The Car
First up, let me update you on my car situation. Back in April I told you about my Car Shopping. Well, being prepared has served me well... just not with a good outcome.
I kind of expected this, but on June 5th I got an email from my car salesman offering me congratulations on driving my car for two years and reminding me that if I was interested in a new car that he'd be happy to help me out. I sent out a quick reply of what I was after and asked what was involved with getting out of my lease early. He, being a good salesman, replied that he'd be happy to help me and to give him a call. I'd rather deal over email as it's easier to keep my emotions in check, but that's exactly what good car salesman wouldn't want... a customer with control.
So, I called him and explained what I wanted, how my car was doing and got back... that it would cost between $5000 and $6000 to get out of my lease. That immediately put the brakes on discussions. I was already at the price I was happy with on ordering a new Mustang and not getting any deals so throwing $5000 in on top of that is just a step to far.
But that night, when I finally got home, I started to play around with some loan calculators. I won't go through all the steps, but basically buying off $6000 of my lease would add $100 a month and so long as I got a couple breaks in the price would be doable. So I emailed my sales guy back and eventually took Isabella in for an inspection so that the manager could get us an exact price.
Sigh
I turns out that the values I'd seen online were true. My car was currently valued less than the agreed upon price it was valued at for the end of the lease. In other words there was exactly zero incentive for them to buy out ANY of my lease. If I wanted out, I'd have to buy myself out at a cost of just over $7300. I did a quick calculation in my head and figured that was $1300 more in discounts I would have to get in order to keep my price at the maximum I wanted to pay. That's a tall order and I really didn't want to go down the road of finding my dream car, negotiating on it, not getting what I wanted, and having to walk away from it, especially since this was three to six months earlier than I expected to try and do this.
So I shook his hand and walked away agreed we could try again in six months. In six months the buy out of Isabella's lease will be around $3500. It's still doubtful we'd be able to find a Mustang how I want it (even though the color won't be as much of a problem) and would likely still have to order it. And where I thought a 10 to 12 week wait was reasonable for a car order, I was hearing stories on how that was closer to 24 weeks (6 months!). In six months IF we find a car that's perfect, I can buy it and eat the $3500. If we don't find the perfect car we can order one, let it take six months to come in and then buy it with nothing to pay off on the lease.
The only disappointing fact that still makes me want to spend beyond my max price and just order it now is the color options. Information for the 2020 Mustangs is coming out including some of the ordering guide. One known is the color options. My beloved Orange Fury is being canceled in favor of Twister Orange. Here's an example of each:
Orange Fury
Twister Orange
I guess it shouldn't have surprised me how long it took to get these two images. And I'm not even happy with these as examples as the lighting scenarios are WILDLY different. But it's difficult to show off a color of a car and compare it to another, similar, color if they're not in the exact same light. My take is that the Orange Fury has a more 'Golden' tinge to it. Very similar to Fionia, my 2012 Ford Focus in Yellow Blaze. The Twister Orange is in no doubt about it's orangeness. It's orange turned up to 12 (did you know that the fruit orange was named before the color was called orange?).
Anywho.... Orange Fury, which I lust after, is out after this year. Twister Orange, which I like but don't lust after, is in for 2020. If I were to order a 2019 Mustang today it would be Orange Fury. If I am to order a 2020 Mustang, I just don't know what color it would be. Kona Blue? Velocity Blue? Twister Orange? Grabber Lime? I guess it would be one of those:
Kona Blue
Velocity Blue
Grabber Lime
My mind has gone all over the place on these colors. Right now, in order, I'd probably want Kona Blue, Twister Orange, Velocity Blue, then Grabber Lime. The rest of the Mustang colors for 2020 are two shades of red, white, black, two shades of grey/silver, and a dark green that is specific to the Bullit edition.
Bah... I'm thinking my way back into driving down to the dealer and telling them to order me up a 2019 Orange Fury as I type this, so lets move on. I'll revisit the Mustang issue in several (hopefully six) months.
