This will hopefully be the last of the 'Get To Work' series. When I made the first post, way back in June I'd have NEVER believed it would take seven and a half MONTHS to get a job. Not in a million years. But then again, I really couldn't have known I had someone working against me in the prison system. Someone that would sabotage two of my three 'gimmie' jobs. Someone that would continue to sabotage two more 'easy' jobs, eating up months of my time.
If you really think about it, I truly only found out about the nefarious person in November. I applied to several more prison jobs with one that I thought might be outside of their reach and stupidly waited until I heard I that I didn't get that one. And that wasn't until January 6th.
I started looking for new jobs on January 8th after licking my wounded pride for a couple days. One in particular was at a nearby behavioral health hospital for an RN Manager position. I interviewed for that position on January 12th. And January 13th. And January 21st. And then found out that they went with a different candidate on the 27th.
In the same message that informed me I didn't get the job, however, I was informed that they liked me and wanted to gauge my interested in a couple different positions. I interviewed for one of those positions on the 30th, and was offered the job three days later on February 2nd. Two of those days, by the way, were over the weekend. If you go by business days, they offered me the job the day after I interviewed.
So, let's go over that process in more detail. Go over what I applied for, what I learned at each of the interviews, how my interest grew, and how I ended up with the position I got. After that I'll go over the position itself and then we can go over what the next steps are.
On January 8th, I started my 'new job search' in the broadest way I knew how. I went to google and searched for 'Nurse jobs'. One came up at Indeed.com. A local mental health facility. While I was at Indeed, I saw MANY nurse job opportunities. Two in particular caught my attention. The first was a contract position to get back into the prison system. I figured it was worth another try, but I wouldn't hold my breath on it like I have all the other prison jobs. The other was a manager at a behavioral health hospital that I hadn't heard of before but was fairly close by. I went ahead and put my application in for that one too.
The next day I got a message from the RN recruiter of the behavioral health hospital. We went back and forth for a bit and she finally invited me for a phone interview the following Monday. She didn't refer to it as an interview, but that's what it ended up being. On the same day, I was contacted by the contract company who was VERY interested in me. That seems like a 'no shit' proposition as my resume is FULL of the very job they're looking for. We immediately started working on the paperwork that would give me a state prison background check (needed before an interview).
The behavioral health hospital has a name that's associated with a local hospital group and I just assumed it was their hospital. I learned in the phone interview on the 12th that the hospital was a joint venture between that hospital group and a much larger mental health organization. This mental health organization is HUGE and more or less THEY run the hospital. The local hospital group has their name on the building but that's about it. If I'm hired in, I won't work for that hospital group, I'll work for the larger national mental health organization.
Anyway, the recruiter was impressed with both me and my resume that we set up an interview. She was actually able to set up an interview at the hospital with the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) for the very next day. I was perfectly happy with that and spent the rest of the day prepping for the interview. The only thing that came up in that first interview that I wasn't prepared for was the question of salary. She worded it something like "Just so we can make sure we're on the same page, what are your salary requirements?"
My immediate thought was 'Shit shit shit shit shit'. I hadn't given that ANY thought. If I ask for too much, I might just be tossed aside. At the same time, if I ask for too little, they might think I'm inexperienced or don't think highly of myself and toss me aside. I also didn't want to act like I was just giving it my first thought, even if that was the case. I gave what I thought was a reasonable answer of the salary I had at my last job. $100,000 a year. It's a slight exaggeration, but if I were hired back at my job at the same pay scale, it would be closer to $130,000 a year.
Prepping for the live interview was easy enough. I printed up several copies of my resume and cover letter. I printed up some questions, both honest questions I had and ones that would just sound good, intelligent, and inquisitive. I made sure I knew how long it would take to get there (about 45 minutes) and set a schedule for the next day. I even took my interview clothes and tossed them in the wash to make sure they didn't have those dust lines from being on a hanger for too long.
