Lied to quit a BS clinical job today right before my shift! will this be an issue

[IcedCoffeeOnly]

I just lied to my manager to quit my clinical job before my shift today... They've recently been making me do a bunch of physical labor hauling patient charts to storage rooms nonstop and I didn't wanna waste my time doing something so obviously non clinical. I just don't see why I should give them 2 weeks notice for a minimum wage job where all they're recently making me do is dig through 10 years worth of patient charts and organize/move them. The job started out as taking vitals and MAing.

All my hours are verifiable, since I have direct deposit history from the doctor's office, but I fear I may have burned some bridges... now that I read back on my text I can kind of see the lie is kind of BS, but it's not something that's socially appropriate to ask more about.

Do you guys think this will hurt me when I apply? What if med schools call to verify hours and they say I didn't work there, or that I was a bad employee (I wasn't, they were bad employers!)? I'm not worried about them lying and saying I didn't work there because I have bank history of direct deposits... but what if they bad mouth me?

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[Gwynbleidd]

What if med schools call to verify hours and they say I didn't work there, or that I was a bad employee (I wasn't, they were bad employers!)? I'm not worried about them lying and saying I didn't work there because I have bank history of direct deposits... but what if they bad mouth me?

AFAIK contacts listed as a reference for an activity (not to be confused with a LOR writer) only verify the hours that were completed and are not expected to comment on your performance. People quit activities all the time in the middle of their cycles, it is what it is and quitting a job because you’re not using your full potential is…well, a valid reason to quit a job, in my opinion. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Maybe try to find a new clinical job to have something else to talk about during interviews.

 

[Catalystik]

I just lied to my manager to quit my clinical job before my shift today... They've recently been making me do a bunch of physical labor hauling patient charts to storage rooms nonstop and I didn't wanna waste my time doing something so obviously non clinical. I just don't see why I should give them 2 weeks notice for a minimum wage job where all they're recently making me do is dig through 10 years worth of patient charts and organize/move them. The job started out as taking vitals and MAing.

All my hours are verifiable, since I have direct deposit history from the doctor's office, but I fear I may have burned some bridges... now that I read back on my text I can kind of see the lie is kind of BS, but it's not something that's socially appropriate to ask more about.

Do you guys think this will hurt me when I apply? What if med schools call to verify hours and they say I didn't work there, or that I was a bad employee (I wasn't, they were bad employers!)? I'm not worried about them lying and saying I didn't work there because I have bank history of direct deposits... but what if they bad mouth me?

You are not obliged to include the activity on your application.

If you do, your Contact can be the payroll office, manager, a nurse that liked you, or whomever you wish that will confirm you worked there.

If the workplace is contacted by a school to verify the activity (and it is not a sure thing that they will), the responder is not asked for a reference, they are only asked to validate the dates/hours you said you worked there.

 

[GreenDuck12]

1. You can list yourself as the contact for verification of hours on AMCAS - just have documents to back it up IE your paystubs which would be more than sufficient.
2. Two weeks notice is not a legal requirement but can be a clause in your employment contract. If you break it you could be found in breach of contract but you've already left so there isn't much more your former employer can do.
3. In general, it is better not to burn bridges but you are under no obligation to continue working for someone if you do not want to.

 

[LizzyM]

You have lied and left your clinical employer in the lurch on very short notice. That tells me all I need to know about your integrity.

Good day, sir.

 

[shotgunlagoon]

You have lied and left your clinical employer in the lurch on very short notice. That tells me all I need to know about your integrity.

Good day, sir.

I'm not sure how critical their work of hauling crates of patient charts to storage... I don't think the employer is going through a crisis trying to call someone else in, you know? Still not great to quit their job on such short notice though.

 

[Radetzky]

Don’t worry about it. Nobody has time or energy to go chasing up crap like this

 

[LizzyM]

I'm not sure how critical their work of hauling crates of patient charts to storage... I don't think the employer is going through a crisis trying to call someone else in, you know? Still not great to quit their job on such short notice though.

Not saying that it is critical but it reflects on a person's integrity to quit a job on very short notice and to lie in order to do so. I think that the person should do some self-assessment of their professionalism and sense of responsibility.

 

[thumbz]

As above, just list a contact who doesn't know how you quit.

But, as LizzyM is alluding to, here's some food for thought.

When I was 14 working at a big box store I had relatives "die" CONSTANTLY so I could get out of work on short notice. Looking back I was a stupid kid and shouldn't have done that. No matter how insignificant you think your role is, it leaves someone in a lurch. They wouldn't pay you if you did a job that didn't need to be done, they'd get rid of you. Just keep that in mind in the future. Even if you feel like you've been bait and switched, integrity is quitting the right way (or saying hey, why am I not doing the duties I was hired to do anymore?).

Back in the day I had a coresident who let us all know they were quitting by not showing up for their ICU shift. It sucked for all of us who were scrambling to pick up the pieces.