A new friend
So, since breaking up my friendship with A, I'll freely admit that I'm more lonely. It was just nice to have a buddy that I could go drinking with, see the occasional movie with, travel with, and just hang out and talk with. Don't get me wrong, I still think I did the right thing because the toxic things in that friendship outweighed any of the good. But I'm still lonely.
I have A and E, and we're really close to taking a trip out to San Francisco together, but at best I see one or the other of them twice a year and both of them together once every two or three years. We text each other, but that's not a good everyday friendship.
There's my brother B and his boys, but I'm not friends with any of them. Friendly? Yes. Friends? No. I'm a brother and an uncle.
There's my brother's friend E (I really need to expand my friendship into different letters!), but we're just not alike enough. He's fine to chat with and play D&D with... maybe even some other games with B and the nephews... but not really friend material. I guess if I had to nail the one thing down about E is that, while he's not stupid by any means, he doesn't use his intelligence. He doesn't even seem to want to stretch his mind and really think something through. We're on the opposite sides of the political spectrum but I can't get him to defend President Trump in particular or even any conservative values in general. He "just likes them".
There really isn't anybody at work that I'd consider a friend or even friendship material. B would be the closest, but I never got the feeling that he's looking for any friendship outside of what we share at work. And the reason, I assume, is kind of the problem I have with a lot of people.... family. B is married and has kids and even grandkids (he's younger than me, but had kids young). I don't know his kids at all, I don't like young kids like his grandkids are, and while I work with his wife I'm not sure she and I are friend material as she can't seem to see past the 'supervisor' in my title.
I was considering the possibility that loneliness would just be my normal state now. With the way I am, I should find it LUCKY that I've gotten three good friends over the past 25 years (I met E 25 years ago this year, A 18 years ago, and former friend A 13 years ago). But then something strange happened. A former coworker messaged me on facebook.
This is J. J is an LPN that I worked with at my previous facility. She was nice, friendly, liked movies, had similar interests to mine, had kids but wasn't married.. Since we'd last really talked she's seen one of her kids off from her house and has only a 13 year old now at home. We met a few weeks back to catch up over a beer after I got out of work. It was fun but short lived as I had just gotten out of work and we parted as renewed friends. I chatted with her online and after a 'like' on one of her posts and a comment about watching a movie that she was interested in, got invited to a movie. Rocketman.
A quick aside... shouldn't they really advertise musicals AS musicals? I love Elton John and adore his music and would really like to see a biopic about him. Rocketman was advertised as just that... starting with him young and going through to some midpoint in his career. But no... while it covers a lot of biographical information, this is NOT a biopic. It's a musical using the lyrics of his songs to tell the stories of his life. He sings a lot of the songs in the pic, but they're also 'sung' by other characters. And that bothers me not just because the songs aren't specifically about those points in his life, they're not even lyrics that Elton John wrote himself! I liked the musical but hated the fact that it took 40 minutes for me to realize that it WAS a musical.
Back to J. J and I had a good time at the movie. We went to my favorite local brew pub afterward and shared a bite to eat and a couple drinks. Afterward we went for a walk around downtown then said our goodbyes. Since then she's shown me a video of a strange musical experience that you watch in large format and suggested we go see it together. I agreed as it seemed cheap enough and close enough to manage. The first part was right as the 'expensive' tickets were under $40 a piece, but the second part was wrong... it's a 4 hour drive away. That's a tough idea.... drive 4 hours, watch (or experience as the website says) a video for an hour and a half, maybe grab a bite, then drive back for 4 hours.
So we decided to stay over and have another day as tourists. It's not a great touristy city, but none the less there are interesting things to do, see, and eat/drink. But something was bothering me. It got to me at the movie and then itched at the back of my mind while we were talking about the trip (ironically she just booked the room for the night while I was writing this). It hit me a few nights ago after I bought the tickets to the show.... it's the hugs.
I was treating J as a friend. Online I treated her that way. When we were catching up I treated her that way. At the movie I treated her that way. Talking about this trip I treated her that way. But when we met to catch up she greeted me with a hug and said goodbye in the same way. When we met at the movie theater she greeted me with a hug. We had a hug after dinner, then when saying goodbye after the walk downtown.
