So, I am usually off Sundays, and work Monday nights. This gives me two nights (Saturday and Sunday) to get my sleep switched back after Fri-DAY and Satur-DAY classes.
So, I was totally expecting them to screw with me this week. I thought, since the schedule is made up during the days I'm off and in class, I have to call in Sunday nights to make sure (it being the first day of the two week schedle) that I'm not on Sunday night.
Of course not. They screwed me, but nothing so simple.
I'm scheduled TUES/WEDS/THURS.
Think about this: I go to class FRIDAY. DAY of Friday. Thursday night, I suppose I'm expected to come in at 11 pm, work until 8 am, and then magically teleport to Dublin and sit thru an 8 hour class. THEN Drive home for an hour....SURE...I'll be awake.
My strategy is to call my manager tomorrow and tell her it's ok with me, but that I'm going to miss classes this week. Even if I could stay awake thru the class, there's no way I could make a two hour drive fit into a 45 minute window. And...HOW the hell do they expect me to "work" 5 days in a row (if you include the two 8 hour days of classes)
no, no, no. Why do I let them screw with me? Unbelievable.
That's my gripe for the day. Every day it's some new shit and I have got to share the ridiculous ones with you, at least...just so you know the myriad ways a newbie gets screwed with.
Every time this sort of thing happens I have to wonder--is this it? Are they getting ready to axe me?
I went to class Friday, and again, our Saturday class was cancelled. The difference this week is that they had let us know before hand, so people didn't rent hotel rooms, etc. They also paraded in with a tray full of packages of snack goldfish crackers and rice crispy treats for us, as a way of apologizing for the no-show teacher last Saturday. They are also giving us a free BLS class certificate with no expiration date--big deal, employers usually pay for that. They're letting us use it toward any class we want to take. This is additional to the class we missed, that will be re-offered in February.
So, Saturday, I had a day to do what I wanted/needed to do. I spent the day repotting some plants, and running errands, cleaning, etc. I get a phone call at 11:30 pm, just as I'm napping--trying to switch my sleep back to days for going back to that miserable hospital...Somehow, I've been put in on the schedule for Saturday night.
WHAT?
no, uh...that's a mistake. I have DAY classes friday and saturday, and I usually get ONE day to switch my sleep back...even though class was cancelled today, I still need to switch my sleep. And who the FUCK is going in and making changes to the schedule AFTER it's been posted?! That's not legal!
Ah, of course. It's my nurse manager. How wonderful. I'm sure I'll be in all sorts of trouble when I go in to work now, for not showing up on a day they originally scheduled me off, so I could go to class...and then chose to write me in.
If they're building a case for firing me, they're starting to piss me off. I think I'd better write an email and leave a paper trail, just in case. I'm a little too bitter for writing and hitting "send"
It's shit like this that makes me miss the private sector--as screwed up as that is at times.
My patient waited until this morning at 7 to start having runs of SVT and the confusion about her code status was all over the place. She's no CPR, but she's on two pressors, the orders said "no new pressors to be started" and on her Kardex it said "no agressive measures" (vague enough for ya? she's on a vent, with pressure control of 54! How much more agressive can it get?)
Long story short, it all started at 7:10, waiting for the nurse that was coming on to take over for me, and the house doc started Diltiazem, atropine and who knows what else was given from the crash cart while I was mixing the dilt drip.
So, here I am, trying to swtich my sleep back to days. I went to class Friday and Saturday. The drive is 45 miles in one direction (plus bridge toll) and the damned professor is a no show on Saturday--I can't complain, however, because there are people driving for two hours, and staying overnight on friday, paying a hotel for a room with a kitchenette. So unprofessional--her excuse was something about a family emergency and being in the hospital. Couldn't she have called to cancel and saved us all the commute? The school would have called us to tell us, and at least some of us would have been spared the hour plus drive and gas cost.
I don't even know my schedule because it wasn't made up last time I worked, so I'll have to find time to call in and ask when the next day I work is. It won't be tonight since this is my night off after classes--they give me at least one day, sometimes two to make the adjustment. I am counting the days here--I absolutely dread and hate going in to work. Soon I'll be alone, and left to drown, no doubt.
Hearing from another of the anesthesia students via email. She's also unsure about going back to the program, and toying with the idea of just getting an NP and working part time while doing it...quality of life over the next three years, etc.
