See here for
essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/11/malinformation.html.
A while ago I wrote an article about the pros and cons of civvy receptionists, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/04/civilian-receptionists-yay-or-nay.html. Along with Rebecca another character stands out in my mind. Her name was... I'll call her "Marjorie". Marjorie was different to the other receptionists brought in by ISS Mediclean when they took over the service. She was older, close to retirement, and had no experience or training with the company or NHS. She was local and lived around the corner from where I used to live, although I never knew her previously. She made herself very unpopular with the portering staff from the get-go because she immediately appointed herself de facto supervisor of the department even though she held no portering grade at all. Her role was receptionist and dispatcher in the Maternity unit, later the Women's Centre, with no formal authority over us at all. She was also made a minor celebrity by being featured in the hospital newspaper in the column Radcliffe People, a spot that gave a profile of a particular staff member in each issue. This was an honour never afforded to me in all twenty-three of my years, yet Marjorie made within a couple of months. She was the right kind of staff member, you see. It seems she was being groomed by management to play this role; she was encouraged to act like our boss even though she wasn't. I remember she insisted on always keeping the key to the lodge safe so we couldn't even access our payslips without her permission.
A while ago I wrote an article about the pros and cons of civvy receptionists, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/04/civilian-receptionists-yay-or-nay.html. Along with Rebecca another character stands out in my mind. Her name was... I'll call her "Marjorie". Marjorie was different to the other receptionists brought in by ISS Mediclean when they took over the service. She was older, close to retirement, and had no experience or training with the company or NHS. She was local and lived around the corner from where I used to live, although I never knew her previously. She made herself very unpopular with the portering staff from the get-go because she immediately appointed herself de facto supervisor of the department even though she held no portering grade at all. Her role was receptionist and dispatcher in the Maternity unit, later the Women's Centre, with no formal authority over us at all. She was also made a minor celebrity by being featured in the hospital newspaper in the column Radcliffe People, a spot that gave a profile of a particular staff member in each issue. This was an honour never afforded to me in all twenty-three of my years, yet Marjorie made within a couple of months. She was the right kind of staff member, you see. It seems she was being groomed by management to play this role; she was encouraged to act like our boss even though she wasn't. I remember she insisted on always keeping the key to the lodge safe so we couldn't even access our payslips without her permission.
Along with the general sense of privilege Marjorie was
encouraged to feel was a certain amount of malinformation. For some reason,
when there was any kind of mysterious criminal behaviour in the hospital,
porters were always the first to be blamed, especially by her. This is despite
the fact that, as I've explained before, all the worst offences in the OxRad
world were committed by civilians, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/05/killer-nurses.html.
There was an instance in the late 1990's when a number of staff had complained
that their lockers in the Theatres department had been broken into and items of
value had been stolen. When I was speaking to Marjorie about it she didn't go
as far as automatically to accuse the porters, but she did say: "I can't
imagine a nurse doing that." I could have made the point that she had
almost no experience of hospital life, let alone awareness of the scandals I
have reported on, but I didn't. With retrospect it was just as well because it
turned out that two porters were to
blame. A pair of brothers who suddenly handed in their resignations and left
the country just before the net closed. I'm the first to admit we HP's are not
perfect, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/12/hps-and-psychos.html.
Despite this, it annoys me that Marjorie was enticed deliberately by management
into this narrow-minded and entitled attitude. She was clearly being used by
them for some purpose... but I'm not sure what exactly.
(The illustration above is not an actual image of Marjorie.)
(The illustration above is not an actual image of Marjorie.)
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