Does she think the same as me? That we're just catching up, watching a movie, and soon taking a trip together, all as friends? Or is she looking for something more. I mean... she couldn't possibly see those as dates. Right? My inexperience with dating is really biting me in the ass right now. Even if I had experience dating, is this how two 40 something year olds start to date? A divorced mother and a bachelor living with his mom (yeah, she knows I live with mom and my brother and knew it when we worked together).
If she DOES think it's going down that path, then what does it say when I've readily and even eagerly agreed to an overnight stay with her?
Phew... I just double checked the hotel reservation she made (thank the Goddess I can creep on it using the confirmation number she sent me and her last name!) and it's for a room with two beds. If I saw a room with just one bed I'd be beyond assuming!
I don't think there's anything wrong with being friends with a woman. She's a lovely person, has a quick wit, and is definite 'Good Friend' material. And no, someone doesn't just move into the 'Good Friend' zone after the time we've spent together. E and I took about 2 years of school together to become friends and then after living together for a few months is when we entered the GF zone. I worked for A for about six months and became friends, then remained friends after he left the company a couple years later and only entered the GF zone maybe a year after that. A and I met at driving school, became friends there, became closer when we'd chat after driving for the day (calling each other as we were on separate rigs), and only entered the GF zone 2 years after that. J and I met about 3 years ago but I wouldn't say we even entered friendship until we caught up a few weeks ago. We were just co-workers until that point. We'd never spent any time together outside of work until then! So the GF zone is still months if not years away.
I wouldn't look as being friends with her as any different than being friends with E, A, or A. It's not like I have romantic feelings toward any of those men. Just like I don't have any romantic feelings toward J. But if I looked at E, A, and A, through the 'normal' lens, it would be odd for any of us to have romantic feelings for the others. It shouldn't be strange to think of J or I having romantic feelings for each other... until you add in my queerness.
I mean... okay, I've given it a few minutes of thought, and there's no reason I couldn't have romantic feelings for J. But I have no idea how she's react to me. I don't know her political beliefs, I don't know her religious beliefs, I don't know her stance on any issue except she's pro Marvel and con DC (seriously... she likes the Marvel movies and comics and doesn't enjoy any of the DC movies or comics). She seemed to enjoy Rocketman and Elton John, but that couldn't be a surprise as I learned about the movie from a post of hers. I just don't know enough about her to even consider sharing all of myself with her. If I had to I could open up myself and share everything with A and/or E. I'd be surprised... shocked really... if they were anything other than 100% supportive of me. The only thing they might do that I wouldn't like would be to live more 'out loud' and not let it be a kept secret inside of myself. J? She might hate fags. I'm not a fag, but I don't even know if she's enlightened enough to have thought around the differences between gay, transsexual, transgendered, and queer. I've assumed she is, but that's from me projecting my beliefs on the empty canvas of the person in front of me. In my world EVERYbody would think that way.
Whelp... I guess this will be the weekend to find out. I mean... it's a 4 hour drive down and a 4 hour drive back and practically a full evening, morning, and day with a night in a shared hotel room.
What else could we possibly talk about beyond politics, possible romantic feelings, and thoughts on sexuality.
Politics
So, I'm obviously anti Trump. I have been since before he ran for office and nothing about him running for office or his presidential administration has made me a fan or even given me reason to respect him. So obviously I'm not going to vote for him. In fact if you put him up against Lucifer himself who ran on a campaign promise of eternal damnation in every garage and a demon in every pot.... I'd have to give it serious thought.
At this point in 2019, that only leaves me with what... over 20 options?
That's just the Democrat participants and doesn't even include the republican(s) running against President Trump or any third party candidates (STAY OUT OF THE RACE HOWARD SCHULTZ!!!). While I've almost always identified as an independent, on the national scale (congressional representative, senator, president) I've always voted Democrat. If there was a good Republican that I could agree with on the majority of things, I'd do so... but I think I'm just to opposed to most planks in the GOP platform. Less taxes? Nope. Reduced regulation? No thank you. Socially conservative? Have you read any of my blog?
