800ml (Part 3)
My Relationship with the Plasma Donation Industry: Love, Frustration (Anger), and Financial Empowerment
To read the first two parts of this, please click on the links below!
Re-read
Part 1
Part 2
Skip to Part 4
I want to thank you for the excellent response to the first two posts. 1000s of views, hundreds of emails supporting my discussion. It’s really cool to be able to discuss this with many people, including ex-employees in the plasma industry, current donors, prospective donors, and just people curious as to what I am talking about. This is a subject I never saw anyone write about in length, and proud to be the first. Hopefully there’s not a lot more issues that cause me to write more.
UPDATE: On Saturday 2/11/2023 - I had the SAME damn issue with the BP cuff. I walked into the screening room, had the cuff placed on my arm and my diastolic was 101, which is 1 point over the maximum allowed. I was told to sit for 15 minutes, and for 15 minutes, I just stewed.
Like everyone else, the gas bill at home was 2-3x more last month for whatever bullshit reason they told us on TV.
I always found it funny that oil companies like Shell and Mobil will tell us a cold snap in another state is the reason gas prices went up 50 cents. These companies are TRILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES and sweater weather impacts them so much that we all have to pay 9-10 dollars more for gas? Isn’t it a little scary if it were true that a few degrees difference can impact a titan of industry like that? That’s why I think it’s fake.
Anyway, that’s another blog. But the gas bill was high, and the fact that I was sitting in the retake area waiting to take my BP again, knowing that if I get deferred, that gas bill will hit harder started to piss me off. But I wasn’t going to let that emotion take over my body.
Fifteen minutes later, I had a retake and I had a 92 diastolic, which is 8 under the max. You would figure that my BP would have gone up in that 15 minutes waiting, right? Yeah, me too… But I tried a different way of sitting, different way of placing my arm, and I even read a different products ingredients (Wipes instead of sanitizer) and I miraculously passed.
I’m sure none of the stuff I did had anything to do with passing the second time, but I found my way to the donor floor to donate. I passed through some sort of carnival trick I must’ve unknowingly done. The BP Cuff is like the basketball shooting game at the carnival. You see the big giant prizes you can win, and you take your shot, and it’s not until you are nearly done that the game is rigged against you. The rim is bent a different way. Yes, you can make it still, but unless you have pinpoint accuracy, you will fail.
That’s become me with this damn machine, and apparently others according to staff. I talk to everyone at the center, and no less than 3 separate times since the new BP cuff came back have I been told, “Yeah, the new cuff has been giving some people problems.”
I don’t get mad at them when they say it, because I know… That’s why I am writing this. But here’s the thing. If three people told me the same thing, don’t you think even for a second that there’s validity to my small cuff throwing out false numbers claim? I would say there’s enough there to warrant a discussion. But last year, it took months of discussion, and here we are again, myself and others who are potentially losing much needed money because a cheaper, consumer product that was not meant for heavy use has taken over for a commercial product designed to be used heavily.
Much like everywhere else, this place has staff meetings. I know this, because there are times that they aren’t open on time because of an “all-hands” meeting early in the midweek morning. How has this not come up, and how has management not said, “Hmm.. There’s something to this?”
Because as a manager, and I know this because I was one for a decade, you have other things on your plate, namely a sales quota/goal. But ironically enough, this issue can impact that, so why not give it credence?
Anyway, it is hard being a manager. I hate putting anything on someone’s plate, but this issue is so important to me from an ethical standpoint, and a processes point of view. Anyway, here’s the actual start of this PART 3 I wrote before this…
IV. - The Great Floor Staff of my Grifols Center: Navigating an Ever-Changing Workplace with Grace
Rosie left today.
It was sad. Rosie called it a career at the plasma donation center I go to after what I believe is 20 years in the industry. We aren’t friends, but I will be honest and say that if she needed to borrow $20 or a pair of jumper cables, I would do that for her over many people I’ve known all my life.
