The Hopeful Nursing Student

Yesterday was one of those tough shifts. It definitely didn’t aid in my A++ positive mood for today. *wink wink* THAT ONE CHARGE NURSE One of the charge nurses on my unit is like, the ring leader of the “Hot-Nurse Gang” of my floor. I’ll call her “Madeline”. Madeline is married with no kids. She wants to think of herself as young but like, when you really look at her you see the lines and she doesn’t actually look that great. She has great hair that I am envious of… but she’s so into herself. She loves drama and LOVES to gossip. I’ve been told she’s best friends with our supervisor. I can’t say that I’ve SEEN any special treatment but she’s always name dropping that she is texting her or something. Here’s a list of things I really dislike about her: *She’s always on her phone. *She almost NEVER leaves the nurse station. *She is always playing with her hair at the nurse station. *I can count on one hand the number of times she’s been in a room with me assisting in patient care. (I couldn’t begin to count how often the other charges on my unit are rounding and helping me and other RN’s out). *She orders food for lunch almost every day that she works and it becomes a big to-do about asking other nurses what they’d like but she very pointedly doesn’t ask EVERYONE (if you get what I’m saying). *She plots to take her lunch at the same time as her bestie friend nurses regardless of if that leaves the unit like… deserted…. Anyway, Madeline makes multiple employees uncomfortable. I have had quite a few employees complain to me on days when she’s working about how she makes them feel nervous because she’s always trying to find things wrong with them during her shifts, like they’re picked on. And they are scared because it’s a direct line to our supervisor. I’ve actually witnessed her step into the breakroom (cause I was in there) and call the supervisor to just ‘let her know’ about an event that wasn’t that serious… it was literally to gossip ...so annoying. Basically the bitch doesn’t DO anything because she’s too busy sniffing every one else’s assholes to see if she can find people fucking up. BUT SHE NEVER finds fault with the members of her “clique”. iNtEReStiNg .

So moving on to the story.

One of the RN’s on my unit continually has a heavy load of patients. She gets like, 4 Max Assits/Q2 turn patients EVERY fucking shift while some nurses have like, 3 As&Osx4 pts and a hip fx. And dude, this lady kicks ass… she’s usually almost running through most of her shift. She never misses meds, she’s always turning her pts, always cleaning them up. I know because I help her. The downfall is that she is from another country with a thick accent and due to the accent and the culture difference, I think the immature, insecure “hot nurses” interpret her as incompetent. But she is not. So she had the usual set up of 3 max assists and then one pt who was going to be discharging but his discharge was a MESS right? So she’s busy. At some point she goes into one of the rooms and starts calling for a code stroke. And I was like, shocked at how slowly the team jumped into action to help her. It was weird. Anyway. Turns out the patient wasn’t having a stroke… nobody really knew what was going on and they said that they thought he just became severely dehydrated….?

So an hour or two later, this foreign nurse and I are changing the patients wound dressings and the door is closed (and he’s completely out of it sleeping and what-not) and she starts to tell me how she knows nobody likes her and they’re always trying to find things wrong with her work. And she is just going off about it, so sad like. She started crying so much she had to stop bandaging this guy. And I was like, “lady, I see you work hard. You consistently are given a crap assignment and hard patients and then NO ONE helps or supports you. I see it. I think you are one of the best nurses on this unit. I know it. I take care of all your patients all the time and I see what you’re doing. Forget the charge nurse, it’s her prerogative to find only negative things. Where is she?? She should be here supporting you and helping you. You had a potential stroking patient? Why wasn’t she delegating tasks to other nurses to help with your other patients? Why wasn’t she HELPING instead of HARANGING?” And this nurse was like, “I know I know I’m only telling you because I know you’re a good person but I just want someone to understand how hard it is for me to get out of bed on the days I work. I don’t want to be here. I feel hated. I always feel like my job is in jeopardy”. THIS BROKE MY HEART. I hadn’t decided whether I liked Madeline yet… I knew I didn’t trust her. But hearing how her behavior affected one of the best nurses we have all because she isn’t part of the clique, made me hate her. I can’t stand her. That’s really all there is to it.

And this is one of the struggles in nursing, I realized. There are absolutely cliques of “hot nurses” who have some weird obsession with being the popular nurses. And going out of their way to judge and degrade the nurses around them who they think are inferior. Madeline is not alone. She has a crew of about 4 or 5 people and when they’re ALL at work together, it’s literal hell. They of course have other nurses who  aren’t considered as “hot” or “popular” as them… but are  “approved of” and then there is every one else. And you can tell who is and isn’t approved of because those that aren’t really do keep to themselves and try to stay “unnoticed”.