I would find it hard to vote for a third party candidate. Yes, I probably can find a candidate more in line with my beliefs outside of the Democrat party, but voting for them is just taking support away from the Democrat and more or less giving it to the Republican. I think it will take the tearing apart of either major party for a third party to form... and that party will only last until it or the former party establish themselves as the new second party in a two party system. And yes, I'm specifically not naming parties in that part because I could see the leftist liberal wing of the Democrats destroying the party just as easily as the tea-party conservative wing of the GOP destroying theirs.
Anywho... I'm focused on the Democrats running for office. I'm going to hopefully watch most of the Debates coming up next week as a 'get to know you' of those running. I honestly can only name a handful of candidates... in fact, lets try without me Googling it:
Biden
Sanders
Warren
Booker
Butigeg (sp?)
Harris
O'Rourke
Yeah... I think that's all that's on the top of my mind. Now let's see who all is running:
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Kamala Harris (I honestly couldn't guess her first name)
Pete Buttigieg (I can pronounce it... I just can't spell it!)
Beto O'Rourke
Cory Booker
Andrew Yang
Amy Klobuchar
Tim Ryan
Julian Castro
Tulsi Gabbard
Bill de Blasio
Kristen Gillibrand
John Hickenlooper
Jay Inslee
Marianne Williamson
Steve Bullock
John Delaney
Michael Bennet
Wayne Messam
Seth Moulton
Eric Swalwell
These are in order, according to the New York times, of their current national polling. I've italicized and bolded the candidates who I don't know or at least didn't know who was running. Lemme give a quick 'what I know' about each:
Joe Biden: I loved him as Vice President Biden. I'd love to see him have another two terms of Vice President, but I don't think I want him as President. I wouldn't oppose it and would vote for him (right now) over some other candidates here that I know... but I think we can do better than Biden.
Bernie Sanders: He's the leftist version of Trump. I like the direction he's thinking but I think he's going too far and hasn't shown any desire to work with Republicans (other than the very Republican idea of 'they can do what I want and that's me working with them'), and I can't see him compromising. Medicare for all is a good idea... but damn it, that's just not going to fly. I don't think you could honestly line up all the Democrats behind that, let alone any Republicans.
Elizabeth Warren: Bernie Sanders in a slightly younger (she's only 7 years younger!!!) feminine form. She still strikes me as someone who doesn't know what compromise is and therefore couldn't govern effectively.
Kamala Harris: Um... she's a senator from California? She's black? She seems to have a lot of 'I like that idea too' on Facebook and Twitter. Yeah, I don't know much about her except that she's polling quite high.
Pete Buttigieg: I like him. He's very young to be running for President and wouldn't seem to have the requisite government experience with only being a Mayor for South Bend for several years... but then again President Trump had zero experience in governing before running. He's a veteran, he plays the piano, he speaks several languages, he's well read, he is a very good orator, and while it's obvious he opposes President Trump and almost everything he stand for, he has a 'lets all work together' mindset.
Beto O'Rourke: He lost to Ted Cruz for the Texas senate seat. I know there's more, but damn... you lost an election and now you're running for higher office? I know he's a Gen-Xer which is oddly satisfying as Buttigieg is firmly Millenial... but I don't know as much about him beyond that. Oh... he has an angry style of speaking. It's great to fire up the people, but I haven't seen him having a softer more nuanced speaking style.
Cory Booker: He's that great Mayor/Senator from New Jersey. He speaks well, if not great. He's black and fairly young. Umm... he's bald?
Amy Klobuchar: She's a Senator from Minnesota who has worked across the aisle in getting that bridge fixed fast. She's run and won a lot of moderates from her state and works with even conservatives. She seems to have a good speaking form, at least in a snowstorm. Oh, and she's angry and has thrown binders at her own staff. That last part might not be true, but I haven't seen enough of her to say she could deny it.
