My Life Coaches are the Seven Deadly Sins

After hand washing the bigger dishes, I loaded up the small dishwasher before taking the rest of the night off. I had work tomorrow, which meant I had to plan for bus delays. Dillon wasn't wrong… life was ruff.

I blearily checked my phone for the time, it was only six ten and I was ready to go back to bed. Since I decided to catch the six twenty bus, I had left ten minutes early…I was regretting that life choice at the moment.

Worse… all seven sins had attached themselves to my key chain. I wasn't sure if I should be glad they had shrunk, or mourn that they insisted on following me around for the indefinite future. As I waited, two others had joined my great adventure of… waiting for the bus.

Thankfully the bus was a bit early, now I could relax for the thirty minute ride. As I walked across the street from the bus stop, I shivered in the early March chill. I needed a better jacket, maybe a raincoat too if I was going to be taking the bus for more than a few weeks.

I wasn't surprised Erika was waiting for me the second I walked through the employee entrance. I quickly stuffed my lunch in the already full fridge, good thing I enjoy Tetris then followed her out of the break room.

"You'll be training with Donna today, she'll give you the scripts, get your accounts started so you can log in, after lunch you'll start shadowing calls. You don't need to memorize the scripts, they change too often, part of being in health care, but I do expect you to be able answer questions on demand. Understood?" Erika demanded as she briskly walked to the furthest phone room.

"Yes Ma'am!" I had to jog to keep up, she was fast!

"Good, get your accounts set up first, perfect, Donna, this is Max. He's all yours today. Let me know if you have any problems, Athena was down yesterday so I need to know if things aren't working again." Erika rattled off before leaving.

Donna was probably in her mid-thirties, she was in sweat pants and a hoodie as she sipped on her coffee. Her dark brown hair was only held back by a struggling ponytail, large blue glasses, very pink socks. She was a little overweight, but otherwise she was average looking.

"Kay! Hey Max. I'm Donna, grab a seat and roll it over. That one is a training computer, here's the general log in." Donna offered handing me a folder. "Go ahead and start getting set up, I'll check on you in a bit. Scripts are in there too."

"Okay." I glanced around, the cubicles were surprisingly spread out, except these two. Mine was directly behind Donna's, no doubt to make it easier for training. I had two monitors, a landline, headset, two drawers… and a mat with a ball? I shifted the mat off to the side so I didn't accidentally step on the ball when I stood up. A spiked ball… the heck?

I logged in, then had to call support to get assigned an email. After I had my email I sent out over two dozen requests for accounts. Athena… looked a bit overwhelming… I was watching the training videos and started taking notes with lots of arrows… lots and lots of arrows.

"It's a mad house first week of the month, we have to verify every patient's insurance before their appointments. We take calls for seven walk in clinics, five primary cares, two women's, two physical therapies, and four pediatrics. Each room takes different clinics. For primary care we call the day before their appointment to confirm they will be arriving. It's keeping our no show rate down. It will probably take two or three weeks before you get access to all the insurance sites, so you'll be on Athena verification until then." Donna explained as they came back from lunch.

"Oh, I thought… Phreesia was for check in?" I asked looking over my notes… don't tell me I messed my notes up already…

"Oh, that's only for when they physically show up, or check in online. Don't trust the insurance verification, Phreesia is only good for updating demographics." Donna explained as she sipped on her tea.

I was mildly worried she would explode from caffeine overdose. So far, I had seen her drink two coffees, two teas, and a red bull all before lunch… "Oh, okay." My head was starting to spin… maybe I needed more caffeine…

Donna laughed, "It's a lot, but you'll get it. We don't usually deal with Phreesia, that's mostly front desk staff. Though we do sometimes get pulled to help out when its super busy.

I was grateful when I was finally free. My digital notes were already over four pages long. "See you tomorrow Donna, thanks for today!" I waved as I packed up.

"See ya Max!" Donna waved without looking up.

I debated taking the bus to the store to pick up headphones, a thermos wouldn't hurt either… but honestly, I couldn't afford them right now. I had to find a way to get another twelve dollars before Wednesday. So far I was putting my bus fare on my personal credit card but that was only delaying the inevitable.