I knew I wasn't the only one feeling this way (Hating my ICU, doubting Columbia, doubting myself, etc) but it was nice to hear that she's thinking the exact same things I am.
a vodka tonic (very light on the vodka, heavy on the tonic) is exactly like a shot of Nyquil, damnit. That's my stance and I'm sticking to it.
I caught a mother of a headcold and I've been suffering the constant feel of pepper (or pepper spray? Don't taze me, bro!) up my nose and behind my eyes for two days now. I'm ready for it to stop, thank you very much--put me down on the list for "over it."
I have two days off now and I'm trying to swtich my sleep over to nights so I can go to class friday and saturday. It's not even the class I care about anymore, it's the long drive home from Dublin at the end of the class that worries me. I have to stay awake for at least most of it.
So, work is finding new ways to suck--patients are bigger and bigger handfuls and not in the good way--in the "I'm crazy and pull out my IV and bleed all over the floor and bed linens" kind of way. I don't know how ready I'm going to be for New York in September, but I'm fully ready to leave this crap behind.
I go solo in about a month; this should suck even more. Suck squared. Suck to the infinity level. Maximum suckosity.
At least it's a pay check. The only thing better than a vodka tonic at 9 am is the sleep it brings--and that's where I'm headed kids, head full of mucous, eyes tearing, sneezing my ass off and looking forward to two days off from that ridiculous hospital.
Friday and Saturday I went to Duh-blin to attend the Critical Care Nurse training program to which my work is sending me. I have to say that the instructor is a freak.
I thought we'd get along; she's a San Fran native, drives a Prius, and wears Z-coils, so I thought she'd be cool. Turns out, she's nuts and has no ability to distinguish when the lecture has veered from the topic, to the personal lives of the girl from Texas, of whose life we know every detail, or the instructor's life, about which we also know every intimate detail.
I know more about her house, where she lives, how she walks to work, how it was her great grandparent's house, where she works, where she's EVER worked, where she went to school, how she doesn't like UCSF, nearly every conversation she's ever had with anyone in a clinical setting, than I do about ABGs and Ventilators.
It was so hard getting my sleep flipped back to nights so I could be awake during classes in the day--now I see I probably won't have to; being asleep I'll get probably as much out of it. The only reason I'll continue to go is that I get paid as if I were at work, so, I'd rather be there than cleaning shit.
Now I am trying to stay awake again tonight to flip back to nights. I have to work Monday night, and it seems my days off will be mostly used to get my sleep switched and nothing else.
I was worried that before I went off to bed tonight at 7 pm (so I could get up at midnight and stay up all night) because the power cut out right before I went to bed. I lay there, trying to sleep, worrying: how am I going to heat the house, and how am I going to stay awake in the dark!? Thank goodness we had dinner already, but how am I going to make coffee?! I saw myself blogging by candle light until the battery on my laptop crapped out, but then, the gateway wouldn't work...no DSL without power! Oh the humanity!
So let me post this before the power goes out again! :)
What I've learned watchcing America's Next Top Model
I'm learning a lot by watching the America's Next Top Model Marathon. This stupid show is addictive. Season after season, the same thing happens. It's caused me to come up with this list of commonalities for each season.
1) I hate Tyra Banks. She's pretty full of herself. Yes, she's pretty. Yes, she was a big deal. But she still inserts herself into every shoot as if she's still a viable model. She's a know-it-all with a very strong personality (sound like anyone you know?)
2) women have a natural tendency to be bitchy, catty, form aliances and gang up on the weakest, most outcast in the group.
3) women, unlike men, have to endure criticism and judgement in their lives. Men don't have this issue as much. Men are judged by their WORK, not for their attitude, personality, looks, etc. Women, no matter what they do, who they are, have to endure the judgement on their personality--so odd.
By far, the hardest thing about nursing is making the transition to a female dominated environment. My mother was nothing like this, and I only had one best friend growing up so I am missing a lot of that dynamic. It's like being thrown into a top dollar poker game, with sharks, and learning the game as you go along...vicious.
I know I'm going to eventually make it, but the growing pains are fierce. I feel like writing a book "my year as a woman" or something like this. I don't suppose anyone would read it, but I think my perspective is different.
Anyway, this is a year for major change and betterment, to be sure!
