Saturday, November 04, 2006

New Adventures...

As many of you know, I have seriously considered changing jobs. The constant turnover, the anxiety over on-call, and the day-to-day emotional roller coaster of taking care of dying people has taken it's toll. I have a lot of symptoms of burnout, and there have been many times where, when it came down to the needs of the company vs. the needs of myself and my husband, the company won. Unfortunately, all of this devotion feels like a one-way street. I have been actively searching for a new job ever since I started crying in the parking lot of one of the area nursing homes, feeling like a lunatic. I realize that it wasn't me who was crazy, but the situation that I was in. Once I realized that, I became peaceful. Something inside me said "Enough." For the past four years, this job has affected so much of me: I've been unable to attend Mass on a regular basis when on-call, as you must respond to the pager immediately. I cannot take my allergy medicine the nights I am on-call, in case I have to go out, and run the risk of drowsiness. I've worked with no sleep, and have been expected to work the next day, a full caseload. The final straw came last night.

I had planned, with my supervisor's awareness, to be done by 4:15. Cathedral was doing a presentation on The Miracle of Fatima, and had a special guest speaker, a woman who had worked side-by-side with Sister Lucia, who was one of the children who had witnessed the miracle. I was all set to go, when my supervisor, who had been visiting patients out in the field, told me I needed to run a contract over to a nursing home. We had to admit the patient TODAY, I was told. This was at 3:20PM. My supervisor said she was about 30 minutes away, would come in, sign the paperwork, so that I could take it over.

At 4:20, she walked through the door. The contract needed to be retrieved, copied, and then she needed to fill it out and sign it. I tried to tell her as she was walking through the door that I needed to leave, as it was 4:20, and the event I wanted to go to was to start at 5, in downtown Richmond. I would need to leave now, and would not have time to run the contract by, and that I was sorry. I was told, "the nursing home is just around the corner." My stomach sunk. I was being ignored, as was the case a thousand other times before in the last 4 years. A wise person once said, insanity is the repetition of behaviors with the expectation that the outcome will be different.

At 4:40, I was livid. I knew I wasn't going to make it.

"Well, LaDonn, take your time. I'm not going to make it to my event."

"I'm sorry. That's life. I wanted to go to something at 2 today that I missed," was her reply.

The thing that sucks the most was, after arriving to the destinated nursing home, the administrator, the only person who could sign the contract, had left for the day. I went over there for nothing. I left it with the secretary, called my supervisor and told her what happened.

"Crap. Well, again, sorry. But, that's life."

"Yeah, well. It's time for me to go."

I went home and wrote my resignation letter. My last day will be December 1st.

One could say that there will be other lectures on Fatima, but that's not the point.

I'm tired of other people's stuff coming before my own. I'm tired of being the only person who "can do" this stuff, since people don't tend to stick around for long. I'm tired of corporate mundane bullshit. And I am tired of telling my husband "no" and everyone else "yes."

I start my new job December 11th. Home health nursing. Not as much drama, less time on-call, new experiences, new skills, and all the freedom of toddling around the city (well, mainly the city of Ashland, but...). Wish me luck.

Comments:
Luck! I know how a job can drive you insane. A certain grocery chain back in Richmond certainly did. May the new one bring you the happiness you deserve!
 
Good Luck! I love and support what ever you do to make you happy!
 
The thing is, she's really nice and stuff, and totally supported my leaving. Everyone has, because it's basically because of burnout. But then shit like this happens and it drives me crazy!
 
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