employment.

MjL

#78 Click this link to see Blog page --> 06/29/2023

Tracey is leaving to spend the day in St. Louis today for #Fresenius “Inclusion Training”. Sounds like a large dose of corporate psychobabble but maybe she will have some fun getting together with her coworkers. She rarely sees them in person working remotely.

She plans to stop by #Watson on the way home and spend some time with her Dad. That will be good for her too. She always comes home happy after a visit.

MjL

#79 Click this link to see Blog page --> 07/04/2023

#Fresenius made her take PTO (personal time off) on today and tomorrow. So much for that being “Personal”? They push that with the hope people will also take Monday off too. Not Tracey, she is too stubborn, so she worked yesterday just to rebel a little. Slow day. Everybody else was off.

MjL

#80 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/17/2023

#Fresenius #Excel #Blog
Tracey’s employers have rearranged her region (again) and she needs some help rebuilding spreadsheets for the students, clinics, educators, learning centers, etc. I will be spending some time building and populating some data for her. The Blog may suffer.

MjL

#81 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/20/2023

#Fresenius #Excel
I have more rants and observations about the use of spreadsheets where Tracey works. Far too many people can enter, alter, or delete data and there seems to be little control over the format of how they do so. Many, if not most, of these users are almost clueless about how spreadsheets manipulate data.

For instance, let’s say you were to add information in a column for the clinic in East Peoria. In a controlled format a dropdown list would be provided to choose from, and if “East Peoria” wasn’t a choice, you would have to add it to the list of choices. This prevents multiple spellings (or misspelling) of the same name. Otherwise, you could search, sort or filter on “East Peoria” but the results wouldn’t include “E.P.”, “EP”, “E. Peoria”, etc.

AND —— some people have a proclivity to “correct” names in the dropdown list, thus creating multiple errors. Changing the listed entry only changes future use and the original entry will remain on the multitude of previous entries.

Her employee spreadsheets are littered with various spellings and variations for multiple places, names and events making it impossible to trust most of the data. We have wasted so much time sifting through this to create a more accurate spreadsheet for her use and there is no way to correct the corporate source for the benefit of others.

MjL

#82 Click this link to see Blog page --> 08/21/2023

#Fresenius #Excel
Tracey and I finished up entering most of the data into her work spreadsheet yesterday. She will have to start filling out the rest of the blanks going forward. I emailed it to her and closed it out to my archive. Unless she finds something I need to change, it is all hers now.

So much information to keep track of for so many people!

MjL

#83 Click this link to see Twitter Roundup page --> 04/05/2024 #16

Tracey’s #Fresenius boss is particularly bad about this.
She schedules calls early and late, as well as randomly calling.

MjL

#84 Click this link to see Blog page --> 09/06/2024

#Fresenius will have another top management shake up at the end of the month and Tracey will have a different boss. It will be someone she has worked with before so she is not worried about the transition.

MjL

#85 Click this link to see Blog page --> 03/17/2026

Tracey wiped her work phone and packed it up to ship back to #Fresenius. She also loaded up her work laptop and a box of files and took them to the E. Peoria office.
Bit by bit she is finalizing her retirement.

MjL