Her Mistakes Are Actually Ours

Work is kind of wonky the last two weeks of the year, as I believe it is in many other places.  The workload lessens because it's the holidays, but there are less people also because it's the holidays.  I always make the mistake of believing that because of the work, things will be lighter.  Not so.  Because there are so many people who are taking the week off, the remaining few have to take care of the work, as meager as it may be, by themselves.  So, all in all, it's a wash, and so I had a full day.

The Third Department by itself still has its moments even if it's been easier since the winter.  I thought I got pretty much everything done at a reasonable time.  However, while I was digging through a crate of work so I could put a folder where it needed to be, I pulled out a specimen that needed to go into testing.  It was held up because one person in our laboratory specifically needed to do something for it.  I remember touching this first on Friday.  I put a Post-It note saying that the person taking care of this on Saturday needs to speak to her about this.  But as I was leaving work yesterday/Monday, I see that these forms for this specimen weren't taken care of.  Instead, the person who was going to do this on Saturday wrote a note on the same Post-It saying that the person would be in on Monday, presumably indicating that she wasn't there on Saturday.  Well, this person was there yesterday/Monday, but I didn't fucking know that this wasn't taken care of, and by the time I saw these forms, the person I needed to speak to left for the day.  Goddammit.

Sure, I guess I'm responsible because I should have looked through everything before the end of the day.  But I'm gonna say it: I'm really peeved that this person just shoved this specimen, which should have gone into testing well before yesterday/Monday, back into the file where I couldn't see it.  She should know working the same position I am that you are just too damn busy with everything new that's coming in, from both e-mails and the lab.  Why would I need to look through a file for work?  What she should have done (and this is just coming from me) was to flag it -- put it on top of the crate or even my desk.  That way I know that this is a special case (which it is) that I need to pay special attention to.  I remember specifically throwing that test on her desk when I left on Friday.

No, it's not her fault.  But this points to something else that's troubling: I have seen her make mistakes in this job she shouldn't be making.  Another thing I noticed during work yesterday/Monday is that she doesn't keep track of the calls she makes.  One of our jobs is to retrieve information, and we are supposed to document what we have done to retrieve that info (calls and e-mails) so that, if someone else needs to step in and pick up the trail, we can do so easily.  Twice during work I saw there are literal forms that the lab needs to get.  I know through another program we use that my co-worker did make a call.  But we have other software to which we are supposed to document that we have called this place and/or we e-mailed this person.  That way we know what has happened and can avoid doing something twice.  That gets a bit more difficult to do if she doesn't state in this program what she has done.

She is the one who got hired over the summer, so I want to think that she just forgot.  Hell, I make mistakes in The Third Department all the time, still.  But I'm sure she was trained that she needs to document what she's done.  And yet, putting these two issues together, is there a possibility that she wasn't trained to document her trail, and didn't understand that these forms are important enough that she should have laid it on my desk so I could see it first thing in the morning?  If so, that's a failure in training, and that is why it sucked that my former supervisor moved on.  She could've used so much more seasoning, and my supervisor knew all the ins and outs of working that position.  I wonder what, if anything, she didn't teach her before she left, let alone what my colleague has now forgotten because my former supe isn't around to reinforce what she taught her.

And this will get worse now that my boss is leaving.  He, frankly, doesn't know much about this position.  But he was at least in a position of authority to find out, and he did the best he could answering all of our questions, including hers.  With him gone, I'm not sure our new boss (whoever he or she will be) will know how to fix any mistakes she makes.  That person might not even have the time to care.  And so I can see a case where my co-worker will continue to make mistakes because we couldn't or didn't step and tell her what she needs to do.

I/We have till New Year's Eve to tell my/our boss to tell her what she needs to do, and then we are all off on our own.  Don't know if it's going to be enough.  My frustration over seeing something that could have and should have been done already may very well continue unabated.