What now?

I had my first week of Spring semester last week. I am taking Human Physiology, and Psychology. I am not sure quite how it worked out but in my first B.S., I think it was my microbiology class that ended up fulfilling whatever requirement it was that people usually take Psych for in undergrad.

It turns out that the lecturer I am going to have this term for Physiology is the same one I had last term for Anatomy. However, she is using all of the same materials for the class from the woman who usually teaches it, and that teacher, I can tell is ultra organized. So that will help. I wasn't able to get back into the Psychology section I dropped for the new job that didn't work out (see last post) but I was able to add a different section for Thursday nights, 7-10pm. It uses the same book, which is a relief, and seems like it will be extremely, extremely easy.

I got my job back at the campus tutoring center, and adjusted my schedule so that I will only be working on Tuesday through Thursday, the same days I am on campus anyway for class. I am hoping because I will be starting at the beginning of the semester this time instead of part way through, and I know more what to expect, I can really get a good group of students established right off who will be consistent. 20 hours per week x 9 dollars an hour = 180 per week, or 720 minus taxes per month, but that is only if everyone shows up and my schedule is full.

My confidence in myself kind of took a hit with the whole fiasco at my last job. I know I need to get a second job but now I am not sure what to do. It would be nice to get something in health care... two possibilities there would be:

(a) work in a nursing home doing elder care
(b) finish my cardiac arrhythmia training and try for a tele monitor job at a local hospital

And another possibility I am considering now, mostly because they have medical benefits for part-timers is:

(a) Starbucks barista

I have to say that the Starbucks thing is kind of appealing. I could work my 3 days at the tutoring center, 3 days at the coffee shop, and end up with enough income to not be going in the hole every month and also be able to stop paying COBRA health insurance after 3 months. It might be kind of tiring to work 6 days per week but maybe this would be the best solution.

If I was able to get a tele monitor job, their shifts are 12 hours, and 3 shifts is considered full time. I don't know how flexible they might be about scheduling around a school schedule, or that might be a good possibility. The main thing holding me back from that is my confidence level. What if I'm not good at it, and what if I make a bad impression at one of the two local hospitals, and then once I'm done with nursing school and looking for jobs I won't feel comfortable going back? Maybe that's being ridiculous.

If I went for the tutoring + starbucks option, I doubt I would be able to fit in 200 hours of health care work experience before I turn in my nursing school application. I don't know.

Elder care could also be fine, it's just a matter of finding a job, as none are posted right now. Plus, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't throw in medical benefits for a part-timer so that would mean quitting my tutoring job and stuff or just doing part time and continuing on cobra still.

Lots to think about.

One bright ray of hope in all the gray: I ended up with an A (not even a minus) in Anatomy for last semester. I found out earlier this week but forgot to post it in all the chaos. That will help my application. I was right on the border at the end of the term, so I must have done pretty well on the final.

Back to the drawing board

It has been almost one week since that last post.

A recap: last wednesday my supervisor at my new job told me I could not take the class I am registered for this Spring, which was previously agreed to be allowable during my interview and application process. HR got involved, and later that afternoon, it was going to be "okay" again.

Update: my supervisor terminated my position today. He did not directly reference my schedule requirements, but instead chose to attack my skills. My own assessment is that they have been constantly improving over the course of my scattered training by someone who I think would be aptly described as ADHD-Barbie. His assessment differed. I think though, that it was really about the scheduling issue. Last week, even after the HR person intervened and my scheduling issue was "okay" again, there were several grumblings and complaints made about the inconvenience.

So I'm unemployed again.

It is disappointing just to lose a new job, but especially in this case, the timing is horrible.

Last weekend, with the knowledge that things still felt a little unsettled at work but at least on the surface seemed to be resolved, I dropped the additional classes I was planning to take in Spring if I hadn't found work and sent my old boss a letter letting her know I had found a new job and wouldn't be back for Spring semester. I saved both of these tasks until the last possible minute to try to feel as comfortable as possible in the new job before I made the leap -- the courses needed to be dropped for a full refund over the weekend, and the old job would be starting back up in 2 weeks, so I wanted to give 2 weeks notice.

It is impossible at this point to get the classes back; phlebotomy was one of them, and it has a mile long wait list. A distance ed psychology class was the other, and it is full now. I am looking into taking a different distance ed psych course online through a different college, however even there I am 10th on the waitlist.

