Warning: Bitchy rant ahead.

What a god-awful week it was. Like honestly. I totally could relate to the people who go on those random shooting sprees in public places. That's how bad it was.

Here I list my reasons as to why:

- I was overworked.
- I was sleep deprived.
- People be crampin' my style.
- PEOPLE BE CRAMPIN' MY STYLE.


Okay so this week was my first official week of clinicals at the hospital which wasn't bad at all. It was a 1:30pm to 9:30pm shift Wed, Thurs, Friday on the maternity floor. It was easy-peezy. Clinicals didn't add much stress to my day except elongate my stay at the hospital.

Working on the pulmonary floor which particular persons is what sucks beyond words (Well I will attempt to describe it anyways).

This week I worked an 8 hour shift on Sunday and Tuesday and then proceeded to work 4.5 hour shifts Wed, Thurs, and Friday. That's right. So on Wed, Thurs, and Friday I was scheduled to be at the hospital from 7am to 9:30pm because of clinicals. Lucky for me, clinicals ended an hour early on two of those days so I got to go home around 8:30pm. Needless to say, it wasn't easy. And I'm an idiot for scheduling myself that way. Never again.

Anyways, in my last post I sounded like my usual cheery and enthusiastic self about my new position and how I was absorbing knowledge like a sponge and how everyone was great and nice and sweet and smelled like daffodils, etc.

Well let me amend and update some of those statements.

A particular SOMEONE who I will call "JEMIMA ON CRACK" has single-handedly unleashed my inner rage. Jemima was assigned to be my trainer on Tuesday and from what I heard from other employees, she was a trip. No one would go into any details but one statement made was "If she's still working here, then don't worry about getting fired." I assumed that this meant that Jemima was a lazy worker. That was fine. I could deal with that. I could be lazy myself at times.

Tuesday came along and I was already off to a rough start. I clocked in two minutes late. Crap. You're only allowed to be late 3 times before the hospital fires your ass so I wasn't too ecstatic about it. Anyways, I met up with Jemima and she was nice enough. She told me to start getting vital signs and go around checking blood sugars which I did. I got the feeling that she was gonna make me do all the work which was fine since I wanted to try to be on my own more anyways. But every time I came out of the room, Jemima had a new task for me:

"Room 7 needs his sheets changed. He just soiled himself."
"Room 10 needs ice water."
"Room 11 needs to be turned to his right side."
"Room 2 needs to be bathed."
"Room 4 needs a bedpan."

And what did Jemima do? She just sat the the nurse's station chatting away with the other staff. I was a bit annoyed at being her perpetual gopher but I took it in stride and stayed on my toes. During lunch, one of the patients had to be fed. He was one of my faves (we'll call him Mr. Wilson). Mr. Wilson is a sweet 87 year old man who suffers from expressive aphasia (which means he can't talk) and he communicates by signaling thumbs up for yes/good or thumbs down for no/bad. He's the cutest thing ever and I loved going in there and sitting with him. Anyways, I was in there feeding him his soft/liquid diet when Jemima comes storming in the room. She says "What are you doing? There's a million things needed out there. Someone just pee'd themselves and needs to get changed." I reply "I'm feeding Mr. Wilson. He can't feed himself and he has to take it slow because he has swallowing issues. I'll be out there in a few minutes. We're almost done." And can you believe what Jemima does? She storms over and yanks the spoon out of my hand and says that we don't have time to be feeding every damn patient that can't help themselves and we for damn sure can't be giving them a hundred tiny bites. She spoons up a massive scoop of oatmeal and shoves it into Mr. Wilson's mouth. I swear to god, even before he has a chance to get it down, she spoons up another massive scoop and shoves it into Mr. Wilson's mouth. OF COURSE, he begins to choke and cough. His eyes bulge and he tries to lean forward. Jemima tells me to get up and grab a wash cloth and that she'll handle feeding him herself. I am reaaaallllly starting to dislike this woman now. When I bring over her washcloth I try to tell Mr. Wilson that I'll be back in a bit to check on him and Jemima swats me away saying that there is a person that needs to be changed and that we're not here to socialize.

