Son of a...

So, last night was my first night back after throwing my back out and having to call in sick for a couple nights for two weeks in a row.

I wrenched my back because our piece of shit orderly, who's a very sweet and nice guy, but a lazy fuck, never comes when we page him, so we end up bathing our patients by ourselves, and turning them, and the more my back was hurting, the harder it was to sleep; the more exhausted I got, the more the back hurt, etc.

I'd have one day off and rest it, go back to work and wreck it.

Last night, when I paged him at 03:45, then again at 04:00, and again at 04:15, I gave up and paged the nurse supervisor and told her we'd been paging and paging him and he's not responding. She tried, she walked around to all his usual secret sleep areas and didn't find him, she even went outside to see if he was out there...nothing.

She said "I bet he went home."

What the !?

So, the guy was missing for at least 3.5 hours, and maybe even as much as 5.5 because really, the last time I saw him was around 12:30 or 1:00 when he helped me turn my patient. For all I know he left right after that.

Carolyn asked us to write something up, about patients that were not going to get bathed, not xrayed because he wasn't there, and so, as charge, I had to write it up and the other nurses and the xray tech also signed it.

He finally had the balls to show up around 06:40, looking all dazed. I said "There you are...where've you been?"

He couldn't even answer me. He couldn't even look at me. He just looked away, shaking his head. I could see the wheels turning: do I lie? do I tell the truth?

He at least told the truth--"I fell asleep."

"You'd better talk to Carolyn, she's been looking for you."
He turned and left.

I have no idea what to expect tonight when I go to work, but this guy, as sweet and nice as he is, has got to go--it's not right that with our need (nurses) we are becoming disabled because some no-education having lazy fuck wants to sleep. For his barely over minimum wage job, do you mean to tell me that the hospital won't fire him and will instead risk the health of all it's night nursing staff?

I had to lay on the floor on a blanket for 5 minutes, because my back started cramping up from bathing my patient by myself.

I hope they fire this guy...or put him on a shift where he can't fall asleep, like days. We need Jericho, or Tim or Sean back on nights--those kids worked their young butts off for us and we adored them for it. This guy might as well be bigfoot for as much as we have "Angelo Sightings."

And the best part?
It's in our contract that we have lift teams.
Lift teams!!!
I can't even imagine that sort of luxury.

On the plus side, my boss made me sign transfer papers for evenings...so maybe this will happen.

On the negative side, Tony is retiring this Friday and I wanted him to fill out my Columbia paperwork. (DAMNIT)

Oh well.