Julian Castro: He's a twin, he's from Texas, he worked in the Obama Administration. That's about it.
Bill de Blasio: He's the mayor of New York City. That's about it.
Kristen Gillibrand: She's the Senator from New York City. Was appointed, but then later won her seat. That's about it.
John Hickenlooper: He as the Governor of... Colorado? Utah and Wyoming don't sound right, so I'll stick with Governor of Colorado. And I guess I can't say "that's about it" as I don't even know that.
The rest I just don't know. I wanna say Andrew Yang was a business man. Tim and Tulsi? I don't know a thing about them. I recognize the names Inslee, Bullock, and Swalwell, but you could honestly tell me they were Republican senators from southern states and that would sound right too.
I have a current favorite out of these and I therefore know more about him. Buttigieg. Mayor Pete. I just so happened to watch his announcement and was in awe of his speaking ability. Maybe I'm naive, but I think the ability to speak eloquently is important for the President of the United States. It's one of the reason I liked President Obama so much. He could just speak so damned well. Unfortunately, I think to most people Mayor Pete is simply 'The Gay Candidate' and won't be able to move past that. I really hope he makes some good moves in the debate, but that's not going to be easy.
I mean... what the hell were they thinking? 10 people on stage at a time over two nights? How exactly is that supposed to help me? I want to learn not only what each candidate thinks, but what they all think on a single subject. Where do these candidates agree? Where do they disagree? What are their thoughts on foreign policy? Education? Climate change? Universal Basic Income? Reparations? Nuclear deals with Iran? Climate deals with every other nation? Immigrants? The border? I might get one soundbite out of each candidate one one of those topics... and that's all I can really expect in the time-frame they've set up.
With as high as Buttigieg is polling I think it's likely that he makes it into the final 8 or so candidates. I think that's reasonably where we'll be when votes are close to being cast. I think that realistically it should be down to three or four after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. And even then, it should be down to two heavy weights and two insurgents. From here to there is a long time and a lot can happen... but if I had to put money down on it, I'd say that Biden is a shoe in for one of those two heavyweight spots. He's just the most standard Democrat candidate there is. After that I just don't know. If you told me it was Biden vs Sanders or Biden vs Warren or Biden vs Buttigieg or Biden vs Booker.... all of those scenarios could sound right. I think it matters most who falls out early and then throws their support behind the other candidates.
Oh... and I'm not going to vote in the primary. As much as I'd like to be part of that decision making process, I don't believe a person not registered to the particular party should vote in their primary. I've heard plenty of good arguments for voting in it anyway (all the way to the argument of 'they want you to vote in it as an independent!'), but none of those ideas really make sense to me.
A year from now the voting will be over and we'll know who the candidate will be. I'm sure I'll check in on this idea between now and then.
The Job
I'm getting tired of writing so I'll make this the last section and quick at that. God this job is getting hard. We're so damned short staffed. A very big part of my job is to make the six week schedule as well as each daily schedule. Being short staffed means there is a shit ton of overtime and while we have people that love to soak up overtime, there just isn't enough of them. All of my nurses are getting worn out on overtime and I'm now having to mandate them left and right.
First, lets go with why we're short staffed to begin with. There are several positions that are tied up. The first two are our acting supervisors. We have three nursing supervisor positions. When I came on it was Me, T, and D. T retired and K stepped up as acting. K is good, knowledgeable, has held the acting position before, and even trained me as supervisor when I got the job. K wants to be the supervisor. K will never be the supervisor. The HUM has already decided that and won't even open the position up until she has a candidate she wants in case K is the best choice.
D left on a medical leave. So far as I know, it was stress leave. Yes... she was too stressed out and therefore she left. I'm happy she's gone as she was a really bad supervisor. Her nursing skills were fine, just diametrically opposed to mine. We never got along and we were never going to get along. Considering I haven't heard anything bad about my supervising yet, I'd have to say that everybody would agree with that. H stepped up and took her position as acting supervisor, but she still has her position and until she leaves H's position is held for him. That's the same for K. So with the two acting positions we're automatically down two nurses.
