One day, out of the blue, I find out from my girls that we have a new medical intern, Miao Miao Zhang. I was especially perturbed since some shithead neglected to tell me, fearing that I might protest.
Since there is always a conflict when it comes to authority, I can’t even begin to tell how many times my stomach has acted up from this constant tug-of-war. Fortunately, I get lots of free samples of Nexium to calm me down or I’ll personally perform colonoscopies on Rich with oversized medical equipment – because, yes, I’m REALLY pissed.
After firing Yuki and Kitty, I have declared ALL hirings must go through me. It’s not that I’m a good judge of character, oh no, I’m a big sucker. hell, I’ll probably take a bum right off the street. But I do know how to cover my ass and quickly fire their ass should things go horribly wrong.
Miao Miao (what a fucken STUPID name) isn’t Fukienese, doesn’t know much English, claims to understand basic Cantonese, and is Pekinese (yeah, like the stupid breed). She first walked into our office as a patient and excitedly asked the doctor if there were any openings for a nurse.
He told her there were always internships available for entry-level medical assistants and all she needed to do was show up. Apparently she didn’t know what the word internship meant, nor was she a fully-trained nurse. In fact, she was a nursing student struggling in her ESL courses at some local college out in Staten Island. Perfect candidate, yah?
When I finally got to see her, she was this retarded 5’8” Chinese female who giddily skipped from the office to the exam room. Oh no. Another fricking Ping (http://lindamah.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html).
Whenever she called the next patient in, this was her routine:
1) She’d hold the chart with both hands,
2) Bow to the patient,
3) Usher the individual into the office,
4) Hand the chart over to Rich with two hands,
5) Bow to him as well.
6) She’d girlishly tell the patient “to please have a seat”, gesturing with her right hand,
7) Then she’ll make a 180 degree turn so she could close the door.
Can you imagine if we were see 60 patients? I’d have a migraine if I had to bow THAT many times.
Oh wait…when the patient was done, she’d once again bow to him/her and say farewell. She’d open the door, present a big and crooked toothy smile along with her arm extended. Yeesh, you’d either think she was a hotel concierge or someone who huffed a bottle of white-out.
Early on, Rich knew she was quite useless, so he insisted that she "observe" and kept most of the work away from her. My goodness, this girl was completely confused, didn’t understand internal office operations, and unlike some folks, her idea of “observation” was to stare out in space and twirl her hair.
Because she bragged of her ability to understand English, I used medical terminology for training purposes. Later on the day, I knew my training was completely moot when she asked me what cholesterol and hypertension was – in fact, she insisted that I write down in English and Chinese for her. OMFG.
Back when I trained Tinny, Tina, and Vivian on how to use the centrifuge, I would say, “spin” the blood instead of “centrifuge”. Technically they’re my administrative staff, so it wouldn’t matter to them what the actual terms are. These girls are already doing more than what their titles indicate.
Upon realizing her cluelessness, I had both Tina and Vivian re-train her in Mandarin. Shit that trained monkeys could do, this bimbo made those monkeys look like geniuses. She really didn’t understand how to match up specimen tubes by number and placed every tube in individual specimen bags. In my plain English (remember, I know how to talk to little kids because of Mikayla), I specifically told her – look at the number and match the form, there are 3 tubes – yellow pee-pee one, purple one, and red one. Okay? Yes? Repeat after me…
[FYI - I even trained Wendy, Joyce's 11-year-old sister and she did a GREAT job in my office.]
When I double-checked her work, one of the lab forms had urinalysis checked off and hey, no pee could be found! Somehow, Einstein stuck the WRONG label on the urine tube.
Just brilliant.
After scouring the entire area, we were dumbfounded since we couldn’t figure out how the mix-up took place. In desperation, we all went on a scavenger hunt - Tina was looking behind the medical cabinets, Vivian went on all fours trying to see if rolled off somewhere, while I fished through the garbage cans.
In the end…one female patient was short U/A while some guy probably has her extra pee. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was diagnosed up with urinary tract infection.