When I took a 7 year sabbatical from donating after I became a bank manager, I never stepped foot once into the center. I was making a lot of money and I had shitty hours. I didn’t see her at all.
August 20, 2018 I made my return to donating, and I didn’t recognize anyone there. I recognized her and she recognized me and that made me feel 1000000x better. There were times I remembered clients from years ago when they walked into the bank. They freaked out in a good way, and immediately bonded with me. That’s true customer service. I lived for that.
People waited for her to do the needle stick because she was the best. Trust me, it was as painless as brushing your teeth with her. She could wrap your arm without ever having to actually grab your arm. It’s a neat trick. That’s accuracy that only comes with 10000 hours practicing. She’s quiet and she was a hard worker.
I had a discussion with her a couple weeks before she left, not knowing she was leaving, and she was talking about her routine and how they were wanting her to work weekends and she didn’t want to. I had to work 39 Saturdays in a row at Bank of America once, missing weddings, funerals, and so much more, honestly causing a lot of dissension with friends and family, so I understood.
Couple weeks later she was gone.
The day after her last day last week, I went to donate, and it was such a weird vibe in the center. It reminded me of those days when work beat me down to the point of tears. I talked to two of the people I know well at the center and they were reflective about how they were feeling. I can feel their aura just being bummed out, so I tried to talk to them like a friend and not a customer/donor. I can tell something isn’t right. I know it, because I felt that feeling every day the last 3 years in banking.
Yes, I have seen turnover at this place with the same regularity that banking had. Yes, people move on sometimes, and sometimes it is not their choice.
Note: I will not name any other associates aside from the one I mentioned that left. If for some reason everyone reads this, I don’t want someone to have shit talked to them by a superior because I pointed them out, even in a positive way. I used to get that all the time. People at the bank would point me out for a positive thing I did, and I would get all this heat from my bosses like I played favorites with a client or did something unethical. The ones who work as phlebotomists, medical supervisors and front desk people have all for the most part been awesome!
Interesting enough the reason for the discussion about her having to work weekends stemmed from a controversial change in the center hours that made no sense to me. So I heard through the grapevine (people I am friendly with at the center) that they would be closed Sundays.
I didn’t give a shit as I never go on Sundays, but it was interesting to hear the buzz of staff that they would have Sundays off. They were talking amongst themselves about doing things with family and friends now that they had the day off.
The next time I showed up at the center, they posted the new hours for everyone to see on a dry erase board and I was blown away/kinda pissed.
(Note: I am sharing this photo only because I was TOLD that I could take a picture by a longtime staff member to know when they are open. I would never photograph in the center otherwise out of respect.;,,;/)
So, they were closed on Sunday AND MONDAY, and the opening hours on Tuesday/Thursday would be 8am, instead of 7am. This actually would affect me as I wake up at 6:12am every morning I donate to go to the grocery store and hit the donation center at 7:05am, and I am usually out by 8:30am. This meant that more than likely, the rest of my day would be 2 hours later! I wasn’t liking that, but at the same time, it’s money for nothing in my head.
Tuesday it closed at 6pm, and W-F it closed at 7pm. Such varied hours…including Saturday being the only day they opened at 7am, when honestly if you wanted to not impact clients, opening at 7am during the week is better because the 9-5 working crowd will no longer be able to get to go those days.
To be fair, I am sure there’s many reasons for the changes, but I would be remiss if my bank manager past made me speculate a lot more as to why it changed.
For the last year, Grifols (and the other companies to be fair) have started to institute appointments via utilization of the app.
I am not anti-technology, though I am always curious as to why someone is telling me I should do something. There’s always a sales element/goal someone has to hit when they are pushing an app on you. Ditto the appointment goal. I had an appointment goal of 30 people per week in banking, and if I didn’t hit it I had to cold call to make appointments to get to my goal.
