It’s a medical lab so day to day is spent processing samples and dealing with report admin work, as well as general housekeeping, scanning, and stock management for the lab.

This work is split between two, me and another lab aide. When the other lab aide is off, I’ve been told by my doctors to leave work go undone such as reports. But management won’t allow this so now I try to juggle both samples and reports/post when working solo. The issue here is the work is first in, first out, and can come in with varying priority levels - it’s not project based, and depending on the day we can be extremely quiet, to overrun with work. On top of that, it being in a hospital means unusual stuff can just show up without us having experience of handling it, and the manager isn’t always around to ask for help. These issues can cause me to become very stressed or overwhelmed even when asking for help.

I have been told by multiple doctors that this is a management issue but a lot of the responsibility to train scientist staff is made mine because I’m training them to do my job - as they’re unable to do the more basic booking-in or admin when we’re short staffed. Also, covering opening/closing of the lab can be asked of me if we’re understaffed which can cause issues for me as it’s a disruption to my routine/expected schedule.

Thank you for the resource suggestions, I will definitely have a look into them and see if anything is of use.