As a full-time clinician/ VA provider I can say that at least about 80% of my daily EFFORT (patience, concentration, execution of tasks, etc.) is directed toward the non-clinical bureaucratic overhead tasks that have absolutely ZERO to do with my qualifications, training, and specific competencies as a clinical psychologist. I spend much of my day 1) proactively scanning for/ detecting up front errors made routinely by other staff members (e.g., constant double-bookings or other 'mistakes' by MSA's); 2) followup tasks of 'quarterbacking' things all-the-way-through-to-frigging-completion-step-by-excruciating-gawd/damned/step through the godforsaken bureaucratic landscape including doing hand-over-hand prompting of other staff members over whom I have zero authority but 100% responsibility for; 3) running into 'brick walls' all day long with technology, having to re-logon to this system, getting halfway through entering questionnaires into MHA-WEB and having it crash on me, photocopying all of my own forms and materials, literally tracking down the guy who I heard can be a 'source' for three ring binders for me and then finally getting the commitment for him to be at his station as I walk over a quarter mile in the rain to the basement of the hospital to lug it all back to my office.
SImple case in point. Recently moved to a new area of the hospital and my supervisor correctly built my clinic grids and forwarded it to whomever to execute the 'epas' request or whatever...bottom line is they should have not even had clinic availability built during the time of our monthly staffing meetings. Well, I proactively looked at my schedule to discover that I had a patient scheduled at that time (conflicting with staff meeting). Now, in order to cancel or reschedule a patient <45 days out, we are required to submit a formal memorandum (signed by everyone up and down the chain of command) for approval for permission to do so including the reasoning. So I did that. After 2 weeks of non-response, I went to my supervisor who recommended I send a followup email. They then tell me to make some minor adjustment to the form, which I did, and sent it back. Now, when it is 'approved' I will need to 'quarterback' the cancellation of the client (doing hand-over-hand prompting of the clerk until this is completed), and then formally submit the blocking request for that hour and await 'confirmation' from them. So...because other people failed to correctly do their job in the first place (correctly implementing the grid that my supervisor correctly submitted to them), I have had to deal with a 'project' for nearly a month simply to correct their mistake. This just one example of about 50 things that are on my weekly to do list that I have to constantly do some little thing (check the schedule, compile a memo, send an email, follow up on x, y, z with staff member or supervisor m, n, or o, coordinate schedules with Tim, or Tina and John...) that has absolutely nothing to do with my primary job responsibilities and qualifications and has everything to do with the fact that, as a provider in this system, I am at the crossroads of everything, have no actual authority and infinite levels of 'responsibility' of covering for other people's mistakes, failings and contradictions within a vast overly-complicated and oftentimes self-contradictory cluster-bargle of a system.
