So I started a new job the week before Christmas and I’ve been feeling anxious ever since. I work full time and have a 1 year old and a 2 year old. I was previously in retail management but I was struggling to manage home life and the unsociable hours so I now work as a dental receptionist 9-6, weekends off and only a 5 min walk instead of 20 min train and same money. So on paper it’s perfect really.
It’s currently me and 2 other receptionists and dental nurses help out on the desk too. There is no direct management of reception so I’ve been trained by the other 2 receptionists but mostly I have to ask a lot of questions to know what I’m doing. Therefore I felt like I was second guessing a lot at the very beginning. Even now I’m aware I’m still making a lot of mistakes which I’m stressing about when I get home and on top of that pretty much every day mistakes from when I first started as well as more recent ones were brought to my attention by 4 different people. I also don’t feel like the actual work atmosphere is the best either, everyone seems to talk about each other or join in with gossip. Last week the 2 receptionists I work with had a full on argument about a blind being open which resulted in one of them leaving the desk for an hour and then eventually going home early. As a result reception was left short int he afternoon and typically the WiFi went down which resulted in long queues of patients as we had to complete all tasks on paper/manually. Apparently this is ‘normal’ for them to fall out
as they’ve never got along and they’ve only been amicable with each other for the sake of working together. The next day (Friday) the other receptionist also ended up leaving the desk after half an hour as she had put the phone down on a patient who subsequently then came into the practice to make a complaint and she left as she couldn’t deal with the situation and worked in another part of the building for the rest of the day leaving reception short again. Just after I had to deal with the patient complaint until a manager became free one of the dentists said I’d booked an appointment on the diary wrong which meant she had to wait around and would impact her next appointment and to make sure I hadn’t done that with any of her other appointments. I knew I hadn’t as the appointment I booked wrong was when I had only been there 5 days so I knew that I probably hadn’t been shown what to do by that point. I had a message from another dentist to tell a patient that she was running late and on my way back from speaking with the patient the same dentist that had just told me about the appointment being booked wrong wanted to know what I’d said to the patient about her appointment being late and I said don’t worry I literally just said the dentist was running late not why etc and then she said ohh good okay and then I just started getting upset. I’d been holding it in all week and basically just feel like I’m not doing a very good job and making mistakes etc. she was really nice about it and said to just go at my own pace and not to worry about making mistakes as I’m still learning and maybe I need more training etc. I think she said something to management or the receptionist who was on the desk with me Friday as later that day she started saying that if I need more help to just ask and if I’m busy with a task then to just say and the patients can wait etc. I thought this was odd and asked her if that dentist had said something to her and she said no but management had spoken to both her and the other receptionist and said that they were worried that I might leave because of their behaviour last week and it would be there fault if I left. Honestly it’s so ridiculous and I actually do feel like leaving now 2bh because the last thing I wanted was to work somewhere where there is drama or where I feel like I’m constantly worrying that I’ve not done a good job. I have enough going on at home.
I spoke to my MIL about it on my lunch break on Friday as I was so upset after crying in front of that dentist and worried everyone would find out that I was upset etc and she thinks it sounds like a very toxic place to work and I should just find a new job asap.
As I’m super new to reception work though (no previous experience apart from retail management/ customer service) I feel like I need to stay at least a year before applying for a new role somewhere similar but maybe fully private. I used to work in luxury retail so my customer service standards are very different to what I have experienced in my new job so far and I know I’m new and it’s normal to feel like I don’t fit in yet but I feel like my values are very very different to some of the girls that work there and also much younger than me too.