I know other people experience this. It gave me a lot to think about. For example, how I want to present myself. I have no interest in being in that clique. But I also refuse to live my life in fear for my career because someone doesn’t like me. I need to make sure that I am unfuckwithable at work. Like, her opinion of me should not affect my career since it’s a game she plays with everyone there… and I will be respected for my work ethic, my effort, and my integrity. If you try to create problems for me, you will learn the hard way, not to. I will stand up for myself, unlike my co-worker (it’s just not who she is to be confrontational… confrontation in her culture is like being disrespectful and she would never).

But…. Homie don’t play that mess. xoxo – Gossip Girl

Jk but so apropos

I really wish this thing was like MySpace and when you visited you could get a glimpse into my music life by hearing my current song of the moment. Right now it would be a toss up between “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea or “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit. Iggy just popped into my head because I was going to say “First thing’s first..” but “Break Stuff” is really more in line with the way my day has gone and my general outlook is today.

First of all, I woke up and checked my bank account because I’m waiting for a payment to come out (should have come out 3 days ago and hasn’t) so I was getting nervous…. Like did I fuck something up? Because I can’t afford to fuck up my finances worse than they are. But when I logged into my account I found the payment still hadn’t come out (wtf) and my other account overdrawn and an NSF fee charged. This pissed me off because it was the second time an NSF fee got charged and I didn’t know what the hell for! So I started off my day talking to the bank and they’re useless AF. Basically they found fraud on my account and they have to determine whether or not they’re going to refund me the $70 of NSF fees that have been deducted from my account. Gee, thanks guys. Money taken at the push of a button by a stranger trying to steal from me and they will determine if I deserve it returned to me. Fuckers.

WHILE I’m on the phone with them begging for my money back (that shouldn’t have been spent in the first place).. I went to my mom’s to use her printer… while I was on the phone and printing simultaneously, the printer kept jamming! I took it apart… blah blah blah… fixed it, got what I needed in installments (I just pieced together semi-successful printing jobs until I had the complete document I needed). I’m not telling my mom I took her printer apart and put it back together. And if she calls me to say it isn’t working after I used it, I’ll tell her “negatory ghost rider, it was working for me!” :D  meanwhile, my teenager is facetiming me like “pick me up! I didn’t take the bus because I wanted you to drive me to school” like oh yeah ok thanks for the heads up. I’m rushing back for you right now princess”.

So anyway, it’s like, 8:15. I’m pissed. I can’t even afford to get an iced fucking coffee. My daughter meanwhile is like, here mom, take my money and get a coffee. And I’m like, no you little bitch. That was my money anyway! You keep it since you’re such a spendy little brat. I dropped her off at school but made sure to slam my honda sedan’s tire into the curb because SHE needed to be embarrassed (to bring her self-righteous attitude down a peg) and I needed more problems so hopefully my tire would go flat or something).

Then I drove to my old doctors office to get some immunization records I need for school. And like, who the fuck do they use to staff medical front offices? Why are they always the most scared 50/60 something-ish lady wearing an apple watch who acts like she’s guarding national security secrets when you ask for a shot record? Your job ISN’T that important, Brenda. Good god. Anyway, thanks to Brenda’s supervisor, I got what I needed.

I was in a foul mood and I realized that it was best for me to stay inside. So I’ve been inside promoting my new brand for 2 hours. *eyeroll* I’m just … ugh. I sent some messages to my best friend and she’s not responding. I know she’s in class. But now she’s out and still hasn’t responded except she liked two of my posts on insta. And like, honestly? I know shes driving but fuck bitch call me then ok? Whatever. I get it.

My boyfriend just woke up and he’s on the couch on his phone (like always) and I don’t feel like talking to him. He’s like a “dad” sometimes. And I’m just not in the mood. I need to go to the gym. OR resolve myself to go to Dragonboat practice. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO DO EITHER.

I want to just lie on the couch and read a book and ignore all the people on earth. It’s literally my only day off. Ugh. Dragonboat practice wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to drive to the lake to practice. I just don’t like driving during rush hour and especially not into town.

Based on the level of bitching I’m doing today, I probably should go to bed early. I need the sleep and I’m not delighting anyone around me right now.

I ate a lot of Saturated fats today. Sigh. I’ve read in my nutrition class that’s bad. But do I care? Not so much today. Bring on the heart problems? Plus my nutrition class is fucked all the way up. Haha it’s like the antiquated food notions about how egg yolks are bad for you because they’re full of cholesterol. When I roll my eyes too far it hurts. I had a bacon/gouda starbucks breakfast sandwich and the last few bites of my cauliflower crust pizza. Ehhh coulda done worse.

I’m supposed to do a lot of homework today but I couldn’t be motivated to do that either.

Basically (and usually I’m not like this) I just wanted to sit and bitch and be a brat all day once my day got rolling down the shit hill. And I want someone to make it better for me. But I don’t want to do the work. I’m such an attractive person right now.

I have nothing interesting to say. Probably nothing new, besides. I’m just SO fed up with talking to my boyfriend about my new career and life in the medical field because he is annoying....