|
|
Dec. 17th, 2009 @ 06:48 pm
|
|---|
|
So I don't think I've ever posted on here about my CLS license, but I think today is the day. Probably because today I'm finally almost about to maybe get my license. Kind of.
Back in July, I took my CLS exam through the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP). I then waited for my scores and license to arrive and merrily went on vacation. When I came back from my [two] vacations and started looking for a job, I realized that I still didn't have my ASCP exam scores, which means my license wasn't processing because the state needs to receive those scores before they can verify my CA state license.
Problem #1: My transcript from CSUDH was never sent to ASCP, because I ordered a "hold for degree posted" type of transcript like they tell you to do. Makes sense--what's the point of a transcript that doesn't say you finished the program?
Solution: Apparently there is no degree, so my transcript will never be sent. Waste of $8. Ordered a new transcript without a degree. Started looking for jobs, which is very hard to do without a valid license.
Problem #2: After I waited for the transcript to get to ASCP and them to send me my scores, I still hadn't gotten anything. When I called the ASCP office, I found out that they needed my UCLA transcript as well, which my professor told me they didn't need.
Solution: Ordered a UCLA transcript, rush, for $20. Got a job at UCLA during this time, by hiring as an apprentice under the training license that I was using at CSUDH for my clinical training. I get paid less than with a valid CLS license, but at least I'm still getting paid, right? And I could start my three months of training at UCLA instead of sitting around in my apartment waiting for my license (which in retrospect... I would be living in a hobo box right now if I'd chosen that route. See the rest of this post. Holy crap.).
Problem #3: After finally receiving my scores in the mail and waiting a week or so for the scores to get to the state office, I ask my coworker how long it takes the state to process the license and post verification online. (The reason they post the verification online, by the way, is because it takes an additional up to 180 days to send you the actual paper license. Which, granted, is not entirely their fault since they have to take a lot of furlough days now.) My coworker says, "Two weeks, if you gave ASCP your release letter already." Now remember, it's October something by now, and I took my exam in July. I hazily remember that I took a release letter to the exam site in July, and the test proctors said they didn't know what to do with it and gave it back. Again--listened to my professor, who apparently doesn't actually know how this process works.
Solution: I go online and order a verification to be sent from ASCP to the state office. $8 for them to EMAIL the state office my score. I'm so anxious by this time that I accidentally click the send button twice and get charged twice for TWO emails.
Problem #4: After waiting exactly two weeks, I email the person listed on the state website as being in charge of CLS licenses and ask if I'm missing anything. When I don't get a response, I call her every day that week. No answer.
Solution: I call the front desk, and find out that their personnel list is wrong, and a different person now does CLS licensing. I get her name and number.
Problem #5: I begin a calling/emailing campaign with this new person. Carol. Now, Carol does not have a voicemail that can receive messages. Isn't that convenient? Especially since she NEVER answers her phone, and apparently doesn't check her email either.
Solution: After calling literally EVERY DAY for several weeks, and emailing every 2 to 3 days with a new plea for help, I get this lengthy and helpful response: "Did you take the CA online quiz?"
Problem #6: Surprisingly, I never took the online quiz. Apparently they tell you to take it on the piece of paper that you give to the exam proctors, so while you're stressed and studying you have it, but as soon as you have time to think about something like that, the paper's gone, and you will never know that you were supposed to take this quiz.
Solution: I go on the website and try to take the quiz (10 simple questions about laboratory laws and licensing regulations).
Problem #7: Notice I said "TRY" to take the quiz. That's right--my login information, kindly provided by another state employee who I was also emailing to try to get help when Carol wouldn't respond, doesn't work at all.
Solution: I email Carol and about 5 other state employees, asking for a new login.
Problem #8: Carol never responds, and the other people can't help me. (This is going to be a theme here, by the way). Several more weeks pass while I call her daily, usually at lunch and again right when I get off work.
Solution: I email Carol and threaten to call her supervisors and managers unless she gives me a new login. She emails back within 20 minutes with my login information. I email her back in about 10 minutes saying that I finished the quiz and is there ANYTHING else I need to do to get my license? (Side note: I can see how people get drawn into crime. 3 weeks of nice emails and calls gets me nothing. 20 minutes of blackmail/threats and I instantly get what I want. I'm just saying...).
Problem #9a: Carol never responds. Shock of the century. I took my quiz on December 7th. If I wait the alleged two weeks for processing, and then find out that I didn't sign my name in blood on my exam, or didn't will them my firstborn child, or whatever other dumb requirement they have, I will then have to wait an additional two weeks, which would put my license verification sometime in January. 2010.
Problem #9b (which is a really huge problem and deserves about a hundred separate numbers): My training license expires Dec 31, 2009.
Solution: Oh, the solution is a LONG way off still. There's quite a bit of hyperventilating to go yet.