Frustrated as hell, my 19-year-old receptionist pleaded with me – PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T LET HER SORT THE BLOOD SPECIMEN OUT…I’D RATHER DO IT MYSELF!!!!
The last time I heard those words were spoken by some corporate veteran who's a perfectionist in his/her work and been around the block. They’d rather take on the extra workload than to undo someone's snafu. Usually when your boss gives away your work, nobody gives a shit. Heck, I didn’t even think like that when I was 19…so kudos to Vivian for not being selfish and willing to extend herself.
Tina was giving Miao2 the benefit of the doubt…I shot down the idea IMMEDIATELY. I know an inept schmuck when I see one.
When I instructed Miao to clean the office for sanitization purposes (as dictated by Dept of Health), she proudly dug up a bunch of alcohol prep pads from her handbag. Oh-kay. Not sure what her point was…
Like a kid who brings in a cool toy to show off, she happily showed us her wedding picture (yes, she galloped over to us). Ehh, no one was really impressed. She was beaming about her one-year anniversary and blah, blah, blah. I really couldn’t understand what the heck she was yapping because not only was my Mandarin limited, but she had a problem opening her mouth when she spoke. She had this strange offbeat habit of speaking through her teeth/lips, so she mumbled most of the time. It’s almost like talking with a mouthful of Nerds in your mouth w/o spitting at someone.
And the revelation came: she announced to us that her English name was Grace. In actuality, she pronounced, "Goo-ray-se" which sounded more like "Colace" to me. Just so you know, Colace is a stool softener found in your local pharmacy.
OMFG - I felt my ears burn. ANOTHER HWUCKING GRACE. Then I began to tell the girls the stories about the previous Graces and how much physical damage the second one did and how the first one stalked my ass down. From this point on, I knew nothing good was gonna come outta the wacko.
The following week, I was AWOL and Tina had to put up with the retarded pea-brain. By the end of the day, Tina had learned a valuable lesson about giving useless assholes benefit of the doubt. Hey, somebody’s gotta start somewhere, huh?
This time, Thumper skipped over to Tina and exclaimed, “Ting-Ting, we have an extra pee today!”
Assuming the worst, Tina thought this extra urine specimen was last week’s lost item. Again, poor Tina turned the whole place upside down double-checking for missing specimens. While Miao Miao skipped around the area in her usual retarded la-de-da manner, Tina finally seized the opportunity and snuck into the exam room. Lo and behold, the other specimen and form was sitting right on the countertop. Miao, who was basically confined in the exam room, never even checked the area.
Tina also tried to show moronic Miao at least six times how to measure the patient’s height on our digital scale. Of course, this idiot didn’t get it and somehow measured a petite 5’2” woman as 6’3” (we’re Chinese goddamit, how many fricking people are really that tall anyway???). Tina caught the error right away, but Miao sensed nothing wrong with the measurement.
And yes folks, this is the future of our healthcare. No wonder mortality rates are rising every year.
During one weekend, I had Tinny come in because I needed the Saturday off (with Mikayla, of course). So both Tinny and Tina, partners in crime, would team up to fend off any silly Miao-isms if they could. After all, how do smart people compete with the dumb? You can’t, because I realized it’s difficult to dumb-down. Their own line of rationale is just too far-fetched for any normal human being to harmonize with.
When I finally hauled my ass up there, the ladies were giving me this funny look. Immediately, I assumed some out-of-control patient had offended them, but no, Miao had done some serious damage already. She was now officially on their shit list.
First off, Miao Miao hopped over to Tina and pointed to her chin. Tina assumed she meant there was some food or ink on it and vigorously tried to rub it off. Miao exclaimed, “No Ting-Ting, your face is about to fall off!”
Um, you don’t really say something like this to any girl. Especially to one who is ultra-sensitive about her acne-prone, oily complexion. Tina had recently visited a dermatologist and was prescribed some serious meds which literally eradicate your entire face. The product was so drying and it hurt like hell, so parts of her face began to flake. I know, because I went to the same guy and got the same prescription!
