DeFarge Crisis averted.
I went in today at the normal Med Manager scheduled start of 8:00 and saw that I hadn't been included on the day's Assignment Sheet. Basically, I wasn't scheduled. My heart, already palpitating, skipped a deeper beat or two. I thought of the scene where Tom Hanks' character in the film Philadelphia puts two and two together and asks bluntly, "Am I being fired?"
I called Susan and she clarified that she wanted to keep the schedule loose so I would have time to "get acclimated" to the position. Oh boy, she was sellin' it hard. This was making my Option B plan seem shaky.
She and I met at 9:00 and I spat out my well-practiced line I'd been rehearsing over the weekend: "Can I go back to the overnight shift?" I explicitly wanted to start this conversation with this line to reinforce what the major goal in this would be for me and that is that I get back to where I started. I knew this wasn't the preferred option from her standpoint so I knew I had to make it clear. And in presenting this as the first question, I hoped to convey the fact that without an affirmative on this issue, all others were potentially off the table. It's subtle, and if I had conveyed it out the way I just described it would have sounded like extortion (ie. "Marie gave me the secrets of the position and if you don't give me what I want I'll immediately walk and you'll be up shit's creek without a paddle.")
I told her about my anxiety issues with high-stress jobs and apologized for thinking I was over them and could accept the tasks of this position. But I also reserved a bit of the blame for the smothering training style of Marie and, once she saw me as a critique of her legacy, her actions as a hostile trainer stacking things to set me up for failure, all the while "Fawn Halling" evidence of her lazy documentation management to the shredder.
Susan said she'd try to connect with Charmaine, the direct supervisor for the overnight position and with her assurance that she'd try, and her agreement that it'd be okay with her, I agreed to stay on in the Med Management role in order to organize things and help create a guideline for the eventual permanent replacement. I agreed to work the next two weeks bringing us into the dreaded end of the month when all the MORS get updated and printed out. These are the medication sign off sheets which direct caregivers as to what meds every resident takes and are considered the Bible of med observation.
I blundered through the day trying to make sense of it and as each hour progressed, it actually got better. I was building my own organizational systems and completing task in a timely fashion. I even handled a pressing issue with one resident and the funky way meds are ordered for her through various email threads, calls to her PCP, her mailorder pharmacy and the residents father. It was a lot, and things like this I actually hate, but it was okay. Do I want to do this every day? No. Thus the Option B talk. Two weeks, batting down the hatches. Okay. Two years? Huh, you'd be lucky to get two months. Then I'd be SOL.
An afternoon thunderstorm rolled though and our power went out. Meh, it's Florida. Helen called me and reassured me that she'd already spoken with Charmaine about the possibility of me going back to night shift and said she was fine with it. So, holla, the CEO said I was able to return to the position I needed. And all was good. I smiled happily that everything was gonna be okay. Yes I'd be trudging though this mess of a position which isn't worth a dollar and thirteen cents extra for a couple more weeks but that's okay.
Soon I'll be back to normal.
So you can scowl your venomous decrees elsewhere, Madame DeFarge, I've been granted a reprieve from Le Monsieur Guillotine.
I went in today at the normal Med Manager scheduled start of 8:00 and saw that I hadn't been included on the day's Assignment Sheet. Basically, I wasn't scheduled. My heart, already palpitating, skipped a deeper beat or two. I thought of the scene where Tom Hanks' character in the film Philadelphia puts two and two together and asks bluntly, "Am I being fired?"
I called Susan and she clarified that she wanted to keep the schedule loose so I would have time to "get acclimated" to the position. Oh boy, she was sellin' it hard. This was making my Option B plan seem shaky.
She and I met at 9:00 and I spat out my well-practiced line I'd been rehearsing over the weekend: "Can I go back to the overnight shift?" I explicitly wanted to start this conversation with this line to reinforce what the major goal in this would be for me and that is that I get back to where I started. I knew this wasn't the preferred option from her standpoint so I knew I had to make it clear. And in presenting this as the first question, I hoped to convey the fact that without an affirmative on this issue, all others were potentially off the table. It's subtle, and if I had conveyed it out the way I just described it would have sounded like extortion (ie. "Marie gave me the secrets of the position and if you don't give me what I want I'll immediately walk and you'll be up shit's creek without a paddle.")
I told her about my anxiety issues with high-stress jobs and apologized for thinking I was over them and could accept the tasks of this position. But I also reserved a bit of the blame for the smothering training style of Marie and, once she saw me as a critique of her legacy, her actions as a hostile trainer stacking things to set me up for failure, all the while "Fawn Halling" evidence of her lazy documentation management to the shredder.
Susan said she'd try to connect with Charmaine, the direct supervisor for the overnight position and with her assurance that she'd try, and her agreement that it'd be okay with her, I agreed to stay on in the Med Management role in order to organize things and help create a guideline for the eventual permanent replacement. I agreed to work the next two weeks bringing us into the dreaded end of the month when all the MORS get updated and printed out. These are the medication sign off sheets which direct caregivers as to what meds every resident takes and are considered the Bible of med observation.
I blundered through the day trying to make sense of it and as each hour progressed, it actually got better. I was building my own organizational systems and completing task in a timely fashion. I even handled a pressing issue with one resident and the funky way meds are ordered for her through various email threads, calls to her PCP, her mailorder pharmacy and the residents father. It was a lot, and things like this I actually hate, but it was okay. Do I want to do this every day? No. Thus the Option B talk. Two weeks, batting down the hatches. Okay. Two years? Huh, you'd be lucky to get two months. Then I'd be SOL.
An afternoon thunderstorm rolled though and our power went out. Meh, it's Florida. Helen called me and reassured me that she'd already spoken with Charmaine about the possibility of me going back to night shift and said she was fine with it. So, holla, the CEO said I was able to return to the position I needed. And all was good. I smiled happily that everything was gonna be okay. Yes I'd be trudging though this mess of a position which isn't worth a dollar and thirteen cents extra for a couple more weeks but that's okay.
Soon I'll be back to normal.
So you can scowl your venomous decrees elsewhere, Madame DeFarge, I've been granted a reprieve from Le Monsieur Guillotine.