I Got Canned

So, after my fun and friendly office mate and I spent a good deal of time hashing out what we'd each been told in orientation and compared it to the reality of the demands being made of us, she summed up the conversation by fulfilling a promise she'd made to me back in early February, to tell me first if she was leaving. "I'm putting in applications every where. I have three interviews set up. I can't do this anymore. They keep demanding more and more for the same crappy pay. They never say 'thank you,' or 'good job,' or give any sort of reinforcement for our efforts. They just keep piling more and more on our work loads, which would be fine if they were paying us for it." Dang. I knew it would happen eventually, but she was the one bright spot in all the office hours this job demands.

On Tuesday, after the Memorial Day Holiday, I went to my office manager to air my concerns. The biggest concern I had was about being on-call. Yes, they did say I'd be on-call every other weekend. They never mentioned that I would not be paid for it. I was supposed to alternate with my office mate every other weekend. Our Director of Clinical Services, or DOC, whom I'd long ago taken to thinking of as a rabid squirrel with a drinking problem was supposed to be on call Monday through Thursday from 6 pm to 8 am. The reality of it was that my office mate and I were getting calls all night, every night. Within the first month of starting at that company, the DOCS wasn't taking call at all. Ever. Not weekdays. Not weekends. The next big gripe was being sent out to homes for nurses who only work 11pm-7am to do their evaluations and competencies, only to have the nurse refuse because "Why isn't the DOCS doing this? That's her job, not yours. You aren't even my supervisor, so how can you do my evaluation?" My standard answer became that the DOCS brought this to me today/yesterday and said it had to be completed no later than today or you will be out of compliance and will not be allowed to work. Which led to my next gripe. The DOCS has the LVN's requirements months in advance of no later than today/tomorrow, and she demands that our schedules for the following week be turned in the previous week, yet time and again, she'd fly into our little office in a tizzy and demand that we both rearrange appointments we'd made with families weeks in advance because "If you don't get this done by tomorrow, that nurse will not be allowed to work!" She completely put the entire responsibility for our LVN's livelihoods on us, instead of on her own incompetence where it belonged. We knew it was wrong. The LVNs knew it was wrong. The DOCS knew this would send us on a mad scramble to change dates and times with all of our families, often pushing our visits into the dinner and bedtime hours, and us scrounging up childcare for the middle of the night to go see a nurse who didn't start her shift until 11pm. The families didn't like it, the LVNs hated it, and as the RN, we got the brunt of all their frustrations. Funny how the office manager knew nothing of this. That was Tuesday afternoon. He left on vacation late Wednesday. I was called into the DOCS' office Thursday morning with the "This just isn't working out. You're not happy here and we both know you aren't. It's just not a good fit" speech. She slid my final check across the desk and I rose to leave. "Thank you!" she said cheerfully. I said, "Well, I wish I could say that it's been a pleasure, but it hasn't and we both know that it hasn't." And I packed up my pencil cup, bottom drawer snacks stash and my desk-top fan and left.

All the way home I tried very hard to be upset about this. It didn't work. I wasn't upset. I finally called my office mate, who was just leaving a patient's home, and told her that I'd just been fired. "You are joking, right?" I said no, I wasn't joking. She asked if I'd been given a reason, in light of the obvious lack of a valid reason, and I repeated what the rabid squirrel had said. She was the one to point out how very typical it was for the rabid squirrel to wait until I'd turned in all three of my recerts before she fired me. We bantered for a while about just how much this company really does suck and she finally said more than asked, "You really aren't joking, are you?" So we hung up with promises to keep in touch and her parting words were, "Well, congratulations! I'll see you next week for Willie's recert!"

I was home by ten am. I took a wonderful nap and then raced out the door for a 12:15 interview. I was quite pleased to call Katee, Willie's LVN, to tell her I'd landed the job. When I casually mentioned that I'd gotten canned, she was immediately worried about losing Willie. Until I'd gotten hired at this interview, I was worried about Willie losing her. We love her. We don't want to lose her. I'm not entirely sure what the pay is, but it's local, so no more hour long commutes to the office. That's good for at least $600.00 in gas every four weeks. And it's all intermittent visits, no supervision, no case management, no nurses getting ticked at me for correcting their notes, no middle of the night phone calls, no massive amounts of Q/A, no putting up with the continual PMS of the recruiters, and best of all - no rabid squirrel. It's win-win. And I waited a full 34 hours before I told The Dearly Beloved. It went something like, "Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you that I got fired yesterday! But not to worry, I start at a new job Monday!"

"...I still hate my job.
My bosses are *icks.
I don't get paid nearly enough
to put up with all of their *hit..."
~Theory of a Deadman
I Hate my Life,
Scars and Souvenirs Album