Problem #10: In response to a desperate email explaining my license situation (which is essentially that the second my training license expires, I can't work in the lab, so I will basically get fired from UCLA. Or have to quit, or whatever.), I get zero responses. By now I'm really panicking. I realize that, with furlough days and holidays, I have about 4 working days left to get my license. It's now Monday Dec 14th.
Solution (or at least what I was hoping would be a solution): I get the number for the Section Chief in charge of all licensing and personnel. I call him and explain my situation. He says, "Put it all in an email, and I'll take action right away." I drive home as fast as is humanly possible, write him a detailed email, and sit and wait.
Problem #11: The Section Chief forwards my email to all the supervisors and requests that they all reply in the same email chain so that we can "see the process move forward." No one replies.
Solution (kind of): I call the Section Chief again and explain that no one has helped me. He promises to print the email out and hand-deliver it to the supervisors. Then he hangs up on me.
Problem #12: I receive one response from a supervisor, which says, "Your name isn't on the list of people who have completed the online quiz. Did you take it?"
Solution (kind of): Even though I know I already took the stupid quiz, I go online and take the quiz again in five minutes and email her back my two quiz dates. She forwards my email to some other person to check to see if I took the quiz.
Problem #13: It's now today. Dec. 17th. T minus 14 days. 14 days to get my license, minus two furlough days, four weekend days, four holidays, and an endless number of possible vacation days. Correct me if I'm wrong on the math, but I'm pretty sure that comes out to about ZERO days left to get this license.
Solution (kind of): I call the Section Chief at lunch and leave him a somewhat hysterical voicemail explaining that I haven't gotten a satisfactory response (in my original email I asked for either the verification, or simply a date when I would get that verification), and that I will have to quit my brand new amazing job. I'm so far beyond desperate, it's not even funny.
Problem #13: Since the Section Chief didn't answer and didn't call me back during the afternoon, I'm seeing my last possible day to get my license before everyone goes on vacation tick away.
Solution (kind of): I call the front desk and beg to speak to a real live person. ANYONE, so long as they can tell me when I might get my license, when all the people I need to speak to will be on vacation, what else I need to do to get verification, etc... The front desk woman treats me like a hysterical madwoman, which I pretty much am, although at this point I'm more mad than anything. I'm thinking about suing the state for my lost pay (remember, this whole time--two and a half months--I've been underpaid at work because I'm an apprentice instead of a real CLS), lost job (eventually), and mental anguish. Which there was a lot of. She offers to email a supervisor for me (which she already did, incidentally, with no response). She also tells me that, in fact, no one is in the office right now except her. 3:15 PM on a Thursday. Apparently the day before a furlough day (Friday) everyone gets to go home a couple hours early, just for fun. Either that or Carol and all the other employees bribed the front desk lady to say that they're never in the office so they don't have to deal with me. It's a toss-up.
Problem #14: The last six solutions should not have counted as solutions. How is "There's no one actually in the office right now" a solution??!? But apparently SOMETHING in those last six half-solutions actually worked, because here is the [almost] final solution:
Solution: I got an email about an hour ago:
Your license will be ordered this week. Kindly check LFS verification system next week for licensure. This will serve as your temporary license for 90 days. www.cdph.ca.gov/progrmas/lfs. Your license will be mailed to you in 4-6 weeks.
So yes, it's not the actual license. The verification isn't posted online yet. The link doesn't even work (go figure). But STILL!! After that entire process, those 5 sentences are like reaching the summit of Mount Everest. A real person responded to me and gave me a time by which I will see my license verification. And probably the Section Chief is in a multiple-hour confessional over the guilt he must feel from my phone message, so if it isn't posted online asap, I think he will fix it for me.
So that's it. The saga is pretty much over. So here's my last thoughts:
It's just wrong to feel this happy about the resolution of something so stupid and ridiculous that should never have been a problem in the first place. It's just wrong to email those people back THANKING them for helping me, when really I should be suing Carol for her meager salary and furlough days. It's just wrong that my taxes are apparently paying them to jerk me around for months.
But I don't care. I don't have to quit my job. And thank god, I don't have to call their moronic office every day anymore. It's a good ending.  |
|
|
Dec. 9th, 2009 @ 05:07 pm
|
|---|
|
What did I do at work today?
I performed an alloabsorption on a recently transfused patient with a warm autoantibody and underlying alloantibodies. I did an eluate on a patient with a positive DAT. I screened units for Jka and crossmatched Jka negative units for a patient with an anti-Jka. I did an ABO discrepancy workup for a patient with weak reverse reactions. I did a cold agglutinin screen, including a full DAT. I did a full phenotype on a sickle cell patient. I performed two antibody titers on a mismatched kidney transplant patient who needed pheresis to reduce his antibody levels.
It was a pretty good day. |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
clearasmud's Friends Page