The day of the interview was the day we got 5 inches of snow. Thankfully, I know how to drive in the snow and know rule number one... leave plenty of extra time! I left with an hour and a half to get there. I got there in 45 minutes. And I forgot all the prints I made including my resumes, cover letters, and questions.
I spent a half hour in their parking lot just hanging out and listening to a pod cast to keep my mind occupied. I stepped inside 15 minutes before the interview and was greeted by the COO 5 minutes before the interview. When I sat down I was introduced to the other person, but was taken aback as it was not the CNO. It was a nursing supervisor. I promptly forgot her name as well since they explained that she was the one that directly supervised the nurses and the techs and would be the person reporting to the nurse manager.
So not only was I not interviewing with an obvious superior, I was interviewing with someone who would report to me. That doesn't feel right. It also tells me that their naming structure is different than what I'm used to. At the state hospital we had nurses and techs that reported to nurse managers. The nurse managers reported to the assistant directors of nursing. The assistant directors of nursing reported to the director of nursing. The director of nursing reported to the hospital director. Here it seems like the 'Nurse Manager' role is more akin to the assistant director of nursing role.
I'm not disappointed by that as it's a role that I can easily manage... but my desire to make $100,000 a year is now vastly underrating myself. I was undercutting a position that should pay $130,000 because I'm coming off two years of not working. But with this position, it should be making over $150,000.
I made a conscious effort to put that out of my head. It was done and I couldn't fix it here and now at the interview. I could only work my ass off and impress the hell out of the COO. And that's exactly what I did. We talked a lot about leadership and managerial skills. We talked about my work history and of course I gave plenty of examples on how I managed difficult people, difficult staff, and even managed up (helped my superiors). He seemed genuinely interested. If there was one mistake I may have made at that first interview it was asking for a tour. I was just so damned curious as this building had opened up just a couple years back. It turns out it looked a lot like the state hospital, just smaller.
The COO said I should hear back within the next two weeks.
A week later I got a call from the recruiter saying that the liked me and wanted me to have a 2nd interview. I was perfectly fine with that as it made sense. While the COO is obviously the big boss, there has to be several levels between him and the nurse manager position and I'm sure THEY would like to weigh in. But then I was told that this interview was with a nurse manager, someone at the same level, and two more nurse supervisors.
wtf?
Fine. I repeated everything, printed everything out, made a schedule for going to the interview, got there early, and even forgot everything I printed out. I was thrown for another loop making me believe that this is a very big company and the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. I met with the nurse manager, but instead of two nurse supervisors I met with what the nurse manager introduced as 'her boss'. He had the same name as one of the supervisors I was told I was meeting with, so it really confused me and I didn't catch his title.
It was a similar interview as the first with both the manager and 'her boss' quizzing me more on managerial style. In fact, up to this point between the phone interview and two in person interviews, I haven't been asked a single nursing question.
We all shook hands when we were done and I left without having an updated time frame. In my head that translated to still working on the initial time frame from the COO. Hearing something within two weeks of his interview, or a week from this interview.
A week later I got word from the recruiter... I didn't get the job. But she said that everybody was impressed with me and asked if I'd be interested in either a night floor nurse position or a night admission nurse position. This was thankfully through a text so I had a couple hours to go through the anger and disappointed tracks. When I finally responded I was proper, professional, and courteous. I thanked them for the interviews, admitted I was disappointed but understanding, and showed interested in the other positions. I stated that I'd probably be more interested in the admissions position, but would need to hear more about it.
It took the recruiter most of the rest of the day to respond, but she finally came back and said that she'd set up an 'interview' with the COO for the admissions position. She also said that the director of the admissions department would be in on the call. I say call because they were going to do this over a Microsoft TEAMS meeting.
I didn't like how it changed from me learning more about the position to an interview but I accepted it. At this point, money is money and working a mystery job at this hospital is better than working a mystery job at an old folks home, which seemed like the next best option. Unfortunately the interview was at the end of the week.