I ended up just taking a burner phone to the office with me and calling my own voicemail and “setting up appointments” in Salesforce for people I know would never get an email/text notification that I did that. (LOL…BTW Salesforce is evil)
So what did the appointment get you? Absolutely nothing. If I had a 7:15am appointment, and there was 4 people ahead of me who didn’t make appointments (I know they didn’t because I heard them say they didn’t), I was still the 5th one. So there was obviously an ulterior motive to the appointments, and it was the hours change.
It was a way to monitor the peak times people chose to make appointments, and then justifying the hours thing by saying, “Well, we saw the appointments were almost minimal from 7am-8am (not including mine), so we changed the hours to better staff for our donors.”
That’s how the bank sold it when we truncated our hours. We are getting rid of this first hour so we can have a ready staff to help as many people as we can when we do open. It ended up being the same amount of people after all that.
In reality, it was more along the lines of not having to staff for an hour you deemed “not busy”. Just like my bank with 1 teller in the mornings before it always became permanent. The app and the appointment wasn’t about me, it was about justifying an hours change.
(I did research, and there were a lot of centers that modified their hours, and some who didn’t. So this wasn’t like COVID Era “We are closing all Walmarts at 6pm” thing. It varied by who was busy and who wasn’t. Whatever.)
I made my peace with it. I work from the plasma donating bed most days anyway, so it just meant I wasn’t home until a little later. Fine. I even changed up my grocery shopping/errand routine so I can still be out early in the morning and be there at the center at 8am. Those hours were to begin January 22.
Interesting to note that on that sign, people were essentially “bribed” with $50 to switch their days if they were on Sunday or Monday donation days, the days which they were to close. More on that in a bit.
So my first chance to do my NEW routine was January 26. I woke up a little later (30mins) and I did my errands before donating at 8 instead of donating at 7 and then doing errands. I get to the side of town the center is at, and I hit S. Main, and I see about a dozen cars in the parking lot at 7:25am. What the hell? I look at the photo on my phone and I look at the cars.
I don’t know everyone’s car at Grifols, but I can recognize some of the same cars that I am sure are staff members and I didn’t see those, so this isn’t a meeting. Those are donors. I go to the grocery store, and get my shit done in 5 mins and make my way to the center at 7:34am, 26 mins before they were to open and sure enough the door opened and there was donors waiting. What?!?!?
I didn’t say anything immediately and I just went to the kiosk to do my questions. I have a nervous tic where I move my head a lot and just turned to my left and I saw the dry erase board. It had the hours on it but… the hours changed!
(Again, I heard the associate tell a client they could take a pic of the hours, so I did as well)
Wait, they were open on Sundays and Mondays again? Not to mention they were actually open LONGER hours on Sundays then before (I believe 10a-2p before all these changes) and later on W-F, I am assuming to accommodate the people who get off at 5pm. What the hell?
They changed in the 5 days I hadn’t been there. So I immediately thought: They just gave $50 to everyone to move days and now they are going to urge them to move back on those days? What!?!? Did they just lose thousands by handing people this money for making a move that’s no longer valid?
I have a blog coming up about a restaurant back home that changes hours like I change underwear, and this reminded me of that.
I was more mad that I spent the time altering my routine only to have never been able to use it once before the hours changed back. Frustrating, because I am one to even tailor my vacations to accommodate donating just before I leave!
Did I go psycho Karen on the staff on the floor? No.
I didn’t because I actually respect the hell out of them. It’s funny. I spent my entire 20s and 30s running from who I was and where I grew up, and as I near my 40s, I see the people around me are fundamentally GREAT people and hard workers. I really only talk to people who work at the plasma centers, and the grocery store outside of my wife and family, so I get a chance to learn about them every time I go.
That staff at Grifols past and present remind me of people I went to high school with. There are people that work there that see it as the best job they have had. They have staff that see that job as a second chance to make up for things they did early in life.
People have tattoos like friends I went to school with. I have talked to a couple people who have done time. I have a sister currently in prison. My first stepdad went to federal prison. I can relate.
