Hell

A few weeks ago, I admitted a patient, and, during nights the pharmacy is closed, so we stamp all the orders "must be verified" in our medication administration system in the morning when the pharmacy opens and puts all the meds in the system.

As a joke, the nurse taking my patient in the morning told me I had to stay to verify the orders with her. So, the other night--it was actually the end of my shift so it was morning, I asked another nurse about this--there's nothing I want more than to make sure I have done everything I need to do with the patient before I hand him over to the next shift.

Nursing is a 24 hour job, they all say, but they really hate it when you haven't done something and you hand them off with something like magnesium or potassium that hasn't been replaced...nevermind that the lab has taken two hours to get you your lab results back and they just came back 5 minutes ago and you haven't had time to act on it.

So I'm always trying to get everything done. I admitted another patient a couple nights ago, and I wanted to make sure that I had done everything, so I asked another nurse if it was true that I had to stay and verify the orders because T had said so the other day. My charge nurse, who was coming on that morning and had been checking the crash cart, came RUNNING around the corner, YELLING at me, in a full rage, POINTING and saying things like "THAT'S not TRUE, and you KNOW IT. She WOULDN'T have SAID that, now...USE some COMMON SENSE.." blah blah blah.

I was dumbfounded.

In front of EVERYONE! And as I was sitting there, SEETHING! I thought about taking her by the throat and pinning her up the wall...I thought about talking calmly to her about being nearly 42 years old, and how in my entire life, no one had EVER spoken to me that way. I thought about just calmly, quietly, quitting. I thought about just putting my name badge down and walking out.

The next day I went in and everyone said "What the fuck was THAT?!" and told people who weren't there the story. Everyone, EVERYONE without fail said "don't take it personally, she does that to EVERYONE!"

How sad.

She's been yelling at me every morning, without fail, for about a week now, and I've just come to expect it, but this was too much, and over the top. I think, being in her late fifties, she's just under some hormonal shit, or under some job stress, or whatever, but she's definitely looking for a reason to jump down my throat and unleash this wrath that has been building up, on me. What a misearble bitch. I calmly ended up telling her I was sorry to have offended her, but that I sincerely didn't know if she had been kidding, or whether it was true that I had to stay with her and do the verifications...I'm new and don't know the protocols.

So, tonight I called in sick because my back is bothering me. And I have three days off after that, so I get four days to just rest my back. And not pin her up the wall by her throat. That would probably be bad, and not go over well. It IS a county job, and it IS hard to get fired...but they might make an exception in this case.

It's funny how my nurse manager is such a bitch, that everyone comes together and really bonds as a team. I've been working with A, who went off like a psycho ("You know you're problem?! You don't listen!!") and M, and the three of us have done a fine job of helping each other out, and working cohesively as a team. We have to. I had to--I can't let it get back to the nurse manager that we couldn't work together.

I know that our schedule is delicately made out so that certain people don't have to work with certain other people--I never want to have to ask for that, though, it sure would be nice to avoid certain jerks.

I've said it before--working with women is hard.

I'm counting the days now.
One hundred seventy until September 1st.
And then I'll be back in New York, hating life.
But at least, I won't have this bitch up my ass 24/7.