• I truly wish our relationship could be different. I rarely speak to you except for what I have to discuss about my patients. Over the past 20 years, you have seldom asked me about my interests and family, nor have you shown any concern for me on a personal level. Most days I don't even receive a friendly "Good morning" when you walk in the door. You have paid me well and compensated my hard work with bonuses, but an actual acknowledgement of all my hard work would mean even more. You are quick to always point out something negative, but rarely do you have anything positive to say to my fellow workers and me. I have come to accept that you are just an unhappy person.
• The boss I work for is only interested in how much money he can make, and it doesn't matter how many employees burn up in the process!
• You don't appreciate any of your staff. You are a moody, self-centered jerk!
• Respect my profession of dental hygiene. I would love for you to appreciate what I do for this office and my patients!
• Since there are several things about our office that need to be "fixed," and several of these would be considered OSHA violations if we were inspected thoroughly, I'm not sure I would be able to find a Hallmark card to express my sentiments! I love my patients and what I do. But due to the economy, I can't find another dental hygiene job. I guess I could work at McDonalds. "Do you want fries with that?"
• Lighten up. You have a great team. Let them do their jobs.
• As I told the dentist in our huddle last week, "You could be a little sweeter around here."
• Take this job and shove it!
• People make your practice. When you treat employees as if they don't matter, then they no longer care about your practice. If you must cut benefits, completely disregard Christmas, and freeze wages, then don't show up in a brand new Mercedes!
• I love our patients because they are great people. I wish you didn't think of them as insurance payments.
• The economic pressures are too hard on her (the dentist), so she can't acknowledge me as an OK person.
• You have the smallest heart of anyone I know.
• Focus more on loving your patients, and less on over treating them!
• The doctor's wife is our office manager, and she is evil!
• I'm not asking for praise, but it would be nice if you did not contradict me in front of patients.
• Walk in my shoes. Stop thinking about yourself only.
• My boss is like working for Hitler. I've been with him for 16 years, and most of those years he's been very good to me. But with unemployment like it is, he has now decided to take away what few benefits we have and has become a boss with a very bad and controlling attitude. I have not had a raise in three years, and I'm a single mother with my youngest son still in college. The dentist has no empathy, even though our practice grossed $40,000 more last year than the year before. I am very discouraged right now.
• Go to some perio classes and learn that hygiene isn't just a "teeth cleaning."
• It is not always about production. Treat me like a member of your family and maybe we will continue with a good relationship (depending on how family members are treated, of course). I want to be happy and right now I'm not. Respect what I do and you will get more from me.
• I don't ever hear good morning, drive safe, or thank you. My boss shows up when he wants and leaves out the side door every day without saying anything.
• Hope you're enjoying all the money your three hygienists make for you.
• It would be so nice if you would realize how blessed you are by the employees you have and the good things they do for the practice. It would be great if you would acknowledge when those good things happen vs. always being critical and negative. And by the way, it would be nice if you would leave your personal problems and negative, tired attitude at home, like we are and should be expected to do.
• I wish my boss would be as kind and thoughtful to his employees as he is to his patients. He is a very kind man at heart, but he gets caught up in greed and expects his staff to do the same.
• He needs to appreciate the hard work his current team does for him or he won't have this team much longer!
• Thanks for starting (again) to make some changes around the office. I hope that things will start to turn around in 2010.
• I wish I could find a new job. I have never worked for an employer who is so much about herself.
• My boss is a complete jerk. He has a great staff and we all do our jobs well, but he doesn't appreciate anything we do for him. Unfortunately, there are not many jobs available in Michigan so we all have to keep our mouths shut and put up with his crap. This is the first time in 17 years of hygiene I have ever felt this way. I look in the classifieds daily so I might be able to start enjoying my career again.
• Go to hell!
• I wish I could say, "You do a great job of allowing us to implement new things, techniques, and equipment that allow this office to move out of the 1970s paradigm and into the 2000s!" But I can't.
• What you sow, you will reap. Don't come crying to me! Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.
• Grow up and stop behaving like a teenager. Be the professional that you portray to our patients.
• Happy Vision Day! She just laid me off after 11 years with the practice (10 days before Christmas). The reason: "I didn't follow her vision."
• My boss is non-responsive and we have found him to be untrustworthy. I found out after I was hired that he lives with his dental assistant, who is an incompetent alcoholic and gets preferential treatment in the office. It's a highly dysfunctional situation and my only allegiance is to the paycheck.
• Work is a two-way street. Meetings are not a time for lectures or threats. Meetings should be done to enhance the practice and solve problems by talking to employees and receiving feedback.
