Work

Back to work tonight after 2 days off. I would really love to be able to stay at home with my kids. I hate worrying about child care.

I am having a bit of a hard time on night shift. I get sleepy but I stay awake. I get up and work on cleaning projects. It is hard to fall asleep when you are up moving around. I was raised to believe you work when you are being paid for it and if you say you are gonna do something you do it. Some of my co workers are really good but a lot of them don't do much. In fact a lot of them sleep. It doesn't seem that they get in trouble for sleeping. Hey, I think it would be great to get paid to sleep. If I slept at work I wouldn't have to sleep as much at home and I would have more time to spend with my family. I can't do it though. I think it is wrong.

Last Tuesday I worked with someone I hadn't before. I had been warned about her. She shows up late, she sleeps for several hours, and she is a bit difficult. I tried to keep an open mind. I would just do my best to get along with her. She was late so I had already started laundry and cleaning the floor. I had checked all the kids and got paper work out before she even arrived. She quickly mopped her part of the floor then told a story about some other people who work there sleeping when she worked with them. She said she only rests her eyes she doesn't actually sleep. She then went to watch TV.

I cleaned the tables and chairs and wiped down the kitchen and the trash can. I checked on the laundry I had put in the dryer but it was still damp. A bit later she checked the laundry again and I helped her fold what was dry. She put away the dishes and changed out the laundry. She kept going in the laundry room and hanging out so she seemed to always get to the laundry first. Sometimes she would stay in the laundry room and fold the clothes so I couldn't help. I thought maybe she wanted to work on the laundry because she has a very particular way she likes things folded and put away. So I backed off.

Around 2:30 she started napping on the couch. I re-programmed the microwave because some of the buttons had quit working and tried to stay busy. There wasn't that much laundry to do. Around 4:30 she woke up and changed out another load of laundry. She then asked me if I had been told that only one person did laundry cause I hadn't done any all night. What!? I was so shocked that she woke up from a nap to tell me she didn't think I was doing my share of the work. I said I started the laundry and helped fold it I have been checking on it but it hadn't been ready yet. You just seemed to get to it first when it was ready. She said Oh so you started one load and walked off. Wow. I have never been accused of not doing my share of the work. Usually people tell me to slow down. She went back to watching TV and napping. I finished cleaning out all the cabinets in both laundry rooms and took out all the trash except for what was in her patients rooms because she had already told me to stay out of there. Then I cleaned my patients wheelchairs. She didn't help with any of that. She sat on the couch. She didn't clean her patients chairs, she napped. I can not believe someone would show up late for work, nap for a good part of the night and then accuse the other person of not getting enough done.

They get away with it too because we are short staffed so they hate to fire anyone. What ends up happening though is the people who actually work finally get fed up with it and quit. The people who are getting paid to sleep aren't gonna quit. They are gonna end up with nothing but sleepers and no one to get the work done.