I decided early on that I wasn't going to stand still. I'd applied to several positions between that first interview and this one. Three things happened between setting up the interview and having the interview. First, I heard from the contract company for the prison. My background check came through and she'd be double checking if they still had a need for nurses. Second, I heard from the federal prisons, with a tentative job offer and an invite to set up an interview (yeah, the 'job offer' part is weird but... whatever).
The third thing was unusual enough to include here. I got an invite from 'Steve' on Indeed. It was for a behavioral health position in town. 12 hour shifts, easy interview, quick hire, 13 week contract with possibility of full time hire. I know damned well that means this is a contract company hiring for the local hospital as I'd seen that same job offered directly from the hospital before. I went ahead and showed interest and he immediately called me. 'Steve' turned out to be middle eastern with a thick accent. He wanted to immediately lock me up in an agreement that I'd only let them represent me to this job. He then wanted my resume. I digitally signed the representative agreement and sent him my resume. He then said he could polish up my resume to make it more appealing for that job. I agreed as I've polished my resume before for specific jobs. The problem set in when he sent it back for my approval. First, he gave me all of three minutes after emailing it before emailing again asking me to send it back with approval AND sending a text with the same instructions. I can read through an updated resume quickly and normally would have already sent it back, but he did more than polish my resume. He outright changed it, adding job responsibilities and vastly overstating others. It was clear by the way he was editing my resume that this was more of a substance abuse position as that's what he added. While I did say I'd worked with people with substance abuse issues, he made it sound like that was entirely what I was doing both at the hospital and the prison.
I finally had to respond back and tell him that he no longer had my permission to represent me to this job or any other. I informed him that the changes he made to my resume resulted in a complete fabrication of facts and that I was not comfortable working with a person or company that felt it was appropriate to lie on a resume. I 'thanked' him for his time and told him our work together was done. He had the audacity to respond, asking if he could send my resume along to the hospital without any changes. I had to remind him that in my last response to him I rescinded my agreement for him to represent me for that or ANY job and that if he did, I'd take legal action. I didn't hear back from him after that.
At this point I was waiting to hear back about the contract state prison job, had just got the paperwork to fill out requesting an interview for the federal prison job, and was waiting for the virtual interview as an admissions RN.
The federal prison 'job offer' was... well, it was almost easy to tear up and throw away. Back in 2018, when I last worked as a floor nurse, I was making about $80,000 a year. Maybe a little more. It's hard to say as that job also offered an annual bonus. The federal job has four levels for their nurses and they were offering me at the 3rd level, which was fair. I forget what it was, but the 4th level had some requirement that I didn't technically meet. But the pay for that 2nd highest level? $70,000 a year.
Ouch.
The only thing that stopped me from tossing it aside was the fact that a fed job would come with a fed pension. Not a 401k, a pension. Basically I work ten or fifteen years and then get guaranteed income for the rest of my life after retirement. So, I signed it and sent it in saying that I was fairly open for interviews.
Later that day I had the virtual interview. I'm always mixed on how to have these interviews at home. I technically have a camera that I can connect to my desktop. It's a nice camera, but my monitor is so big that it's mounted too high. I'm literally looking up at the camera. I could bring out my laptop, but then its the opposite as the laptop sits too low. I hate people on virtual meetings like this that have you looking up their nose. At the end of the day, I chose the best video option; my phone. It sucks though as I have to hold it for the entire interview. Anyway, I got on with the COO who welcomed me warmly and said he'd be getting the director of the admissions department.
After being on 'hold' for five minutes both the COO and the Director came back on. The COO then simply handed the interview off to the Director. I was immediately disappointed as he said he wasn't THE director of admissions at this facility. Instead he was A director and was filling in for the director as she was off on family leave. I didn't let it show or anything, but my immediate thought was that this would only delay the decision making process again. Anyway, we talked and talked and talked.
