Reality Bites

Sometimes it feels like life is a bad dream, like I ate too much before I went to bed the night before, like I"m on an hostile, unfamiliar planet.

I was upset last week when my manager called me yelling at me because a client's relative called her 4x's on the day before New Year's day. The client was upset because the person's catheter had not been changed. She had called me the week before, about this.  I thought the issue had been resolved.  But apparently she had not let it go. Compared to some of the horror stories that I have seen out in the field,  this New Year weekend -and prior- this was a small issue.  Furthermore, it was a favored co-workers responsibility to do the task but she "forgot" the necessary equipment. But, that was okay..

I really need to get over it because the ignorance and sloth that I have come across in the field that I am working in and nursing in Georgia  is daunting...and scary.  All I can think of is Lord, please let me die before I have to depend on someone to come and to my house to take care of me.

It has been said that Georgia is the worse state in the union to work as a nurse.  Having worked here for so ling I now believe that.  I chose to stay here for the last 15 years because I did not believe that the healthcare  field is as bad as it is, and that nurses were not treated here as badly as they are.  I've been in denial for a long time.

Anyway, I was very upset at the manager. And yelled at her. And told her that I would not be the scapegoat for everything that is wrong with that agency.  She has been targeting me since she walked through the door.  She had only been in the agency for a couple of weeks when she wrote me up for not getting my work in on time.  That week I had been very ill, and I called her to tell her that I was ill.  Not only did she call me numerous times, but she left harrassing voicemails on my phone.  And then the director followed up that Friday to tell me I was going on an action plan because I had thirteen outstanding transmissions.  She sent me a list with eight outstanding transmissions. 6 of which were not outstanding...2 which were not mine.

She wrote me up anyway. And tagged another write up to it basically accusing me of fraud.

I apologized without being sorry and told her about the horror stories-well one them- that I had seen in the field and she acted like she cared. I attempted to ask her how it is that she could call me about some-thing so minor, that was really someone elses responsibility, when major things were happening in the field that she had no clue about?  We never got to that part of the conversation. Scary...

It is not healthcare in and of itself that is costly.  It is the unwillingness of a capitalistic society to actually work to deliver,  monitor and improve on the healthcare product that costs us.  Ultimately, the selfishness and greed that characterizes capitalism today, will cost us much more than the tax dollars that we whine about.

Socialism is not the biggest threat facing american freedom today. (I've found that most  of the people screaming about socialism can't even define it. ) We are.

When will we see where we are headed?