We have one nurse on administrative leave. She's been forced out as they investigate her for wrong doing. She's probably not coming back. I won't go into it more than that, but her position is still held. That's being down three nurses.
We have another nurse that just got put out on administrative leave. I can't imagine her NOT coming back, but I haven't seen anybody pushed out and then coming back. That's down four nurses.
We had a nurse transfer to another facility. Five nurses.
We already had two open positions. Seven nurses.
Those are all RN positions. I really wish I could count these separately, but when I don't have an LPN to work I have to shove an RN into that position and each of the two day shifts (morning and afternoon) require three LPNs, so their vacancies affect scheduling just as much as the RNs. So...
We have one LPN on medical leave. Stress leave. She's been gone since just after I got there (I swear, I had nothing to do with it!). She didn't do the normal LPN Jobs, but if she comes back or we fill in her position she WOULD work those jobs. Eight nurses.
We have another LPN out on a medical leave. So far as I know her health is so bad that she's just holding on to use up all of her leave before leaving the state's service as she really can't expect to come back to work. And she had a LOT of leave. Nine nurses.
I had an LPN quit. She was a bitch and quit in a bitchy way and I"m glad she's gone. But... Ten nurses.
I have another LPN that's given her two week notice. Eleven nurses.
I have an LPN that had surgery and is out at least six weeks... more than likely eight to ten weeks. Twelve nurses.
That's all my nursing vacancies... but I also had a pharmacy tech quit for medical reasons. Who can replace her? That's right, I had to basically assign an LPN to cover that position. Thirteen nurses.
Add in the fact that it's summer and I have a lot of nurses using vacation time they signed up for in October of last year. Add in the fact that I have to assign each nurse two days of classroom training. Add in the fact that I have an LPN that has intermittent Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave and she can call in 'FMLA' a lot.
The last six week schedule ran from April 21st to June 1st. It was bad and had a lot of overtime. The current schedule runs from June 2nd to July 13th and has a lot more overtime. The next schedule that I'm working on (and have to have out in a week) runs from July 14th to August 25th... and has even MORE overtime.
We keep hiring new nurses, but more than half just don't even make it out of their six week orientation. Being a correctional nurse is NOT easy and it's most certainly NOT for everybody. So I think the fact that we get between 30 and 40 percent of the nurses to stay as a good mark on our interviewing skill. But still.... we don't get enough people to interview. More or less we have open invitations from a half a dozen contractual nurse companies. If they get someone even slightly interested in doing correctional nursing work, they get sent to us and get an interview. We also have an job opening listed on the state's employment site and every week or so take all those that sign up and interview them... but that's only got us about 4 candidates!
One of the reasons it's so hard to get people in to even interview is just the job itself. I won't beat a dead horse, but the idea of being a correctional nurse is not held in high regard. It's for 'mean' nurses or 'bad' nurses or nurses who 'can't get another job' or nurses who were 'burned out in a normal job'. None of that is true. First, we aren't allowed to be mean. We're expected to not only treat our patients (inmates) with respect, but to show them an example of how a good citizen acts. And a bad nurse? Sorry, I've seen good nurses that can't keep up with my nursing staff. You need to have damned finely tuned assessment skills to work here. Not only are we overworked, we have to quickly asses someone faking illness and real illness. This isn't just drug seeking that ER nurses get... this is attention seeking, disability seeking, lawsuit seeking, and yes as we serve an inmate population even escape seeking. We deal with chronic illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol. We deal with acute illnesses like gout, cancer, hepatitis, and HIV. We deal with injuries resulting from accidents, assaults, and fights. We deal with sports and work injuries. We deal with mental illnesses ranging from depression to violent schizophrenia. We deal with it all. Oh, and much of our population are actively seeking to sue the nurses, the medical providers, the officers, the administration, the department, and the state. So no... 'bad' nurses need not apply!
