ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS
Zero To Family Hero-Chapter 2
The Last Straw, Part 1
The Story
I was not going any further. My boss at the hospital for the Laboratory Liaison Program (LLT) called me in to make me happy and sad at the same time.
Using an old cliche, she said, “You want the good news or the bad news first?”
“The good news,” I said.
“You have gotten the highest raise that I can provide. Your ability to draw blood is phenomenal, you can perform laboratory tests in hematology, chemistry, and biology labs with minimal supervision, and your reports are routinely in the patient charts the same day. “
“Thank you,” I said.
“The doctors love the way you leave both written and verbal notes of discrepancies and recommend follow-up tests. You are doing very well. Congratulations on another good year.”
“Ok,” I said. “The bad news?”
“You are at the top of the pay scale without getting a college degree of some sort,” she said, handing me a laminated sheet.
The sheet had the various jobs listed. For my foundation position, laboratory work, there were five categories (1975).
Walk-in $0 biweekly
Trained, no certificate $290 monthly
Certified, $600 monthly
2-year Associates degree $960 monthly
4-year Bachelors degree $1,200 monthly
PhD $1,250 monthly
I was stunned. I knew we had discrepancies in pay, but since everyone in the lab did the same work, it had never occurred to me that a college degree could make such a difference.
“We all do the same work. We use the same equipment. The LLTs do more work because we collect all of the specimens and put the results in the charts. We interface with the doctors to call in unusual results while the technicians run tests. It’s not fair,” I said.
“No, it’s no,” she said.
We sat silent for a moment. I was fuming.
“Society rewards documented education. To make more money, you will need a degree of some sort,” she said.
This entire conversation was stressing me out. I was on the right path. My grandmother had scolded my behind for wasting my mind and leading my family in the wrong direction.
I had straightened up, got a state certification, and worked hard to be the type of person she could be proud of instead of a zero.
Grandmother said that a zero did nothing, was about nothing, and cared for no one. A zero did not understand their impact on the world. They did not understand their impact on others.
A zero went through the world willy-nilly, impairing people by their actions and not seeing or caring about the damage.
My zero essence was that I was the older sister of five intelligent young people. I was on my way to show them how to party through life and achieve nothing. To make no lasting impact on the world with their actions.
I had changed my direction and thought I had a good plan to work at the hospital forever. In my mind, my good performance would cause my salary to increase indefinitely. Boy, was I wrong. I needed a new plan.
Copyright © 2018
Toni Crowe All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Toni Crowe retired as the Vice President of Operations to pursue her dream of being a writer. Toni has written six books, two of which won the 2019 Reader’s Choice Gold Awards. Her bestselling business book, “Bullets and Bosses Don’t Have Friends: How Do You Manage A Man Sitting With His Dick in His Hand?” was one of the winners. Her first book, “Never a $7 Whore” was the other.
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