First was re-connecting with a friend that I met in Truck Driving School. We both went there not to get a career, but to get a J O B. Neither of us gave it enough forethought and neither of us turned out to be successful commercial truck drivers. Out of the 20 or so people in our 'class' and the 10 or so I stayed in touch with after getting a truck driving job, he's the only one that I remained close with. It helps that we only lived 40 miles apart. We hung out every other weekend or so after we both re-entered out non truck driving lives.
But after I started nursing school and started working every Sunday morning, we stopped hanging out. It wasn't a lack of desire to see each other, it was merely a set of conflicting schedules. The only time that I couldn't hang out was Saturday night. The only time he had to hang out was Saturday night. So we drifted apart and only occasionally chatted via text and email.
A couple weeks ago we finally got together and hung out. We did as most people do and made it an event. We went to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. We had breakfast, drove over in Fiona, hit the show, had dinner in Greek Town, and drove back. The show was completely awesome, and the dinner was fine, but the thing that I'll remember most of the trip is hanging out and chatting with my friend.
We caught up, exchanged notes on how our lives have been since we last really communicated, talked about sports (he's a fan of Michigan State), talked about cars, talked about politics.... we just chatted. And that's what I'm talking about. Hanging out with a friend. Sure, the scenery provided by the car show was nice, and sure, the greek dinner was kind of fancy... but I just loved being with him and talking.
The other thing that helped me focus this realization was a trip I'm planning to hang out with two other friends. We're planning a trip to Chicago. We'll go to a museum (hopefully with a good photography exhibit), we'll hit up a blues bar, and we'll most certainly get some deep dish, a Chicago hot dog and an Italian beef sandwich. But the thing I'm most looking forward to is getting the opportunity to sit down with two close friends and chat. We'll talk about my new job and how it's changed my life. We'll talk about one friend's future move to Dallas and what that will do to his life. We'll talk about the other friends' future move to Cali and what that will do to his life. We'll talk about relationships (both of their marriages, and my continued life 'alone'), we'll talk about sports and politics and world events.
When we were in the larvae stage of planning and talking about where to meet up, I offered that it didn't matter where we met up. That if we ended up in a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, that I'd be just fine with it. They took it as a joke, but I was serious. Yes, Chicago is far better than a cabin out in the boonies, but only because the scenery will be nicer. The fact that I will get to sit down and chat with my good friends will be the most important thing that happens.
-----------
So I've finally met a nurse at work that I honestly dislike. Out of all the nurses that I work with, there are only one or two that I'd honestly want to be friend with outside of work. But I get along with every single nurse, save for this one bitch. We can all find common ground to talk about and we can all work great together. This one nurse, however, is a thorn in my side.
She just so happens to be the 'night' nurse. She works from 10pm (the end of my shift) to 6am (the beginning of the next shift). Realistically there isn't much 'working together' that we do. When she walks into the door I'm required to give her report. I have to tell her about any issues that came up during the day and make sure she's prepared to deal with any issues that I believe that may come up. That's it. After that I can comfortably head home.
But around that report are the normal everyday things. Saying hello. Asking about the roads. Telling a fun or funny story about the day. Sharing work gossip. She isn't interested in any of these things. Not even saying hello. When I see her walk in, I always say hello and give her time to get her coat off, put her purse down, and otherwise get into work mode. I give her that time even when I want to just give her report and get the hell out of there.
Her response to my hello is most often an annoyed grunt. She can't even muster up the humanity to reply with a 'hello' or 'hi'.. just 'Ungh'.
After she gets her coat off she then wanders off and starts her shift. She doesn't start her shift by showing any interest in getting report, instead choosing to count the critical tools or drugs, or arranging for the inevitable transfers, or getting the requests for healthcare in the box out in the yard. All things that can wait for minutes if not hours. Invariably I have to track her down and tell her about any patient/inmate issues that happened and that might affect her shift.
She will grunt or sigh in response.
Now, being anti social is one thing. I can respect that. She has after all chosen to work as a nurse in a prison at night. A position that ensures she'll be alone most of the time. But damn it, at least acknowledge that there ARE other people that rely on you and that you rely on!! Don't make me run after you to do what should be a vital part of YOUR job!
