Work is Hell

I have to wonder how much of me changing jobs is a desire to do something new and how much is a growing dismay at my current predicament.  This week was fucking hell at work and I swear I haven't thought this much about quitting a job in years.  

It really boils down to circumstances making a difficult job harder, having part of my job be listening to others complain about what I'm upset about, having my medical conditions get in the way of me succeeding, and getting disciplined for having said medical conditions.  

The medical conditions are easy enough to understand here as I've talked about them before.  Migraines.  The mind part of me knows that I have to give the increased dose of medication time to work.  It's only been a month since I saw my neurologist, three weeks since I started the increased dose of depakote, and only a week since it's been consistent enough to be having any affect.  BUT, during that month I've had the same amount of migraines if not an increased amount.  Some have had reduced intensity, a couple have resolved in the same day they started, but a migraine is going to migraine and once they get rolling I can't stay at work.  

I mentioned in my last update how I was bouncing at (and below) having zero hours of sick time left.  Well, that led to me getting written up.  This wasn't verbal counseling between my supervisor and I, it is a write up that will go on my human resources record.  For 180 days I have to present proof of any sick use.  But what exact proof do I present if I have a migraine?  I don't go to a doctor if I have a migraine.  I go into a dark room, cry, and just get past it.  And now when I see a doctor, I need to present a doctor's note?  As if I was lying about my condition or need to see a doctor?  

So, not only are the migraines getting directly in the way of me doing a good job at work, I'm getting disciplined for them.  I had to sign the writeup on Thursday and guess what happened on Friday.  Migraine.  I didn't know what to do, so I stayed at work... and just flailed around not doing a good job at anything.  I would have been better off at home (and probably not been experiencing so much of the migraine now), my co-workers would have been better off with me home, and my job would have been better off with me home.  But nope, I don't get to make that call.  I'm a mother fucking registered nurse and because I have a chronic condition I need to give my medical assessment skills over to the warden?  

Fuck that. 

I spent quite a bit of time on Friday looking up the Family Medical Leave Act.  FMLA.  If you don't know about FMLA, it's a federal act that says people will be granted unpaid time off without threat to their job for certain medical conditions.  I need to go through the department's disability unit and my doctor to get the paperwork ready and then I'll have protection against this bullshit.  Thankfully I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and I can talk to him about it.  My only concern is that my general practitioner may put this off onto my neurologist and that will just add time to the proceedings.  

I'll keep you up to date on the FMLA trauma.  

That alone would be enough to make this a bad week at work, but I've had nurses dropping like flies due to COVID.  

• One nurse took time off for being sick and after the third day admitted she had a fever.  Since that's now symptomatic of COVID we told her to get a COVID test before she came back... well, it came back positive.  She's still sick and keeps calling in at the last minute.  I'm not sure if she's screwing with us or not, but its really worrying if she's as sick as she says as she's older (early 70s?) and isn't the firmest believer in medicine.  
• One nurse called when her son tested positive.  Like I had to in November, she now has to stay away for three weeks.  She's thankfully not symptomatic.  
• One nurse called when her husband tested positive.  The same as above, she's gone for three weeks.  I called to check on her this week and she's feeling sick, so she's going to get a COVID test herself.  She might be able to return faster if she tests positive, assuming she has a normal recovery.
• I told you about the nurse that came to work without the sense of taste or smell and had to be told to leave.  He of course tested positive.  He then developed symptoms on his 10th day out and had to miss more work until he was symptom free for a full day.  

Those four nurses are my COVID problems.  I have another nurse that's out recovering from a surgery.  I have another nurse that had a heart attack in January and we just learned will not be returning. 

In addition to the medical losses, one of my nurses took a supervisors role at another facility while another nurse is up there temporarily in a supervisory role.  It says a lot (good about us, bad about the other facility) that two of our least experienced nurses are supervisors there.  Oh, and that one facility is offering a lot of overtime to another of our nurses that normally picks up overtime with us. 

Add my own medical issues on top of all the nurses being away from transfers and/or medical issues, and we have a shitty time with scheduling.  We have a LOT of overtime to fill and it's getting difficult to figure out who exactly will be mandated.    But yesterday threw a big shit sandwhich on my picnic.  That same facility that's more or less taken two and a half of my nurses, will now be taking three more.  And they want them now.  I learned about this on Friday afternoon.  In the middle of a migraine that under normal circumstance would have sent me home with the inability to think straight.  

Instead of going home I had to make up variations on our schedule.  Variations because my HUM was negotiating with the powers about how many nurses they'd be stealing and when they came down to the number of nurses stolen, when exactly they'd be leaving us and moving up there.  

It was decided, thankfully, that they'd only take two nurses.  And while they wanted nurses hired into the state, so that they could mandate them to stay for longer hours, they'd accept one of our contractual nurses if they volunteered.  We did get one of our contractual nurses to volunteer, and then I had to call all the rest of the nurses to see if any would volunteer.  It's just like any other overtime opportunity... the most senior nurses get the opportunity to volunteer and only if no one wants it does the least senior nurse get mandated.  

After an hour of calls, I had to mandate our least senior nurse.  

By this time word had gotten out and rumors were flying.  Since people had heard that we were losing three nurses, the three least senior nurses all threatened to quit over being mandated to the other facility.  The least senior nurse, the one actually being mandated, said it was due to his marriage.  His wife already hates when he has to work over and even if he's not mandated to work longer hours, he'll be driving about an hour each way each day.  His 12 hour shifts just became 14.  And if he's mandated for that extra 4 hours (we can't mandate beyond a 16 hour shift) it becomes 18 hours.  

He's not wrong.  I had to counsel him on not quitting.  I had to listen to his valid complaints even though he was voicing them in a way that indicated he thought this was my fault.  I had to eventually convince him to, at the very least, not quit outright and instead give the proper two weeks notice.  That way, when all of this calms back down, he can return and we can hire him back.  

Then there's B.  B is another nurse that works at our facility.  He's high enough on our seniority scale that it was never an option for him to get mandated.  BUT, that didn't prevent him from venting to me as if this were all my choice and I didn't feel the exact same way as him.  At one point in his tirade he admitted that we were on the same page, but that didn't stop him from voicing his frustrating for another 20 fucking minutes.  

And at this point I STILL had to make a new schedule without these two nurses on it.  And since my HUM was still negotiating, I had to make a schedule with them leaving on Monday, a schedule with them leaving on Thursday (we'd published our schedule through Wednesday), and a schedule with them leaving on the next Sunday (the end of our pay period.  They all included new overtime so I had to make three new overtime sheets along with three sets of daily sheets so I could figure out where the overtime would be.  

Oh, and next week I have to have the NEXT schedule done.  

So, yeah.  I honestly believed yesterday that my job would be a lot better if I gave up the supervisory role and just went back to the floor.  No more worries about schedules except my own.  No worries about others lying around me, no worries about problematic patients unless they were on my call out schedule.  No more concerns about staffing.   

I've come off that ledge for now, but it's close.