I have talked to people who worked there who had addiction problems in their past and this is their redemption period to become a productive member of society, something I wish for my little sister. I have talked to people who were in their early 20s about banking stuff, and one former employee bought a brand new house at an age 10 years younger than I was when I bought my first house. That was cool.
Talked to one worker about gardening, growing up in the 80s, and my wife’s neck of the woods in rural New Mexico, and another about sports, not in an “Your team sucks, mine is better” way, but more of a business side of things, intelligent conversation I wish to have more often with people kind of way.
All of those people? They know their shit on the donor floor. No one is perfect, but they care about their job and they do it so well. I always tell people how much I respect how hard they work at a job I could never be good at. That is important to me! When they are having a good time and work feels good, it’s a good environment to be in. If no one else commends their work, I will here. They are amazing at what they do!
I am hopeful for all of them to succeed at their job and work hard for a good living and peace of mind. They earned my respect. Customer-facing jobs are HARD compared to people who make decisions that impact those customers who will never talk to more than 2-3 customers a month tops, if even that.
In the last 15 months of this Blood Pressure cuff issues, I have had no less than 11 people tell me that they have seen issues with people and the new BP machine. 11 is a lot of people.
Which is why I think I care so much to talk about this issue. If they genuinely feel the way I do about it, I know that management would not hear the complaints so vividly as they would from someone like me who has the perspective and vocabulary to go tet a tet with others. They can’t facilitate change. Hell, the managers usually can’t either. A larger discussion is a MUST to hear all input from all sides!
But I think the staff there that interacts with clients are all cool. They are professional but not afraid to crack a joke and be personable. Despite what corporate America thinks, that’s how you make bonds and make return customers.
I’m going to wrap it up here, because over 3 blogs, I have given you 10,000 words on this, and it’s a lot and I’m sure you are tired of me, but one final segment here.
I understand the goal of all business is to make money. I am aware of that with every $5-$8 billion dollar quarter banks pull in profit. Grifols itself is a billion dollar company. They should be proud to be successful. Although they are based in Spain, it is truly an American dream to be as successful as possible. I strive for that with my small business and with the money I make donating plasma, I always give back with food donations. It’s my way of paying it forward.
You can be successful and have a heart and a discussion. There are people with an issue like mine that will be severely impacted and really no one has had anything tangible to say. I hate conflict as much as the next guy, but there is something satisfying as troubleshooting a problem.
The cuff thing will keep me honest as to why I do what I do because I know how it affects my bottom line, and it is sure to affect others. Remember the crying guy who listened to nature sounds in the first part of this blog? Those are real people who can get frustrated if you don’t LISTEN every once in a while.
While navigating through my brain about how to write this, knowing I want people who work for the company to read it and have their own opinion of me and my thoughts, things come up that we have to deal with .
Two things happened for me: 1 was a character limit when filing a complaint. Grifols USA contact page has a webform way to make a complaint, which I have done several times, but it is limited to 1000 characters. Not words… characters. That’s 7 old school texts, and less than 4 tweets. That ridiculously low compared to the 17,076 characters I have written as of the end of this sentence here in part 3. There’s no social media presence aside from a pretty blah Facebook page. No Twitter support, no nothing.. Linkedin is their only other real page.
I will volunteer to do Twitter support for Grifols, and my rate is affordable considering how much I would help the cause.
All characters were needed by the way. I would write more if it didn’t bore you.
Plus, one thing that changed in the last year-plus was the supervisors of the center last year used to have their business cards on a little business card holder in the front desk area. We had those at the bank too. “If you have an issue, my name is James, here’s my card, and here’s my boss’s card. If you run into any issues with us here that you feel need a second set of eyes, I want you to have her card too.
My old boss was a half-wit who couldn’t sell products half as good as me, but it was the thought that counts. I am showing you the respect that I am here for a convo if need be. The business cards of management not on display actually caused me more to write this 3 part thing and have to do the webform complaint, which I KNOW likely is a ding on them when someone who does problem handling receives my submission. I hate doing that but I had to.