Okay deep breath here. This lady obviously has been working as a tech way too long (She's been doing it for 15 years). I figure that I'm just going to have to suck it up and survive the shift with this lady and I'll be on my own in no time so it's not a big deal. No use in starting drama.

Towards the end of the shift, I find out some HORRIBLE news. Jemima overheard me asking the clerk how to sign up for the remainder of my week's shifts and Jemima took the LIBERTY of helping my manager sign me up for the rest of my shifts. And guess who she assigned me to? That's right. Jemima assigned me to herself for TWO MORE SHIFTS. I wanted to die. This bitch was making me her freakin' slave for the rest of the week.

I'd like to say the rest of the week got better. But it didn't. The next day was WORSE. Jemima thought I was spending too much time in each patient's room so she began timing me. She timed my patient baths AND she decided that she was going to "REVAMP" every skill I had learned thus far. So she would stand over me and watch me take vital signs and blood sugars and apply lotions, etc. But Jemima would never just watch for long. Without fail she would find one reason or another to stop me and do it "HER WAY." She would have this STUPID saying: "Girl, you gotta work SMARTER, not HARDER." In other words, she would find some shortcut or other to make the skill get completed faster. For example. if a oxygen monitor wasn't found in the room and I would go attempt to get one, Jemima would shake her finger at me and say "Girl please, we don't have time for that nonsense. If it ain't in the room, we ain't gonna check it." Um HELLO? We're on a PULMONARY FLOOR. These people can't BREATHE. They have OXYGEN DEFICIENCY. WE SHOULD BE CHECKING THEIR OXYGENATION LEVELS REGULARLY. And by "regularly" I mean once every FOUR freakin' hours! Geez!

Ah. WOOOOOO-sah.

Okay. Now I understand everyone has his or her own way of doing things. I get that. But this lady is freakin' brutal. It's DEFINITELY her way or the highway. But she is a snake. She would try to be my best friend and pretend to be looking out for me. Jemima would constantly reassure me that she had my back. That was the worst part. Every chance she got she would pull me aside and say "Baby girl, let me tell you something. I hear what everyone says out here and they all be sayin' some things about you that ain't pretty. I don't know if you're gonna make it. So you just do what I tell you to do because I've been here a long time." Of course this stressed me out to the max. Like how the HELL is that reassuring??? So by the end of the second day, I was ready to snap. I decided to ask my manager whether or not what Jemima was telling me was true. Of course it wasn't. My manager gave me a wink and a smile and said that I had nothing to worry about and that they loved having me so far. She also told me that I shouldn't let Jemima get to me too much and that trainees had complained about her before so they were aware of how rough she could be.

What a relief.

After that, working with Jemima wasn't as bad. In fact, I began to feel sorry for her in my head. She had no clue what people said behind her back. I'm not saying that I'm perfect or that I know better than she does but I think everyone has a right to determine what works best for themselves and I'm going to do just that.

Anyways. I was pretty much on my own yesterday and the day went great. I didn't have too many patients so I was glad that I was able to ease into it. I work a four hour shift tomorrow and an 8 hour on Tuesday but I don't plan on cramming in anymore crazy 14 hour days. The stress is just not worth it. And it really isn't fair to the people I love around me. I haven't been the happiest gnome in the garden lately.



In non-WORK/SCHOOL related news:

News #1: My brother left for Australia and just confirmed that he's safe in Brisbane! That lucky dog! He plans on living the life out there for the next three months. I think his course of action includes trying to get a work permit in order to extend his stay out there but in the meantime, he's just going to enjoy the ride! I'm so happy and just a tinge jealous of him!

News #2: My sample wedding invitations came in the mail!!! They're really cute and I have 9 to choose from but I like them all so I might have to start a random poll. I'll put some pics up when I get the chance!


Here's to a better week! The best thing about weekends is that you can start all over with a clean slate and fresh mind! :D