I only learned 40 minutes into the interview that he knew NOTHING of me before the interview. His only information about me was that the COO recommended me for the position. He didn't know I'd interviewed for the manager position, he didn't know I'd worked at the prison or the state mental health hospital, and he didn't know I'd worked at the intake center for the prison system. Even with him not knowing all that, I seemed to confirm everything that the COO told him as he was very impressed.
Toward the end of the interview he said something along the lines of "Listen, I'm not going to mince words; I like you for this position" and then proceeded to start telling me about the various schedules. They're hiring for two positions with similar but alternate days on/off. This didn't sound like he was telling me just so I'd know, it sounded like he was telling me so I could pick my schedule. Like... I was getting the job. He even said at the end of the interview that he'd contact HR and get this going.
I'll freely admit, I was excited. The interview went well. But I've been burned by what I thought of good interviews before, so I didn't count my chicken before it hatched.
Monday morning I heard back from the federal prison. We set up an interview for Thursday February 12th. She then sent me some paperwork that I'd have to have filled out by the time of the interview. She also needed two specific sheets filled out in a day or so. The paperwork was twenty two pages long!
Just by reading the paperwork I learned that if I got the job I'd start with three weeks of correctional training. In Georgia. Part of that training would be a physical test that included running up six flights of stairs, running through a basic obstacle course, and dragging a 75 pound dummy 1/4 mile. I'm not sure I could have done these things when I was in high school, let alone as a 52 year old with COPD. But hey, I wouldn't know until I tried right? So I filled out all the paperwork and sent it in just before lunch.
After lunch I came in and saw that the behavioral health hospital had sent me an email. It was from a different recruiter at the hospital. It thanked me for taking the time to speak to everyone and said they'd like to offer me the Admissions RN position. It included a pay rate, a shift differential, and even a bonus that I'd seen them advertise on their careers website but hadn't asked directly about (remember, technically I haven't applied for this job!). It even included when the next orientation class would start. I had to stop my heart from running at 200 beats per minute as this looked like it. A legit offer. It listed the position, the pay rate, a shift differential, and a bonus that I'd seen advertised but hadn't talked about directly.
Before I get into all the details, lemme tell you one thing I'd been concerned about but hadn't asked: Pay. Remember, I'd told them I was looking for $100,000 for the RN Manager position. That's just over what I was making before. Now, they hadn't told me what the pay for the Manager position was, but if they were following along, they'd have to know to offer less than that for an Admission RN position. So, I made a list.
If I went back to the state prison system they paid, at the top of their pay scale, $50.62 an hour. I was making top of the pay scale the last time I was a floor nurse for the prison and was making top of the pay scale as a nurse manager. Yes, they'd gone through a LOT of raises while I was gone, but if I'd stayed I would have gone up with them. On top of that, I'm now coming in with a LOT more experience, so I don't think it's outlandish to consider that MY state prison pay. And yes, that's more than I was making as a nurse manager when I left. Wanting to be ready for anything, I set up a pay scale that I could reference both with hourly wages and what those hourly wages would be annually:
- $133,120 - $64.00 (Contract pay at the state prison)
- $105,289 - $50.62 (State Prison Pay)
- $100,000 - $48.08 (Roughly what I was making as an RN Manager)
- $90,000 - $43.27
- $85,000 - $40.87
- $80,000 - $38.46
- $70,000 - $33.65 (Federal Prison Pay)
What I expected was about $44 an hour. If they offered that, I'd made a small effort to ask for more, but not much. A lot of places advertised similar positions at $38 to $42 an hour. The less they offered, the more I'd push to get more with my 'reasonable' goal being $44. Just over $90,000 a year. A step back to be sure, but while my goal is $100,000, I'd set myself up for failure in that rout. I'd said I expected that as a manager and this wasn't a manager position.
