Can I just have a mini rant about work, then pull myself back together again?

[MyGhastIsFlabbered]

I work for the NHS in a support role in an acute hospital. I started last October. I knew the role would be busy when I started, and generally I love it.

But...we have a team of (now) 7 consultants and 4 registrars. Each consultant is supposed to have their own secretary whilst a support secretary looks after the registrars. Since March we've had lost 2 secretaries and recruited the 7th consultant. There are 4 of us trying to do all the admin. We can't seem to recruit and as a team we're overworked, under appreciated...and we're just plain tired.

I do love my job and my team but we're getting more and more demands put upon us and morale is dropping tangibly day by day.

I know that I'm far from alone in this, and that others are facing even tougher times...but I just need a safe vent.

And now I'll go home, do my wife-work, not get enough sleep and do it all again tomorrow with a (half) smile on my face.

Thank you!

Have you spoken to your manager? And is your manager an admin person rather than a medical one? What do they say about it all?

We effectively have 3 managers. Our immediate manager is lovely but has absolutely no managerial experience, is half our age so doesn't really have much life experience and really doesn't get what the problems are. Our next manager up is on maternity leave and hasn't been replaced yet. And the manager above her has never introduced herself to any of us (lowly) admin staff since I've been there.

And both the managers we have got in place have both been on leave for the last (at least) week so effectively we've been left with nobody.

Do you have supervision with your line manager? Or team meetings? From reading your OP, they are actively trying to recruit but struggling, is that right?

We're supposed to have weekly 'huddles' which is the newest buzzword for meetings but they never happen.

We've been actively recruiting for months but the job spec on the advert is completely out of date but we're not allowed to change it. So we're getting completely unsuitable applicants.

I genuinely love my job but I just feel so tied and defeated.