"Max… we… need to… talk…" Ace called from my pillow.

I tensed, those were not words I liked to hear… I felt like I was being called into the principal's office. "Uhh, what's up Ace?"

Ace patted the pillow, "You're… not sleeping well… let's work on that." Ace said with a yawn. I glanced around the room, I mean, I'd been a bit tired at work but that was par for the course sitting nearly the whole time. It's not like my other jobs where I was constantly on the move.

"Uhh, I'm, adjusting is all." I tried to explain.

"No, you're sleeping… through… alarms… tired by… lunch… stay up past midnight… let's work… on sleep. For me." Ace added holding his arms out.

I glanced at the time… it was just after midnight. "Uhh, okay."

"We'll try… a few… different ways… see if any… appeal to you…" Ace said, "Phone… please…" he added. I pulled my phone out.

"You set… four alarms, three as… warnings, last… as real." Ace murmured tapping on my phone… but nothing happened. He offered it back to me.

"Uhh, yeah, I'm a heavy sleeper." I explained taking my phone.

"Let's try three alarms, but… phone out… of reach." Ace murmured glancing around the still mostly empty room. I didn't have a real cabinet or drawers yet.

"Oh! Like under the bed? That's out of reach!" Tony called as he ran in, then ran circles around my legs.

"Then… you can't… scroll… yeah?" Ace explained as I set three alarms to wake up. As they watched I placed my phone on the ground just out of reach if I was still laying down.

"Uh, okay, yeah. Let's try it." I then readied for bed, slid in, and waited to fall asleep.

Well, it kind of worked, not really. I rolled over, using the pillow to cover my ears to drown the alarms until my phone's battery died. By the time I woke up, I had five minutes to be out the door. Yeah, I missed the six twenty bus that morning, barely catching the six forty-five bus. I made it to work with less than two minutes to spare. Erika had only glanced at the clock as I rushed in. Definitely didn't earn any brownie points today.

Thankfully, I was catching on much better, I also had my own Athena log in. Phreesia was rejecting me… le sigh! I'd even started on voice mail duty. I'd listen to the voice mails, start a phone note, then send them to Donna. After she approved them, or had me make tweaks, they would be sent off to the providers, or relevant personnel. So far, lots of medication refill requests. 

That night Ace's next idea had been a set of three alarms, ten minutes apart, each progressively louder. I'd slept through the first, had lucid dreams of sirens during the second, and woken up irritated beyond all reason for the third.

Despite my best efforts yesterday, every little problem had me internally raging like a volcano ready to erupt. During a text exchange I snapped at Robby when he once again started asking for my address. I hadn't been rude, but my answers had been straight to the point with Donna all morning. Even the small annoyance of having Athena crash had nearly sent me over the edge. So… not trying that again.

In fact, it wasn't until lunch when the mail delivery girl had personally sought me out to deliver my first paycheck, that I was finally able to calm down.

I had to sign for it, but as I ripped it open I saw it, $214. I was so relieved I didn't even care that I had to take a taxi to deposit it today. I could have scanned it with the banking app, but that was still a three day processing.

As the funds in my checking account reflected the successful deposit I was teering up. I rested my head against the ATM with a deep breath of relief. Thank god. I didn't let the moment last too long as I stepped away to immediately send my rent out. Now I didn't have to worry about losing my apartment before I could even settle in.

I pulled up maps after I received the receipt confirming rent had been accepted. Looking at the bus routes, the closest one was three miles away. With a sigh, I started my nearly hour long walk.

It was after almost eight before he arrived home.

"We should break down your paycheck so we can have a realistic idea of what you'll bring home bimonthly." Reed called as soon as the door was locked.

I blinked at the green rabbit, "I'm exhausted Reed, I'm going to shower… and sleep." I did exactly as I said, crawling into bed, my shoulders, feet, neck, and back were all so sore… maybe I should invest in the back pillows like the others. New shoes wouldn't hurt either… I'd probably walked more in the last month than in the last six combined.

At least for now, my biggest worry was Robby coming to pick me up Friday... talk about fun.