Another difficult thing for new hires is the amount of autonomy we have as nurses. It's not like there are an abundance of medical providers. Even the ones we have are inundated with seeing all the chronic illnesses and managing those. So the nurses see all requests for healthcare first and are the deciding factor for a lot of treatment. For the inmate to see a medical provider outside of an already scheduled chronic care visit, they have to see the nurses three times. Now if it's urgent or an emergency we can see the MP sooner.... but that's the exception and not the rule. A nurse that wants to get the MP involved at every turn just isn't going to make it working with us.
So... the job is difficult. But hey, it's a State Job right? Great pay, superior benefits, and that super duper state pension right?
Yeah No.
The pay for all nurses in the state (both the department of corrections and the department of health and human resources) is determined by the civil service commission. Negotiations with the unions help settle what the raises will be each year but the pay rate itself is set by the commission on its own. The rate itself? Well, when they make exceptions to hiring new nurses and give them the maximum rate for a nurse with years of experience... it still pays less than what most hospitals will pay new nurses with no experience. The benefits? Those are nice. Those are good. Really good healthcare choices, dental, earned days off, holidays, overtime... those are all good things that honestly are better than most other nursing jobs. Even when a hospital, for example, has a better sick time system or a better overtime system, they more often than not lack severely in other areas like healthcare or dental. And that sweet sweet state pension? Nope. 401k. It's a damned good system with a whole LOT of matching funds from the state... but if someone is expecting a pension and is told it's a 401k, they often stop listening and just move on before hearing that it's probably the best damned 401k system in the state.
So we don't pay well, have good benefits, and have a nice 401k. That's not exactly the stuff you'd put on a poster, especially for a job that's difficult and considered less than' other nursing jobs.
Did I mention that we're one of the largest facilities in the state? There are three facilities that have more nursing staff (when at full staff) than us and they're all specialty facilities. The department's "hospital" (it's technically a clinic but it's a hospital in all but name), the department's mental health stabilization facility (yes, there's a place for the criminally insane in regular parlance and it takes a LOT of nurses to run), and the women's facility (there's only one woman's facility so it has to offer every single health care service where most facilities only offer a few of those same services). They all have more nurses than us. No other facility comes close. And while we're not exactly in the least populated part of the state, we're not in a population hub either.
So all of that comes down to the fact that I don't have enough nurses. Seriously... thirteen nurses short out of a staff of 36 nurses. I'm missing one third of my staff and can't eliminate a single shift. I have three nurses that since April 1st have worked over 100 hours of overtime. I have another 4 or 5 that's worked between 60 and 80 hours of overtime.
That's all bad, but then yesterday and the day before happened. I set the daily schedule out about three days in advance. If there's an open overtime slot that hasn't been filled I call all the nurses on our voluntary overtime list (there's only about 5 on that list) and if none of them are interested figure out who's next up to be mandated. Mandations are based on an equalization list... more or less those that have worked the fewest overtime hours (voluntary or mandated, they're both treated the same) gets mandated for that shift. I generally have to call them at home and tell them they need to work that extra shift in a few days. At this point with the equalization list having been running since April 1st, those at the bottom of the list are the ones who have been avoiding overtime, so it's never a pleasant phone call. I try my best to take it in stride as I'm only mandating them and not being mandated myself. I have the easy side of that conversation even though I'm often met with angry cries or pleading.
That's bad enough, but if someone calls in, I need to mandate someone at that moment to cover the shift.... so the list gets in use but I can't mandate someone from home. Well... technically I can, but only if they answer the phone. Lemme tell you, if you get mandated over the phone like that once you'll never answer the phone from work again! So while I make the calls, I always end up having to mandate someone that's already working to pull a double shift. These may well be people with 40 or 50 or 60 hours of overtime already... but they're working along side nurses that have 60 or 70 or 80 hours... so the lowest one gets mandated even if they've been helping out and taking a LOT of overtime.