I'm not going to say this means you'll be a bad doctor, because I don't think I'm a bad doctor. Just learn from it, build character from it, and keep being the best possible version of yourself

 

[YCAGA]

Other than something obvious like sexual harassment or intentionally hurting patients, lying is the biggest sin in medicine. Just...don't do it. It is never worth it. Even the must hard*** attendings will ream you way less for saying "I don't know" or giving them the embarrassing truth rather than catching you in a lie. Not saying the truth will always be pleasant, but lying will always be worse. And liars do get caught eventually.

Also from an employer perspective, if someone told me that they thought I was an annoying boss and did not fit at my company, I would at worst think they were annoying too and that they aren't cut out for X line of work for Y reason (unrealistic expectations and entitlement in your case). If I found out they lied about mental health/death in family/etc as a way to quit, I would question their integrity in all aspects of their life, not just whether or not I liked them. You can get through life without everyone liking you but the only people who tolerate poor integrity are not the kind of people you want to be around.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

You should really always give two weeks notice. I don’t know how somebody can quit so abruptly, would feel guilty. I have 3+ weeks of vacation and feel guilty using vacation days for med school interviews.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

Not saying that it is critical but it reflects on a person's integrity to quit a job on very short notice and to lie in order to do so. I think that the person should do some self-assessment of their professionalism and sense of responsibility.

No one is entitled to anyone's labor, especially when they are using you for labor unrelated to job description. Giving notice is a courtesy, not a rule, especially as no job would have an issue firing you with zero notice.

 

[Princeton Medical Student]

You should really always give two weeks notice. I don’t know how somebody can quit so abruptly, would feel guilty. I have 3+ weeks of vacation and feel guilty using vacation days for med school interviews.

You are conditioned to feel that way due to ****ty American culture when it comes to working yourself to death.

 

[GoSpursGo]

No one is entitled to anyone's labor, especially when they are using you for labor unrelated to job description. Giving notice is a courtesy, not a rule, especially as no job would have an issue firing you with zero notice.

I mean, yes... but one generally expects a professional to behave courteously.

OP, to answer your question this probably will not impact you negatively when it comes to applying. The biggest impact on your application will be that you can imagine you won't be able to get an LOR if you were previously counting on that, which it sounds like maybe your weren't anyways. Where it COULD hurt you, and where this may have been short-sighted, is that if you need another clinical job before you apply they absolutely will call your former employer for a reference. From your posting history it seems like like you've more or less finished you post-bacc and taken the MCAT, so unless you start traveling the world you're gonna need to do SOMETHING between now and when you apply next year, so indirectly this could hurt your application if you wind up with a large gap here.

In regards to the ethicality of not giving 2 weeks notice, as noted above the two week notice thing is a generally accepted courtesy but not a hard and fast rule. If the employer was truly asking you to do something that was outside the scope of duties laid out in your contract, then maybe you are justified in quitting with no notice. However, most of the time the job descriptions for these minimum-wage type jobs are pretty nonspecific, "help where needed" kinds of things. In which case, I suspect this kind of task was within the scope of your job, it just wasn't what you were hoping for when you took the job. Just because you don't like the work doesn't mean your employer was being exploitive. Presumably there is a reason they needed to have the charts organized and moved, and somebody has to do it, and when you're the bottom of the totem pole sometimes you get the work that nobody else wants. All of this to say that you are within your rights to quit if you don't like your job, but your employer is also within their rights to be pissed and give you a poor reference if you ever find yourself needing one in the future. Maybe that winds up being meaningless to you here, but there will come other times throughout med school and training where you'll have to do something that you think is probably beneath you, and you can't react this way when that time comes.

All of that said... you didn't just quit because you didn't like the job, you lied. That's never ethical, and again just because it is unlikely to catch up with you here doesn't mean that it's ok. You should have owned this decision, and it will complicate things even more if you ever do need a reference from this job.

Anyways, you probably only care about the first paragraph. I don't think you're necessarily going to be a bad doctor, because we were all young and stupid once. But you probably should have given 2 weeks notice, and you definitely shouldn't have lied.

 

[candbgirl]

I just lied to my manager to quit my clinical job before my shift today... They've recently been making me do a bunch of physical labor hauling patient charts to storage rooms nonstop and I didn't wanna waste my time doing something so obviously non clinical. I just don't see why I should give them 2 weeks notice for a minimum wage job where all they're recently making me do is dig through 10 years worth of patient charts and organize/move them. The job started out as taking vitals and MAing.

All my hours are verifiable, since I have direct deposit history from the doctor's office, but I fear I may have burned some bridges... now that I read back on my text I can kind of see the lie is kind of BS, but it's not something that's socially appropriate to ask more about.

Do you guys think this will hurt me when I apply? What if med schools call to verify hours and they say I didn't work there, or that I was a bad employee (I wasn't, they were bad employers!)? I'm not worried about them lying and saying I didn't work there because I have bank history of direct deposits... but what if they bad mouth me?

What was the reason they reassigned you? Did you ask how long this assignment was going to last and when you’d be going back to the MA job? What was your original job title?
And did you really TEXT your resignation and just quit on the spot? They might be glad you are gone. I wouldn’t put it on my application though.

 

[arnim]

Honestly this just sounds like a secondary prompt or MMI question