Hi,
I'm a white 18 year old girl and I've been working at a medical receptionist job since the beginning of May this year. I am the only white employee where I work, with the staff being about 10 people or so. I've noticed alot of wierd encounters and I can't tell if it's enough to quit or also if I'm being too sensitive.
I was told by another coworker that when I came for my interview the other girl at the front desk had made a negative remark about white people after seeing me. That same girl would go on to "train" me but was cold to me and seemed annoyed by my presence. We'd spend our time, even to this day, sitting in awkward silence. She has never liked me. Whenever I ask for help she lets my question sit in silence before giving me a stare and a short cold answer. It's hard to interact with this girl when she refuses to talk to me and only talks to our other two coworkers. I have this weird feeling of almost discrimination about this.
This same girl has a weird relationship with the doctor, our boss. She is constantly texting him, getting calls from him and going to his office to talk. I notice every morning when I work they talk about me. She also goes on to tell our boss false information regarding my work performance. Stating I don't do any work when I'm around, I refuse to use the phone and I sit on the computer doing nothing. This is very annoying and disregarding as I've tried my best since day one to be the best worker I can be at my first desk job. I'm constantly on the phone dialing patients, responding to missed calls, answering calls and even doing follow up calls. I've been called in multiple times into his office to talk about my lack of work efforts. This doctor also never praised my hard work but rather focuses in on any mistakes I make. He even brings up the fact I'm making mistakes when I haven't been. This is very frustrating. Even if I was making mistakes I'd appreciate if a coworker would bring it to my attention first rather than my boss's. It's gotten to the point where I'm no longer allowed to work on my own due to my boss being fed information about me being incompetent. I now am only allowed to work evenings instead of during the morning and day like I have been since I started. As of today one of our front desk girls will be resigning and there will be hours that need to be covered. I very eagerly offered my help to cover these hours as I'm very much available and would love the extra work. To this, they responded with it would be better to just hire someone else instead of having me help out. This was so disheartening to me. To have my help and work efforts dismissed as not enough. I'm not enough.
The boss is constantly watching us on cameras. There are 5 cameras just pointing to reception from all angles. He has sent us screenshots of him watching us on the cameras before and telling us to stop talking. He also brings up concerns and issues, like me being too friendly on the phone, that can only be known by watching us and listening to us. Sometimes if we're not working hard enough he'll look on the cameras to see them start sending us a list of things to do.
When I was still in my second month or so this weird boss had told me I was still in a probation period and that he has hundreds of more qualified candidates but he chose me. He said that I was lucky to be chosen when there are so many more qualified people he can choose from.
Why say that to me? Why hire me then?
He has also made comments before about how us as staff are very replaceable and what's the point of having us as staff.
He also has the two other girls check my every move I have done in the system. Checking every email I sent, every patient I booked and every fax I've sent. He even makes ONLY ME write down everything I did that day and all the patients I booked so he can have someone track down my every move and report everything I've done to him. Trying to find any little mistake they can on me.
I don't like how unprofessional some of the doctors are. The same doctor that criticizes my every move is constantly late to all of his patients appointments. He will book 9:00 a.m. appointments but will only come into the office at 9:30 a.m. while he has two or three people waiting on him. And obviously the patients get upset with me and I have nothing to tell them other than "I will inform the doctor and he should be here soon hopefully". This brings unneeded stress to me. Because they won't get mad at the doctor but they will remember me and my face and complain to me. It's annoying how he criticizes me so much when he has so many bad reviews on Google and he's always late.
Lastly, I was informed that the girl before me was a white girl left after 2 months due to similar circumstances and treatment that I recieved. It makes me upset that this is a repeating thing. All of the co-workers talk about each other and the other employees and it's so toxic I can't take it anymore.
I need help. It's getting hard to come into work when I know I'm just going to be brought down emotionally and it's challenging to still be my cheerful self on the phone in these circumstances. Alot of the other doctors really like me and I constantly get praised by patients about how much they love me. So it's frustrating that my boss still brings me down. I love this job so much physically. I love being a receptionist but I just can't keep going in this environment.
Do I quit?