Work Frustration

Back-story: I am kind of like and independent contractor in a medical office. I rent out the space, but am not considered an "employee" there. I am also the sounding board for most of the people there. Aside from one part-time male doctor there, we're all women and all friends. Not to say that there aren't any problems, but for the most part it's pretty good.

Now, lately a lot of the girls in the office have had issues with the office manager. She has a habit of being very judgemental, dishonest, and a hypocrite. For example, she will talk to one of the girls about how they are sharing too much of their person life with one of the patients, but then the next day she will be going on and on about her boyfriend and their relationship with a patient (even if the patient is clearly not interested). Everyone (myself included) as noticed this particular situation occur one too many times, and it's not professional.

Now this office manager and one of the associates have had some run-ins lately. Mostly regarding scheduling issues. Just this Friday the associate had noticed a blank spot in her schedule and knew that with the patient load that she had earlier that day she would be behind and added a buffer. She went into her treatment room and came out a short time later to find a patient had been added where she had placed the buffer.

She questioned the OM about this and she stared right at her and told her "there was no buffer there". She lied right to her face. I was preparing to leave for the day and witnessed the whole thing. The assoc. told her that there was a buffer right there and she was sure of it because she added it herself. Then the OM started to back peddle and ramble about the person being in pain, and needing to come in, blah, blah, blah. What about the people that were in pain on the cancellation list that were waiting to come in? Apparently their pain didn't matter.

The assoc. was LIVID, but couldn't do much at the time since the OM's parents were sitting right in the waiting room at the time this all happened. She's not so angry about putting someone in when a buffer was there (it sadly happens all the time, and as a result she often will be running a half hour late by the end of the day). She is angry because the OM just lied right to her face, and didn't even apologize.

The OM sometimes will come to me for opinions on things as well, and it's getting harder and harder to be supportive when she is just blatantly abusing her power.

It will be interesting to see how things will unfold at work this week.