You Are Here

Just because I don't feel like blogging or writing or doing anything today, doesn't mean I shouldn't.  Ever feel the hopeless pressure of futility?  Every so often I get wedged in between the excitement of life and the uselessness of it all and I just have to sit and think about what this is all for?  Who knows?  The best thing for me to do is to remain in a frenzy of useless activity to avoid encountering the unanswerable questions that life presents. They are just trick questions.

So, how is a trick question defined?  It is defined by the fact that you will probably almost always answer it wrong, because it doesn't have a real answer.  It only has a presumed answer or an answer that sounds right or a  wrong answer that should be right. That is life.

So, you are here.  You are at a crossroads, looking down it and tryna see where it leads.  And guess what?  No one can see that far.  So, because you can't see that far and are scared to proceed you just kind of stand there  and you go to step on the pavement of one of those roads and you change your mind because you are not sure that it's the right way to go or what you will meet there or whether there is a hairy mutlicolored monster-the one that resided under your bed when you were a little child-waiting at the end to either devour you or greet you with a hug and eternal Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Although, you like  buttercups, the uncertainty is too much to bear and you step back off the pavement and stand there again, with this blank question mark looking expression.  Clouds begin to form overhead so you pitch your tent with the red, green and violet butterfly lily print and you pull out your portable director's chair and you just sit ther outside the tent.  (By the way, the director's chair has the word Actor printed on the back).

So, then the sun peaks through the clouds but it's getting dark and you just pull out your sleeping bag after opening a can of beans and you make your bed and go to sleep.

You are asleep.  You have sweet and weird dreams that may or may not give you the answer to all of the problems that you have at the present, or even some of them.  But, they are sweet, so you snore...which really indicates that you are enjoying yor sleep. Snoring is evidence of just how futile life can be, especially if you wake yourself up with it.

Why question the futility of life?  It's futile.  And you are here.

I'm Back from The Shack

After going through some turmoil and slight hell at work with the mad woman that is my boss, I have returned.  I'm no saner though than I was when I was going toe to toe with her.  I'm exhausted though. I'm batting around the idea of leaving this great state of Georgia.  I've lived here for the last 17 years banging my head against the wall and trying to be the nurse that I know I was trained to be.   The issues that I see here in healthcare, frighten me more than they did 17 years ago.

Too many obstacles exist her to really be great at what you do.  And if you are great at what you do, you are more likely to be harrassed and harangued than others.  Nursing here is a profession where underpriveldged women in a patriarchal culture run the store while walking behind the men.  They are so busy  trying to get the approval of their administration higher ups...who are usually men that they will do anything to look good.  The most common thing that they do is beat up each other  The doctors have all the "power" here.  However, you define "power". The doctors and people who hold high level degrees, have all of the vaguely defined "power", I should say.  They don't have to know what they are doing either.  They just have to have a  degree and a title. Most people here respect that.
Should you go to the emergency room one night with a sore throat and fever but find yourself on the operating table having a kidney removed, don't say I didn't warn you.  The healthcare system in this state is doomed to collapse because of the people who run it. They are only interested in monetary gain.

My boss and her minions tried to set me up this past Christmas holiday.  I keep trying to understand how someone who holds such an important position can be so sick?  She tried to make me me look incompetent by requiring that I go to the employee assistance program.  Then she started writing me up.  I in turn wrote a letter to the administration to alert them to the fact that I was being bullied by my boss. I tried alerting HR but, HR in turn alerted her and she wrote me up and then happily went on vacation. This was just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was able to have a meeting with the assistant nursing director and the director of HR.  I didn't say much, didn't prove my case.  I am aware that they are all buddies which is why my boss feels that she has "cart blanche" to ruin my life and anyone elses that she deems she does not like.  They must've told her to be quiet in the meeting because she didn't say much. She kept looking at me like she was about to grab me by the throat, though.
Anyway, the HR director finally determined that there was no bullying.  She looked at me and added was there.  I sat there for a minute and she asked me "Do you agree?"  I said, "No, I don't.  There was bullying."  She stated that that was my opinion.  I agreed, "I know". It wasn't really my opinion, it was fact.  I didn't argue my point.  I was just test driving the system. My overwhelmed meter was about to break.  What a way to spend your Christmas holiday.
I shake my head at nursing.  How do people who are so pathological slither into this profession and just wreck it unnoticed?  This hospital is working to achieve Magnet status.  I don't see it in my crystal ball for years to come.  Not with people like Attila the Hun running the floor.
I love nursing.  I just love it...I don't always love the people in nursing.