I think we've all heard that saying before. For my close friends, I try to always 'be there' for them. Hell, that's what I primarily want to do WITH them. I don't necessarily want to go on a vacation or eat at a fancy restaurant or perform some hobby with them... I just want to 'be there'.
While that's true for my close friends (all three of them), it's not nearly as true for others in my life. Take my co-workers... I'd hardly consider them friends. That's not supposed to be a slight in any way... I just don't have a personal relationship with them. We work closely together and discuss personal things in our lives, but if I stopped working with them, I'd probably stop communicating with them. We don't even 'hang out' outside of work.
Well... that had to stop. At the very least in this one particular circumstance. Without getting into specific details, a co-workers wife left him. He went to work and when he came home she had packed up four of his five kids, all of their stuff (I mean ALL... she took the damned oven!) and left. No note, no text. Just gone.
This happened while I was on vacation, and I heard about it from another co-worker. I couldn't imagine the pain and confusion that such a situation would leave my co-worker friend in. I knew he had a wife and kids... but that's about the extent I knew of his wife. So when I learned about it, my first impression was to give him a call. I was working in the south clinic while he was working out in 4 block.
I didn't call him though. First, it was a busy day for me. Second, they're all busy days out in four block. Third, this wasn't going to be a quick 'hey I was sorry to hear about your wife leaving' type conversation. And Fourth.... I wanted to convey something MORE than I could with a phone call. This should be in person. Last night was the first time we worked together since this happened.
Yesterday was.... well it was just a shitty day at work. Top to bottom, left to right, it was shitty in every where and every where. I knew there wouldn't be time to talk AT work, but I didn't want to work side by side with him for 8 hours and not even mention it, so I approached him to say something along the lines 'Hey, I heard about your wife. I heard about it earlier and I'm sorry I haven't mentioned anything to you before now. Let's go grab some grub or a beer after work and talk about it'. Surprisingly he actually talked before I did and apologized to ME. He apologized for not telling me himself.
That there is a stand up guy. That's a guy that I want to be friends with. I didn't even have 10 minutes to devote to a conversation, but I mentally moved things out of the way and allowed him 30 minutes to tell me what happened. After work (a bad day of work) we both wanted to just get home, but we spent another hour standing between our cars talking.
I can't give him advice. I'm not married and don't have kids. I can't give him financial help... he needs tens of thousands of dollars... I have dozens of dollars to give. I don't have 'stuff' to give him (she literally took EVERYTHING). But you know what I can do for him... I can be there. I can be an ear. I can be... a friend.
Some of what we talked about was the staffing situation at work. We're so screwed. The only saving grace we have is that several of our nurses are looking for monster amounts of overtime. Thank God because we have dozens of extra shifts to cover. I always look at overtime shifts as this; If you need me to work I will, but I'm not going to volunteer for them. The way being mandated for an overtime shift works is this; lowest on the seniority totem pole gets stuck. They can't then be mandated again until everyone else has been mandated. If all of our extra shifts were being mandated, I'd still get mandated several times in our current schedule. That's how short we are on staff.
The future doesn't look bright at all. First, we don't have any new hires in the pipeline. Well, there's one but she's already been assigned to the midnight shift. Even if they hired the three or four nurses we need today, we'd be four to eight weeks out from them taking over a position. The orientation is just that long. The main nurse in the north clinic on second shift is actively looking for other work. I can't blame her as she's been screwed over several times. She wants to move to first shift, but they keep moving less experienced nurses to the first shift instead of her using the excuse that she's the main nurse on second and she needs to continue being there. That's a nice sentiment... it shows she's wanted... but to take a nurse hired in three years after her and move him up to first shift ahead of her... well that's bullshit.
Then you have me. I'm looking to move to a different prison. If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the position is mine as soon as it opens up. That might be as soon as June.
If that other nurse and I both leave, that's going to leave my facility 6 RNs short and they'll be a minimum of two months out form having replacements ready.
It's almost enough to make me consider staying.
Almost.
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