Grumbles from the Nursery

But first, the good news.

Warrior Baby is now up to 1278 grams, or 2 pounds, 13 ounces! Her hair is starting to thicken; it looks like she's going to be a blonde.

Now for the grumbly news.

You know how you go to work and all is well? But due to outside forces, suddenly you see that it could crumble at almost any time? And it's because someone just doesn't have the sense god gave a flea to keep her mouth shut?

That was my Friday experience. A few blog posts ago, I talked about a tech who was sleeping on the job. He's now moving on to another part of the lab where he'll have no patient contact. So, his overnight shift line will be opening up.

My fellow worker on my same shift is a single mom who is trying hard to go to school to become a nurse. She is thrilled to have an overnight shift open up, although if management would think back a bit, they might remember how thrilled she was to be getting away from overnight work, as that's the shift she was previously on.

But, as usual, I digress.

Now that she's got a chance to change shifts, she's decided that's not good enough in itself. Noooooo....she wants to make it better for herself. She wants to work ten hour days instead of eight hour days. And, she wants to take the rest of us with her.
A longer shift will make *her* school schedule easier.

She spent most of the day on Friday sequestered with the boss, working out two sets of schedules, one set for all of us to go to ten hour days which would include working two weekends in a row, then two off, and an eight day stretch and then six days off. The other schedule she put together was one with only two people on a ten hour schedule, with the other two staying the same.

She also made a mistake because she decided for me that I wouldn't want to do this and she told the boss so. Of course, she's right - I don't. But she does NOT have the right to make that decision for me. It's up to my boss to come to me to ask about it and then up to me to accept or refuse. She DOES NOT get to decide what my life is about, and I told her so in very specific terms. She then tried to recant her words: "Oh, Kate, I never told the boss that you wouldn't do it...I told him I didn't *think* you'd do it" Uh huh. That's a direct turnabout than the words you spoke not more than a minute before.

The thing that bugs me is that until she came up with this convoluted idea, it had never crossed management's mind to try to push us to ten hour days. And, it shouldn't. We're not doing any sort of work that requires that kind of continuity. But suddenly, management has prototype schedules in place and would jump on this in a heartbeat. And, this is due to her wanting a schedule that will make her ability to get the classes she wants easier. It does nothing for those who are trying to go to school from their daytime schedules...in fact, it will make it impossible for those people to even take daytime classes because they won't get off work until 4:30. And, I didn't sign on to work at 4 a.m. to get off work at 2:30. Had I wanted to get off at 2:30, I'd have signed up for a 6 a.m shift!

If management is convinced, then they can force this and by giving us two weeks notice, the schedule can be changed. This pisses me off. You can look at the schedule and say, "oh yeah...work eight days and get six off...I can plan trips, go camping, get this and that done..." but the hard cold reality of that is that you don't gain a thing by having that many days off. You spend the first three days of it recovering from working your ass off for eighty hours (in effect, two weeks of work in eight days) and you gain nothing for it, no overtime because you're salaried.

And, like it or not, now that I'm over 50, recovery time just ain't what it used to be. It takes me longer to get going. I get tired easier. I have to admit that youth has pulled on its Nike's and gotten a head start. A ten hour day is not something I signed on for. And, it would force me into making decisions that I shouldn't have to: I'll have to give up teaching in the evenings, because I just won't be able to survive that kind of exhaustion.

Another thing that gets me about it is that the two folks who are interested in this idea are the two folks who most likely will not even be working at BHTS in a few years. Yet, my co-worker thinks nothing about the big picture for the group overall. What's important is what's good for her. The hell with the rest of us.

I told her she didn't have the right to f*** with everyone's lives like that. And it shook her up a bit. She promised me that if I'd make this switch she'd make sure it was all right. Like, who died and made her management? She hasn't figured out that in corporate hospital that when you change something, it pretty much becomes permanent for all eternity? Her actions will basically screw over not only those of us who may get forced into a change, but future workers as well.

As I told her (and shocked her as well) "I was looking for a job when I found this one." She knows I love my job. I don't think it ever occurred to her that her actions would make me want to leave.

I'm looking at this as a "test". For the first time in my life I've got a salary that is giving me the ability to survive. I don't want to lose that, believe me, but I'll see what the next few days brings. I may have to apply as a hemodyalysis tech if there are still openings. Grrrr.