My old boss emailed me back today and said she was sorry to see me go, that she was planning on interviewing me for a promotion next week because I had been doing a great job with the students. I didn't want to go groveling back for my old job, but given this in, I informed her of the new situation and I am waiting to hear back. Hopefully that will work out. I am pretty sure even the promoted position would only be 25 or so hours per week, and lower pay, but it would at least be something. And perhaps I could pick up 1 day per week of volunteer work at a hospital to get my pre-nursing health care experience.

So I've had a rough day. I think things will work out in the end, but I'm tiring of the roller coaster.

New Job = Stress

I feel like I have been doing alright at work so far. I'm not picking up on things perhaps as quickly as they would like me to, which is frustrating for both of us. The problem I've been having with the training I'm going through has to do with both speed, and organization. There are 10+ instruments that I need to learn, all with their individual techniques, quirks, trouble-shooting approaches, rules about paperwork, etc. And the way I am being trained, they are not teaching me about one instrument, letting me practice it, and then moving on to the next; we fly around the building from one instrument to the next gathering little bits of information along the way as we go and hopefully cover all bases by the end. And there is added pressure due to my trainer leaving to go to school and wanting to be out of the schedule as soon as possible.

By the end of next week I have to have passed several "competencies" with supervision. I am getting more confident with more practice, but it is all pretty stressful, and whenever I do something slightly out of line with procedure, I get barked at. Add to that the newness of being on my feet all day, regimented breaks for going to the bathroom or grabbing a snack, and rapidly changing day vs. night shifts that throw me for a loop, and I'm really hanging on by a thread sometimes.

So that gives you some background as to where I am at right now... *then* ...

I come in today, and get word that there may be some problem with me getting "approved" to take my pre-nursing physiology course this Spring, which starts next week. I registered for this class over two months ago. There almost no hope of switching to a different time/section at this point (all sections are full). When I put in my application for the job, I put in a very clear note compounded with the pdf application stating the times and days that I could not work due to my class. I also brought this up several times, with multiple people, including my supervisor, during both interview sessions, and everybody including him said it would be fine.

But when I met with him today, he acted as if this was some big surprise that I needed that time off for my class, expressed what an inconvenience this was to both himself and the rest of the lab, told me that it would not be allowed, intimated that I had been doing a shoddy job so far in my training, and expressed that my job was on the line over this scheduling issue. WTF!

I held it together in the meeting with him, asserted over and over again that this was a necessary course for me, that it would set me back a whole year to not be able to take it this spring, and reminded him repeatedly (and respectfully) that he should have been aware of this issue before hiring me due to our multiple previous discussions.

Afterward, I went to the breakroom to take my 10 minutes and the person who has been training me was in there. I asked her if she was aware if my supervisor would ever hire three people at once with the intention of "testing" them and planning to fire one ultimately. She paused, said she didn't know, and asked me what our supervisor had said. At this point, I started crying and couldn't stop for a while.

Then, in walks the HR person, notices that I am crying, and asks if she can help. I explain to her, through my gasping crying, what has happened, she asks me clear logical questions confirming that I did in fact put in writing my need to have those times off for my class and that I had verbal agreement from my supervisor prior to being hired that it was okay. The person who is training me kept playing the politician and saying she could see both sides, but the HR woman said that our prior agreement should hold, and said that she would talk to my supervisor on my behalf and either he or she would get back to me.

I went on a 20 minute walk after that to try to pull myself together and stop being emotional. I ended up running into a friend who also works there, and we walked together and talked about what had happened, and she told me about her own issues at work. I was somewhat cheered up by the time I had returned.

I also reminded myself that I have not yet put in notice at my old job (which is on hiatus during the semester break), and that I have not yet unregistered from the "extra" classes that I was planning on taking if I couldn't find full time employment by the time the term started. One of those classes is phlebotomy, and it is quite difficult to get into, so I didn't want to drop it until I was very sure that the work situation was going to be stable and doable. So I have backup, but I need to know by the end of the week on both fronts (my old job, and the courses) if I am going to be working, or not.

I went back to work, jumped into running samples again, and when I was loading some vitamin D tests on a machine, I ran into my supervisor and he came up to me and asked if I knew what I was doing. I told him (confidently) that yes, I did. He said that he had talked with so-and-so and that they decided they would be able to work with my school schedule.

So for the time being, everything is okay.

One of the work-arounds for my schedule is that I am potentially going to have to work 6 days a week until the term is over, i.e. every Saturday. And I am willing to do that, though it will be hard to power through sometimes I'm sure, if it means everything will work out.