But it didn’t end there…during lunch, Miao noticed the girls were eating while standing up. Since real estate in my office is prime, there’s not a whole lot of room to park your ass and eat. However, there is an extra shelf on the cabinet and someone (Tinny) usually stands while eating. She declared with such conviction on how Tinny’s stomach would “look like a fat pregnant woman because [she’s] eating while standing up. [She’s] supposed to be seated when eating in order to aid in digestion and to prevent flabby stomachs.”
Oh no.
Tinny is conscious about her size and weight (although I’d rather have curves than be flat as a board and stuck with a ‘muffin top’ – fat spilling over my waist). I’ve teased Tinny a few times and hopefully apologized for saying the wrong thing, but hell, this is so not cool.
[On a side note, I still can’t understand how Tinny decided to go on a ‘special’ diet ixnaying any alcohol intake – it’s like telling an Irishman he’s not allowed a pint of ale.]
Two very serious strikes, thus far. OY.
Then she decides to pounce on top of my head just so she could show me her college ID. Wha? I know she was desperately trying to mingle with us, but her attempt at socializing sucked. With all that prancing, you’d think she was Mikayla’s age. No, this is a GROWN woman who's 27 years old. It wasn’t that she didn’t look her age, hell hwucking no, she didn’t ACT her age. Ugh.
After the first meeting, I knew right then and there she was a deadbeat. There are those individuals who need a little guidance and training, but this one? No, she’s in the category of “Hyena Food”. When I was in Fido, I would always utter my infamous phrase, “Man, throw her in a pit filled with hungry hyenas and they ain’t even gonna eat her.”
It was clear to me that she never worked a day in her life, depended on her momma for everything, couldn’t tell the difference b/w inches to cm, lacked proper work etiquette, possessed no phone skills, and was dense as hell. Unfortunately, a lot of these black-haired bimbos exist in China because life has been WAY too good for them. They really don’t know what their grandparents suffered and take everything for granted. What irritates me most is how they perceive American children as stupid spoiled brats while these guys have no survival skills of their own.
I can blog and bitch all day about this particular topic alone.
One day, she walked in 2 hours late because she had to run a so-called errand to buy something. When she got to the office, she was so excited about her purchase that she hopped over to Tina donning her brand new pink flowery scrub. The fool was so consumed with being cutesy-cute causing Tina to suffer massive bouts of nausea. Unfortunately, we don’t have any samples of Dramamine in the office.
It gets better. She makes a huge claim about how she was a model in China and really, the girls gave her a blank look which says, "Uh yeah, and so?"
So when Tina told me about this, my sarcastic self takes over - you mean, she's been posing with those boxed VITASOY soy bean milk drinks? I immediately grabbed a nearby item and shoved it up right next to my face.
http://www.vitasoy.com.hk/eng/advertisement/80.html
Miao's super thin - to the point where I suspect she has an eating disorder. If you look at her wrists, you can see the bone jutting out and it ain't pretty. Meanwhile, Tina's been trying to avoid looking at face because her eyebrows are completely misshapened. Each glance throws the poor girl into hysterical fits of laughter.
You know me, there's only so much stupidity I can endure. It had gotten to the point where Tina could no longer tolerate her retarded behavior and was giving her the cold shoulder whenever she was around. I didn’t need anybody to put a damper on our teamwork and camaraderie. I mean, all she did in my office was take up floor space.
I asked Rich when her term was up because I no longer wanted her around. He didn’t care either way because it was ‘free labor’ and would speak to her about her performance soon. Before any of this took place, the hippity hoppity idiot began to drop hints about compensation. She insinuated how she was on Medicaid, preferred to be paid in cash, and couldn’t make too much money and blah, blah, blah. Because of the way she spoke, everyone ignored her.
A few weeks back, I had mentioned to Rich that she was trying to figure out what the girls’ salaries were. Although Rich told her that she wasn’t going to be paid for her services, Vivian was informing me how the bimbo thought otherwise. When I asked him to nip this issue right at the bud and come clean, in his usual fashion, shrugged it off and told me to leave it alone.
