well I still have at least a few entries scribbled here and there (scraps of paper are my life, it seems... always have been... cleaning my room as a child meant simply pushing all the scraps of paper and everything else {which was usually musical stuff, books, and odd souveniers of even odder places} on dressers and in drawers on to the floor in the middle of the room {yes, one big pile} and sorting through everything, discarding what was not interesting to me at that moment of sudden impulse to tidy up and neatly filing away what struck me as something that must be saved for posterity... these days the same clutter happens between impulses to clean, though I am not sure I am as fond of the dirty laundry, dishes, and food containers that have become part of the mix lately... ahem, yes, there are signs of careless apathy that might be viewed as a form of physical space depression about... but I'll continue writing it off as laziness and procrastination and lack of time better spent working out, sleeping, and writing... though it might be a good weekend to do some laundry and clean the kitchen mess and take out the garbage and... yeah... I suppose... long parentheses, huh?... I think I may be avoiding... ah, the magic word, avoiding... I suggest I might be doing it and I feel the hairs on the nape of my neck rise {either that or it feels like a punch in the stomach if I am moping in self-pity and don't want to hear me}... so out dang parentheses, out and return to the sentence you interrupted), so I still may upload those scribbles from the past somehow adjusting the dates for whatever reason... a few of you might even be interested (and do you know how much I could love you if you wanted me to for that?)...

this entry is not about my dear malodorous roommate who is shipping manager for a local wholesale seafood distributer and sometimes comes home in clothes smelling like he's soaked in sea water all night... now if he'd only remember to bring home some shrimp and stuff, it would all be well worth it... ok, yeah, he alone is worth putting up with his stinky cloths too, but shrimp at less than $2 a pound would be real sweet too...

ah, attempted levity... actually, I am not in much of a laughing teasing fun to be around mood at the moment so I'm happy that I still have my sense of humor and could write that last paragraph as a segue into the rant that follows... long and boring and probably whining and biased, but hey, it's my diary and I'll vent if I want to... even if it's a stinky vent...

yeah, so just as I get home from a rather odd and frustrating meeting at work and sit down here to ramble because a good ramble is exactly what I needed, there was a power failure... and then Rasputin got home and we went to lunch (note to self: duh, save money, eat in more often) and then I nodded off in the big green chair before I got to that ramble, which may actually have needed to be a rant... apparently I was not nearly as disturbed or upset or whatever as I was lead to believe I was (ummm, don't you just love it when people tell you how you feel and why you do the things you do?)... anyway, after the nap, here we are... now about the thing I might be avoiding...

work sucked big time last night... I was suprised by a suprise meeting in which I was suprised to find out that my co-workers had a surprise for me... lead by a nurse who was moved to the night shift against her will because she wasn't cutting it on the day shift because she almost never gets out of her chair behind the nurses station (in spite of the fact that we are all repeatedly told she is counted in the staffing and has nothing much to do all night so should be doing something other than reading and nodding off), my co-workers are apparently annoyed with my reminders that they are supposed to be positioned in the hallway and on camera and not gathered around the nurse with their backs to the hallway talking so loud they could not possible hear what is going on down the hallway... people have been fired, often, for what they are doing and instead of seeing me as looking out for them they seem to see me as the enemy... but worse, instead of talking to me about it they closed shop, shut me out, went on with business as usual, and complained to our supervisor in this surprise meeting...

don't you just love going to a meeting where everybody knows the agenda except you because the agenda is you?... ah, the fun of being the auditor in a place where management does not really appreciate the position the autitor is placed in... of course everyone will be trying to twist things and find faults with me, it's human nature... my job is to point out the potential problems with the system and offer suggested corrections...

but every story has two sides and they have good points when then suggest I could be less testy in the mornings when everyone seems to be hiding out in the nurses station and I am the only one on the floor to wake up and address the needs of the twenty kids waking up... and the ratio is supposed to be four kids to each staff...

but they'll scoff at the idea that the kids have any needs in the morning and they seem to think one person should be able to do it all without speaking up about the unfairness, no less the potential danger to kids (I mean it is a psychiatric hospital with kids who self-injure, break windows, and have all sorts of issues and needs that need addressing... but I suppose it's ok to break all the rules and leave someone hanging)...

anyway, they came to the consensus that I was wrong and they were right and it's my attitude problem that is the cause of all the tension (and where was the tension, I asked?... but ignored the question) in the mornings... so when I asked them if I am to ignore doctor's orders and potential problems they answered that I can't walk around afraid of what might happen... that didn't answer my question and assumed I was afraid of what might happen... they did a lot of assuming... like they assumed that I didn't join in their conversations at the nurses station because I was brooding in the hallway... ummm, they have their backs to me and the hallway is where we are supposed to be listening for kid sounds and making 15 minute rounds... I am suppose to turn my back to the hallway or leave the hallway to join in their conversation?...

