Waiting on the World to Change

It seems like all I have is bad news lately. I hate that. I would much rather have nice things to talk about.

Unfortunately I have more work troubles. When I was hired I was told that the staff patient ratio was 1:1 and that we would rarely be called in on our on call days. I was also told I would work the 7am-3pm shift and have every other weekend off. I told them I didn't care if I worked day or night as long as I didn't have to work evenings because that would make it hard for me to spend time with my kids. So of course I was put on the evening shift 2:45 to 11pm, I have to work every weekend, and get called in a lot. My kids get out of school at 2:45 and are in bed before I get home. I feel like I never get to see them. They are allowed to stay up late on weekends so I can see them for a few minutes after I get home. Also we are chronically short staffed so we usually have 2 patients each but the last week we have had even more staff out sick or injured so we have days when we have 3 patients each. The amount of care our kids require makes 3 very difficult. Just keeping up with the paperwork is tough. We also have some in isolation with infectious illnesses and some who are post op so they require caution. It seems ill advised to go in a bathe a child who has herpes or MRSA and then go in and care for a child who has just had spinal fusion and has 60 staples going from the base of the neck to the top of the butt. Of course we are very careful but it seems too risky that infection may spread. But what do I know?

I stick with it though because it is important work and I like these kids. Even though my husband was fired from the facility for an on the job injury, even though I have been sick myself for a week. I go in with a smile on my face because I am needed there. When I went in on Friday I had a note in my box that said the accounting dept had made a mistake and I had been over paid during the time I had been out with my injury. I am still waiting for the disability payments to be processed. So because they messed up and now want to cover themselves and get that money back before they get in trouble they are keeping all of my paychecks for the month of November. I don't understand how they can just take away my families only source of income for an entire month. I have kids I need to feed and it would be nice to pay some bills this month. I understand that if a mistake was made the money needs to be returned. Even though it was not my fault and even though I was not aware of the mistake the laws are clear that they are entitled to take the money back. However in situations like this the employer usually makes some kind of arrangement so that the money can be returned without causing undo hardship to the employee. It would make much more sense to take out some money over the next several checks.

After I got that lovely bit of news I found out that they changed my scheduled days off again without asking me. They changed my schedule last month so they wouldn't have to pay me overtime. I let it go though because it made it so that I would have Thanksgiving off. We are having Thanksgiving at our house this year so I kinda need to be there. Now they have changed it again so I will have to work for Thanksgiving.

I am not in a happy place as far as work goes. I don't feel real motivated to kill myself to get there when they don't even plan to pay me for this month. So I called in sick for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I am staying home where I should have been for the last week. I have been in bed trying to get well and taking care of my sick kids. I am also looking for another job. I wish things were different. It is such a great place it is just run badly.

In the past I have stuck with bad jobs for much longer than I should have. I have this crazy thing called loyalty and work ethic. It gets you nowhere. In the words of the great John Lennon "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I am tired of waiting for things to get better. So I am going to have to take some ACTION.