Fine.
So now with her hints, it was evident to Rich the issue cropped up like a nasty sebaceous zit. He was clearly irked by her beating around the bush and decided to let her sweat it out a bit. Like me, he was pretending not to notice and let her hummula-hum-hum on.
So…finally what broke the ice?
Moronic Miao decided she was unavailable to come in for work since it was apparent that wages weren’t being furnished to her.
Two days later, my office received a fax from somebody's momma requesting wages on behalf of her daughter who provided “excellent and professional service”. On paper it sounded as though she was some cheesy escort - since when I did run golden deflowering services?
I also wondered who her momma paid to compose the letter – if Miao can’t figure out from her ass to her elbow, how is it possible for this woman to write oh so confidently in English? To credit her, it was quite well-written for these Social schmucks. Oh, I did forget to mention that the momma is a doctor? Or so that mewling whiner says.
Whatever. Like it’s supposed to mean something?
You ain’t Curt Smith or Roland Orzabal. Like hell do I care.
In response to the “offensive” fax, Rich calls her up to properly discuss the issues up front. He told her point blank that her mother never interned in our office, therefore had no right to discuss anything on her behalf. In sum, Miao refuted in her Communist lingo the ultimate reason why she never discussed wages with him – it was improper to discuss money during office hours of operation.
Hmmm…makes sense, huh?
And I love Heather's response to Miao's comment:
It's improper to discuss money during work hours. I didn't know you were running a Red Cross field hospital in Afghanistan. (snort)
Since I had prepped Rich in a biting tone a few hours earlier, he asked her – if wages were to be paid – how come no W-4 was signed, no negotiations, and no time sheets written up?
Uh, uh, uh…
Because he didn’t nip the bud when I asked him to, he swallowed his pride and decided to bite the bullet. After a heated oxymoronic conversation, he finally agreed to pay her the minimum wage. The mewling rat’s face dropped to the floor. She was absolutely confident in her abilities and it never occurred to her that she would be paid half of what Medical Assistants usually make in Korean clinics (no seriously, she really did say Korean clinics. But I'm paying her Communist wages).
She actually kept a log of the hours she worked which was a little higher than my original guesstimate. So I went home, remained furious at the dumb spouse, and struggled to compose a CYA letter just in case she pulls another stunt on us. Because I lopped off 2 hours from her presumed total, I don’t want her scratching at my door for more money.
But my brain didn’t work too well. Unfortunately, I ‘lost’ my HR vernacular which was the newest skill I acquired during my tenure in Tax. It’s weird how I learned nothing about taxation, only how it sorta gets reported to the IRS (not what gets reported, hyuk!). I spent most of my time covering my ass and managing stupid people above and below me.
I did what my brain could at the ungodly hour and came up with this half-assed letter:
May 18, 2007
Dear Dr. Chun-Kit Chan,
On this day, I hereby accept this check in the amount of $185.90 for my services rendered at CKC Medical Office, P.C.
I have agreed to be paid based on a minimum wage of $7.15 per hour - for the total of 26 hours, including deductions of my latenesses previously incurred. Due to lack of prior work experience, I realized that my entry-level position in this firm is “Intern” and not “Medical Assistant” as I have incorrectly presumed.
Upon signing this letter, I shall not seek any further compensation with CKC Medical Office, P.C. nor shall I acquire any representation, legal or thereof, to inquire upon or pursue in this matter. CKC Medical Office P.C. has the right to revocate this offer should any inquiry be made by myself or by any parties representing on my behalf.
Under management’s discretion, I understand that the termination of my internship here is based on my poor performance, severe lack of English language proficiency, and for failing to meet productivity standards set forth by the firm.
_______________________________
Miao Miao Zhang
I deliberately italicized the letter to make it difficult for to read and to sign it quickly. As I predicted, she walked in, signed the letter, and walked out in less than 3 minutes.
If you name your kids Grace, I may have to reconsider our friendship.