The other thing that happened was a simple email I got from Grifols which I found… weird.
”James, help improve your donation experience”
Sounds important. I open it. I do surveys almost all the time, so I am willing to do one with what I call my favorite place to “relax”.
The first paragraph starts off like a true survey to gauge how to make the experience better, damn the conversation about the weird hours switch. Then it goes off the rails.
How important are the plasma center entertainment options (TV, music, Wi-Fi) to your donation experience?
Is your personal device (mobile phone, tablet, laptop) your primary source of entertainment during your donation?
Are the TVs inside your plasma donation center being used?
Which type of entertainment would you prefer within your plasma donation center?
Which type of TV entertainment would you prefer within your plasma donation center?
Which type of plasma donation content would you like to see more of?
Please tell us what we can do to improve your in-center entertainment whil you are donating plasma
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
This survey made me laugh. Basically, it’s a survey to justify cutting off TV service in the donor floor. Most centers have basic cable from what I have gathered, including this one I go to. So, why are they asking these questions? To see where they can make cute.
Now, I will be fair, the free wi-fi is a godsend to some donors, because they either don’t have internet on their phone and this gives them that free for a couple hours, or that allows them to watch what they want.
Do I watch TV? No. Do I think TV should remain? Yes. When I go to the grocery store, they play music over the intercom. I don’t need it there, but I will notice if and when it ever goes away. This is the same thing.
Yes, business cable is EXPENSIVE, I understand that. Yes, there are a lot of people watching Youtube on their phones. The leading questions and answers of the survey WANT you to say you provide your own entertainment and then they ask the weird question about what plasma content do you want to see which includes Plasma donation education, the history of the company, patient and donor stories, promo/compensation content and employee stories.
Basically they want to run something on a loop to get out from paying the cable bill. Funny enough for about a three month stretch this past fall, the cable bill wasn’t paid. The screen when they powered up the TV said so.
From the time 20 years ago watching “The Wash” on the only TV on that floor, I associate the TVs being there with providing a comfortable experience to the donors that give you a product you pay them a very small percentage of what you will resell it for. That’s the least you can do.
I am reminded of a Flintstones episode where Fred and Barney are running a burger joint instead of working for Mr. Slate. When they are ordering meat for their restaurant, they are blown away about how much meat they have to buy, and how they have to buy a bunch of parsley to get a price break on the meat. The salesman say you put the parsley on the plate so customers can throw it away.
It’s only there for aesthetics and aesthetics only. TV programming at the center is the parsley of that place. It’s a loss leader, but if you give people options, especially people who don’t engage with their phone like I do, then you keep them happy, and keep them coming.
I had to upload that video to make this point!
Nickel and diming stuff like that (and yes, I get that all customers in all centers got that survey) and just sending it to me, as a consumer advocate who talks about these things for a living is bad form. Keep the TVs on.
With so much stuff I am nitpicking here, you would think that I wouldn’t care about the company so much. Quite the opposite. I think it is an IMPORTANT viable way to make extra money to help those who need it, a viable second source of income for those who have good jobs already to save for a vacation, car or even a house!
It’s a way to help people who are hospital patients get the medicine they need from your donations. (BTW, it is a shame I didn’t talk about this more. I will be doing a podcast I will embed here on Substack to talk about the procedure/benefits to donating).
I want it to be in my city for the long haul, and thrive in other cities. I think long-term donating benefits all parties involved. I warn the industry not to take clients for granted though, and treat donors with respect when they have an issue like my blood pressure cuff thing. It’s important.
But through all these things I talked about, and hope to talk about at a higher level than just the center I attend, I give this industry my full endorsement, and will help any person who has questions about possibly donating in a way that only a loyal donor can.
(Now, if I can only be paid for the referrals I have made over the years. Reminder, I have a successful podcast and social media presence. I am always down to be a spokesperson for them. Call my business manager…me.)
James