Pros
There are some pros to working at CHOC. The doctors are very knowledgeable and working with SOME of the patients and families is enjoyable (the ones that really appreciate what you do for them and do not use and abuse the system). A few of my co-workers have made the enviornment a nice place to work. Had it not been for them and the dept. that I work for, I would have been long gone. It would def. be a pro if I were a patient in this hospital, we do everything for these people. I guess another pro would be that the entire time I have worked in this hospital, my office area has not been vacuumed once! Sometimes the trash even gets left for days and you start having a wonderful aroma fill the air.
Cons
Well, the first key to me that this place was dysfunctional would be the lack of training that I received when I was first hired. First, you have the big hospital general orientation for the first week, then after that you are basically thrown to the wolves and it is do it yourself training (or DIY as some of us like to call it). I know people that have been here for years and are still not doing processes correctly. Secondly, these are the most back stabbing people I have ever worked with. Definitely be careful of who you can trust, seriously, people will be running to your boss over any stupid little thing you say or do. Thirdly, my manager is horrible. I do not even know how this person has not gotten the boot yet--oh wait, yes I do, she kisses tail up the chain of command. Meanwhile, she treats her direct reports like crap by belittling them in the staff meetings among misc. other things. My best advice is, if you have a compaint about anything DO NOT be honest. Just walk around nodding your head pretending like everything is all hunky dory with a smile on your face. If you complain, it will backfire. As I stated above, it is a joy getting to know SOME of the patients and families. Others can take a hike! We do everything for these people (literally just about anything) and a large majority of them are not grateful. CHOC tolerates a lot of behavior that other children's hospitals in the southern CA area do not put up with (that's why they come here--all roads lead to CHOC)! Lastly, my favorite thing is when other employyes of CHOC (normally the bigs wigs or 'CHOC cheerleaders') as I like to call them come to your staff meetings talking about how wonderful everything is and it is great to be a CHOC because of BIG changes occuring. What they fail to mention is those BIG changes are layoffs, more backstabbing, and more grunt work for the peons!