So you can imagine my utter surprise when the hourly wage in the offer was $47 an hour. With the shift differential of $3 an hour, I'd be making $104,000 a year. I was happy enough with the rate that I didn't offer any pushback and instead just asked what the next steps were. For the rest of the day, I went back and forth with the recruiter and was filling out paperwork. The first piece of paperwork which made this official in my mind was the actual offer letter. It laid everything out that the recruiter did but was something I had to sign. It even included: "This offer of employment is contingent upon successfully passing the drug screening and the satisfactory clearance of a background check."
The paperwork was, in single word, tedious. I received her email at just after noon and I finished with the paperwork at just before five. But again, this just made it more and more real. This wasn't just background check information (although there was a LOT of that), it was human resources onboarding stuff. Like signing an acknowledgement of their core values and code of conduct. Filling out direct deposit information. Signing acceptance of benefits highlights. Filling out federal Tax Forms and a Federal Employment Eligibility Form.
The background check would be done by a third company so I had to fill out a lot of information for them. I also had to schedule a drug test (urine test) and a session to be fingerprinted. I'm not currently on any prescriptions that could show up as illicit, so I know I can pass any tests like that. My credit is fine, I don't have a criminal background, and my employment is easy as pie to check as I've worked for the state at various places between 2013 and 2023.
Now, I started writing this post Monday evening. But I got tired with all the earlier paperwork, so I held off until Tuesday morning. I got some more done on Tuesday, but then I spent most of the afternoon out including my drug test. Then Wednesday I had a migraine. And today I just felt wiped out after the migraine. I mention that because I don't want you to think that me taking four days to post this means I'm not excited. I am DAMNED excited!
But it does give me the chance to update some other things. When scheduling for the fingerprints, I just told the recruiter that I couldn't do it this Thursday (today) or the following Monday or Tuesday. I have my therapy every other Thursday and I have doctors appointments both Monday and Tuesday. It turns out the only day they do fingerprints is Thursdays, so that got scheduled for NEXT Thursday. If I'd known it was only available on Thursdays, I'd have simply said it had to be done after 11 AM. Whatever.
The drug test was funny. I'm used to giving urine tests at the lab for my diabetes. Both Ozempic and Farxiga have possible urine problems so it has to be monitored regularly, not to mention my prostate issues. It's been over a decade since I did a urine test for work. When I go in I get ordered around like a suspect by the police. "Take Your Coat Off" "Empty Your Pockets" "Wash Your Hands" "Let Me See Your Hands" "Pick A Test Cup"...
Once I was handed the test cup she draw a line on it and said I had to get that much, that I had 4 minutes to produce it, and that I could NOT flush the toilet afterward. And then the worry starts... it seems I hadn't done this since I had prostate problems. And yeah... I couldn't get a freaking stream started. When I did finally start to go, it felt like I was peeing a LOT, so I pinched it off as to not over fill the cup. And yeah, I barely got a dribble in. You see, the line she drew is like twice as high as I normally have to give for lab tests AND the cup is like 4 times as wide. I probably got enough out in that first spurt for my lab test but it was nowhere near enough for this.
It took me two minutes.
But you know what... whatever. There isn't anything in my urine that can get me in trouble. Although when I had my migraine yesterday, I took my new med. Fiocet. You know what Fiocet includes? butabital, a barbiturate that they DO test for and that lasts in your urine for seven to eight days. Good thing I didn't take that before!
And that's it now. I'm waiting. I think I'll be wearing scrubs for this job, but I'm not sure. If I do wear scrubs, I think I have three sets but would I need more? I'll be working three days a week. If I do wear scrubs, I'll need new shoes as the shoes I have otherwise look out of place. Will I be able to have a smoke break? Will it only be one in a 12 hour shift? Can I bring my lunch? Can I bring in my phone?
Lots of questions with no answers. None of them are particularly important and none can't be dealt with at the last minute. I just have to wait until the orientation... in 25 days.
But...
YAY! I GOT A JOB!!!!
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