Well, the day before yesterday I had a nurse leave early. She was going to be away from the facility awhile, so not only did I have to cover her shift, I had to cover her shift the next morning and the day after the weekend. All the earlier shift nurses had left leaving only nurses already working the current shift.... so I had to cover that shift. And again... while covering that shift and doing the difficult job of the nurse, I had to cover two more shifts which likely would include mandating two nurses. I decided to make lemonade out of this lemony situation and took one of our orientees that had been orientating for 5 of her 6 weeks and had her do the job 'under my supervision'. The fact that she was nervous about not only doing the job, but doing it under my watchful eye immediately told me it was a good idea. Probably not the best idea as she was going to be slow and I'd have to watch and catch her mistakes... but I could do MY job as well as covering the position. Oh, and by doing that, I was technically still doing my supervisory job... so while I ended up working a 14.5 hour day, none of that can be overtime. I'll have to 'shift' my schedule around and work less instead of remaining on my regular shift and just getting paid more money.
I get screwed on overtime.
So she was going her thing, I mandated two more nurses, redid the schedule and overtime schedule adding 14 new shifts that need to be covered (in 2.5 weeks!) and sent that all out. The shift is supposed to end at 10 pm, but because my orientee is naturally slow (and I let her be slow to show her what that really would mean when she's working on her own in a week and a half!), we left the facility at 11:30 pm.
The next day I had to mandate two more nurses. Then there was a call-in whom I'm fairly sure wasn't sick but was just upset because of the nurse leaving the previous night, and I had to mandate a nurse to fill her position. The next nurse on the list... the one that had just worked doubles the previous two days. The first double was at her wish (she signed up for it voluntarily), while the previous day's was mandated. And now I was doing it to her again. Three straight 16 hour days. She hadn't seen her kid in two days and had plans with her family (that had already been moved from the previous day). And even worse than just being upset and yelling at me, she tried to fight it. She brought up union rules and regulations and operating procedures... and I had to sit there and try to knock them all aside with as much sympathy and empathy as possible. Mandating her took me 2 hours. I already have to shave 5.5 hours off my week because of the previous day, and now I just lost 2 of it. Oh, and part of my job for the next few hours was continuing trying to find her a replacement. I didn't HAVE to do it, but damn... she has a family she loves and I was destroying it by making her stay.
Earlier in the week we had 13 people scheduled for interviews. That's an oddity, but one we were happy to follow through with. Now even if I liked and approved and hired each and every one of them, four of those nurses were already working for us in a contractual manner and were simply applying to become state employees. In other words they were already filling a spot and not one of the 13 empty positions. But still... if I hired all the others that could fill nine positions!!!!
Yeah... that's a pipe dream. Several didn't show up. One was just oblivious and solved each and every one of the situations we present to them by calling an ambulance (the right answer in all of those situations is NEVER calling an ambulance). Another tried her hardest to answer our questions and took 3 solid minutes of silence (filled with "umm" and "uhh"s) to figure out she didn't know the answer. I don't mind people not knowing everything.... again this is a hard job and we'll train you... but at least be quick in acknowledging you don't know it all. Another was just a bad fit culturally (she was very bossy and actually offered us criticism on hour interviewing technique!!! NEXT!!!). We ended up with our four contractuals and three new nurses. One RN and two LPNs.
But wait... one of our contractuals had a bad interview. He got some answers wrong and really just failed to impress the non medical person on our panel (the panel was the assistant deputy warden, the HUM, and myself). I figured the HUM's and my votes would be enough to get him in... but the HUM has had some problems with him and wants to wait. This contractual nurse has been with us for nearly 10 months now, has done a good job, takes training well, and even takes criticism in stride. But he's not going to get the state job, where three other nurses that have all started within the last 8 weeks are going to get a state job (and state seniority!) before him. He'll eventually get hired (the HUM was clear that she wants him, just not now)... but my point fell on deaf ears.
What if he takes this as the insult it clearly is and leaves?
Thirteen nurses. Three new nurses.
Ten nurses. Lose one because of an insult.
I'm fairly sure in a few weeks I'll be at Eleven nurses short.
Fuck... and I was going to be quick about this last section. I'm done.
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