but they went as far as to admit they were deliberately ostracizing me... and they claimed they told me why but when I asked them when they could only come up with one time a few months ago after I became upset because there was a need for staff in the hallway and five or six staff behind the nurses station looked up and ignored my request for a staff in the hallway three times...

ok, so I should not get upset... ok, so I should not address situations that are potentially harmful or in direct violation of doctor's orders or simply rude and inconsiderate and dumping on the fact that I am conscientious, do not take breaks or lunch, and am almost always in the hallway... I should just swallow and take it like a man so they can have their girl-talk up at the nurses station...

oh well, and I thought I really had a good team I could trust and that is why I was trusting them to hang off camera and covering for them with other staff and nurses who asked about it, but ever since this forced-to-the-night-shift nurse arrived there's been a growing wedge between the two co-workers I trained and depended upon and me... and I thought it was all just girl-talk, but apparently some serious undermining has been going on up there...

live and learn... start again... I've been there through three managers, a half dozen nurses, and at least a dozen different staff... the turnover rate in the place is atrocious mostly because the administration scapegoats any time there is a problem and there are frequent problems due to short staffing that leads to poor supervision and incidents... and from my three years there I observe that they treat people with little respect... so I sit back on the night shift, make my rounds, develop forms and systems to audit medical records and behavioral data and whatnot and hope for better days ahead... I'd like to see it as a pleasant place to work with pleasant people who like me, but apparently they don't so I'll learn to live with that... basically there aren't similar jobs at the pay rate I get anywhere around here and bills must be paid...

I think the most frustrating thing of all is that they could only come up with one clear case of this poor attitude they claim goes on all night every night... it appeared to me as thought they were trying to convince the manager to transfer me off the shift because they've already written me off and don't want to address me... after all, why ostracize me and not mention that something is bothering you if you care and want to work with someone?... and they call me passive aggressive...

the hurt I feel is that they did not care enough to sit down and talk to me about it, that they had to call a meeting with the manager to make all sorts of generalized judgments and assumptions about me and why I sit quietly in the hallway so much, rather than have any sort of serious discussion about it during the forty hours a week they had the opportunity to bring it up... and that they chose to deliberately and literally turn their backs on me rather than trying to resolve a problem that I honestly did not know existed until this meeting... I even asked if everything was ok with each of them individually more than once...

perhaps I deserve such lack of respect...

so perhaps I am wrong... perhaps the new nurse is not trying to push me off the unit so she can sit back and read and snooze and take advantage of the two young girls I trained who do an outstanding job when they are not distracted into long conversations at the nurses station... perhaps the nurse does not thrive on the audience and does not want to share it with the kids down the hall or another staff who sees what is going on... and perhaps the fact that I developed the systems they use and we got 100% on the audit last month is not being overlooked or credited to the new nurse as she'd like it to be... so quickly they forget that the charts were a mess (at least five hundred lines of deficiencies for eighteen charts, for those of you familiar with auditing) when the unit opened in March of 2003... and the person in charge of the charts on the previous unit was this very same nurse... perhaps she is not threatened by the fact that she can not pull the wool over my eyes...

people seem to need someone to blame for their deficiencies and as the one who points them out, I am the likely candidate... and who'd have thought that the two kids I trained who I thought respected me (and just a couple of weeks ago I put in for each of them to get something called a FISH award, which is an incentive award for outstanding work... that's a poor attitude?) would buy into the power trip the nurse seems to be playing... but of course I could be the one completely wrong about everything...

I am serious, I accept that I may be wrong in any situation at any time, no matter how grumpy or biased my rants may seem at times...

so ok, I'll see what they do from now on... whether they or the manager actually addresses the hallway issue (which has been brought up many times before by management) or the things that have nothing to do with attitude or personality or power trips or who is the center of attention but everything to do with quality care, safety, and following (or ignoring) policies and doctor's orders...

I asked for a private meeting with the manager for next week and I'll see just where she stands and what she believes and whether she cares at all about anything I had to say or whether she appriecates the extra work I've been doing by myself for the two of the last three years up until the two good workers were hired last year...

and I'll do as I am asked, swallow my ethics and better judgment and ignore the big picture and focus on covering my behind... or as they said verbatim, just stay on camera and don't worry about what anyone else is doing and you won't get into any trouble if something happens...

who wants to bet the first question after the next crisis is why I didn't bring the problem to their attention?...

been there, done that, the place is a merry-go-round and there are new staff all the time who don't believe it and they get caught up and either fired or frustrated and leave... administration might like it that way, for then there are few of us around long enough to know where the bodies are buried and how it actually works...

sour grapes, of course...

so now that I've stomped up some sour wine and have pleasantly stinky feet, how about a toast... to the beauty of words and how well they process frustrations and complaints and the hypocrisy and disrespect and whatnots or this world...

love to you all...

and I do mean all...

even the fish...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)