I've known about how she operates for several months now. The piece that finally pushed me over the edge, however, came up a few nights ago. There are of course days where my shift gets hectic and I don't get all of my assigned tasks done. Most of these tasks can simply be rescheduled for the next day, but some HAVE to be done in a timely manner. The biggest thing in that category is new transfers. New transfers into the prison MUST be seen by healthcare within 12 hours of entering the facility. On those rare days that I don't get all (or any) of them seen, the night nurse has to finish them. Whenever I report that she has to see some, she acts like I've reached down and slapped her only child. As if --> I <-- am specifically doing this to --> HER <--, and not as if my day was hell and I just couldn't get to them all. Well the three previous nights I had to do that to her... give her some transfers to see. Then a few nights ago another nurse and I were dealing with a seizure patient.
Emergencies don't give a flying fuck what time it is. They happen during shift change just as often a they happen outside of shift change. We had been dealing with this patient for about an hour. He has had several seizures of the past few days but was recovering quite well. The other afternoon nurse and I were at a slight disagreement... he wanted to call the on-call physician just to loop them in to what was happening, while I wanted to forego that and just set him up to be seen in the morning. Instead of arguing over it we decided to ask the night nurse. She has been a nurse for decades and as much as I don't like her I DO respect the experience that she has. Plus seeing as she would probably be dealing with the patient one way or the other that night, I figured it only right to get her opinion.
Backing up just a bit... when she walked in we had our patient on the floor. He was unresponsive and the other nurse and I were hovering over him and discussing his condition in an animated fashion. There were several correctional officers there with one video recording the event (they only record an event when they believe a death may be possible!). What did the night nurse do when s he walked in on that scene? She took her coat off, and wandered off. No 'How can I help', no 'Hey, whats going on?', no 'Hello'.... nothing.
So when I went to go get her opinion on whether to call the doc or not, she was no where to be found. It turns out that she had gone into the yard to get the health requests from the inmates. A task that can be done as easily and as efficiently at 2am as it can be done at 10pm. When she came in I cornered her (yes... I HAD to corner her to get her to stop moving) and started to explain what was going on. She interupted me halfway through report saying "You guys brought him in, you guys can stay until he's out of here".
Well how the fuck do you do? She didn't even let me get to the point of asking her for advice... she saw me as dropping this inmate's health issue (a health issue serious enough for us to bring him up to the clinic) on her.
You know what... I'm done with her. She will, from now on, get the very least that I have to give her. When she walks in the door, I'm going to corner her, give her report, not apologize when I have to dump work on her (which I honestly do feel bad about each time it happens), and then I'm out of there. If she can't even give me the common decency of a hello or the common courtesy of accepting report, then she gets the minimal amount of effort from me to give a shit about how my actions affect her. I will no longer work my ass off to get the transfers done at the expense of my other tasks.
I have plenty of room in my life for all kinds of people, but I have no room whatsoever in my life for people like her.
-----------
Yes, every other week I'll get a four day weekend. That, in case you didn't realize, is the good thing. I'll have to wait and see if I hate the six day stretch or love the four day stretch more.
-----------
Sweater Weather by The Neighbourhood
I got this song while trying to make a cap out of a woman wearing a sweater on the beach. The cap didn't turn out but I really do get a kick out of this song.
Riptide by Vance Joy
When I was searching for 'Sweater Weather' I noticed this for free on iTunes. Most of the free songs on iTunes I just skip by as they don't catch my attention and even at free I find some songs to not be worth it. But this was did just enough to catch my attention with the guitar/ukulele. Since downloading it I've listened to it about a dozen times and I'm still not tired of it.
Dumb Ways to Die by Tangerine Kitty
. My brother oddly enough turned me on to this. He downloaded a game for his android phone and just had to show me the part of flicking piranah away from the little dude. He said that the little dude's dance reminded him of my 'look at me I'm all nekkid and dancing' joke dance. Well it looked like a fun enough diversion of a game so I downloaded it and played along myself. I did well enough in the game that I 'earned' the video... up until that point I hadn't even known that the game was based on a song and video!
Anywho, I got the song stuck in my head (Dummmb Waaayyys To Dieeeieee) and went to go find it on youtube where I would rip the audio. On a lark I also checked out iTunes and low and behold, it was available for purchase. It may be silly pop, but its catchy silly pop (and evidently made for a safety video!)
Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo by Giorgio Moroder
If you watched the Super Bowl or as enamoured with cool creative commercials as I am you'll no doubt recognize this as the background music in the "VW engineers get their wings whenever a VW goes 100,000 miles" Super Bowl ad. Sadly it's NOT available on iTunes (at least no here in the States), so I did have to rip this one from iTunes. While searching for a high audio quality version I also came upon:
Mah na mah na by Piero Umiliani
I actually came across a video that incorrectly attributed this song to Giorgio Moroder... but who cares who made it. It's the freaking Muppets Song but COOLER!!!
-----------
No comments:
Post a Comment