So that was my day. Things seemed to smooth out somewhat by the end of the day, but I am still anxious about this development, about my supervisor's threat that I need to shape up and prove myself, and everything in general. I needed to vent somewhere and get my experience down, so there you go. Hopefully the next post will be happier.

anxious about getting up early

So tomorrow morning I start a week of AM shifts at the lab, which begin at 6am. It is not that I mind getting up early, that I really just want to laze about and sleep in. I am truly anxious about sleeping too late and missing work. I have had issues with getting up at the right time for a long time now, and will regularly set several alarms as backup. Hopefully that is enough for tomorrow.

I have also been trying to gradually move back my wake-up time over the weekend to accomodate the change in schedule -- on the afternoon shifts, my body didn't want to wake up until 11 or 12. I got up for the first time at 7:30 this morning, had breakfast, fed the cats, etc. But somehow ended up back under the covers again until 9:30! At least that's an improvement over 11.

I might dose myself with a unisom tonight around 7 or 8 and see if I can get to sleep extremely early. And set multiple alarms for around 5 o'clock.

First week @ Work (Medical Lab)

Last week was my first week working at my new job in a clinical pathology lab. Pretty much the first entire day was taken up by orientation, reading company policy documents & doing online safety training modules. From there on, it was right into the lab "shadowing" one of their current star employees who is leaving in 2 weeks.

The shifts I was working were 2-10:30ish, with a ten minute paid break twice a day and a half hour "lunch" break in the middle. For the first 3 in-lab days everything was scattered all over the place, trying to jump from one machine to the next, getting little pieces of information scattered about in my head about various equipment, procedures and software, with barely a chance to even try it out before moving on to the next thing.

I am not used to doing shift work, or working in any sort of extremely structured environment. It was a struggle for me being on my feet moving around so much (when I'm used to mostly desk jobs), and also just trying to stay alert for that long. I learned that it is important to grab a snack and rehydrate during those short breaks to keep my blood sugar up. I'm not diabetic or anything, but spending all that time on my feet and not having a chance to get a bite to eat here and there I started feeling really foggy very quickly.

On Friday, my last day in the lab this week, my trainer had me start out the shift just focusing on "heme" which means running the CBC's, "retic's", and making blood smear slides of samples where indicated. I did that for several hours, then after my lunch break started adding in running some urines now and then, doing some triage drug tox tests and cardiac tests, and vitamin D levels, and archiving samples. By the end of the night I was feeling a lot more confident, and was able to move through some of the shut down procedures without any supervision, and actually feel like I was being more of a help than a hindrance.

Working from 2pm through 10:30 or so, in an indoor environment with all those bright lights, and all the physical activity completely threw my sleep schedule off. I would get home around 11, be awake for a few more hours, maybe fall asleep at 1 or 2, then get up around noon the next day and prepare to go to work again. I didn't get much of anything done outside of work, so my task list has been building up.

Now I've got Saturday, Sunday and Monday off, and when I go back on Tuesday I'll be starting at 6am. I let myself sleep in today, but tomorrow I need to start getting up early in preparation. I made a couple of appointments for my Monday off, with my doctor, and to get my job-provided Hep B vaccination series started. I need to check and make sure I haven't already had that.

I think this job will be great preparation for an eventual career in nursing, what with all the running around and multi-tasking. It has been challenging so far but I think thing will move more smoothly with time.

I need to make sure and get some scrubs ordered this weekend. I had a pen in the pocket of my lab coat and it leaked all over my shirt last night.

Placenta pictures grounds for dismissal?

I saw a news story recently here, about a young nursing student in Kansas who posted a picture of herself holding up a placenta in one of her classes to Facebook. Her community college expelled her, months before her upcoming graduation.

I was surprised that the community college took such swift and harsh action against her. Especially since the girls involved asked their teacher if it was alright first. And how did the school officials even know about it? It's not like they would be Facebook friends with that student. Maybe the lab teacher mentioned it to the department head or something.

I read through some of the comments by the public about this story and some folks were really offended that the picture was posted, said it was a violation of HIPAA privacy and all -- but a placenta, unless it has ID tags on it in the photo, wouldn't be identifiable as one person's placenta.

I think I might have some learning to do about health privacy laws, what is okay to do as a health professional and what is not. I know my dad was once asked by a group of doctors if they could take a picture of his geographic tongue, and he refused for some reason. I'm sure permission of the patient would be required if you wanted to use the photograph in a medical publication or something. I think I've signed papers to that effect before. But a facebook snapshot of an anonymous placenta?

I'll be following this story for sure...