Tuesday, February 15, 2011

work sucks. plain and simple.

well I am exhausted. my legs are both about to fall off ~ good thing I have them up and am sitting in a comfy chair at home. as the title of the piece says ~ work sucks. big green donkey dicks. nice image, no? not mine, however. Rita Mae Brown has that honor in an early work of hers. Look her up, she is a good writer of fiction. anyway, back to my carping about work.

We have been going out 3 to 4 people short each night. A normal load is a count of 40 ~ last night I had a count of close to 60. ICU 1 - 7, I had patients in all rooms save one. All were on ventilators, except one, who was on a bipap (and needs it 24/7). I was CVRT ~ check all the lines and assist the Intensivest in inserting lines and other duties, as needed. We did do one line (RIJ). Attempted weaning of a couple of patients. There were multiple 'events' - throughout the hospital .. thankfully I didn't need to attend - too effing busy with my own unstable patients. Blood gases, suctioning patients with copious secretions - oral and otherwise. Finding errors other techs made (hellloooo ~ do you match up your ABG before you accept it and transmit) Stupid errors made by someone sloppy and seemingly not to care. And writing down the results and not even thinking that the result was so far removed from reality to recheck her work. I hate the words "I don't know how to do that"... well sister, figure it out. And.............. IF YOU HAVE TIME TO SIT ~ YOU HAVE TIME TO HELP OTHERS. nothing pisses me off more than when we are so extremely busy, and others have time to sit in the RT department, laughing, joking - not helping their co-workers.

The bosses don't seem to care that we are drowning. It is a major worry.. and a lawsuit in the making. We don't have enough staff to see all the patients ordered on therapy. Someone's gonna die or have terrible problems that could have been avoided had we enough staff. Management goes home at the end of the day. Why not? their work is done. This is my license, not to mention someones life. It is a terrible situation.

Ah God! wishing I could retire, quit........... find work elsewhere. I am at the top of my payscale however. There is no way I'll get the $ I'm getting at my current job. And I'm going out on surgical leave. The pisser is I have about 7 weeks of FMLA leave left (after all my other surgical LOA's) I need to be out 12 weeks with my knee. I saw the boss yesterday, and he told me he couldn't guarentee I'd have a job when I got off my surgical leave. After almost 20 years of work in this department I am an optional 'tool'? I'd like to think I am a contributing member of the staff. Guess not? the boss is going to check with HR today and see what kind of leave I need to take once my FMLA runs out. I think if I could wait on the knee replacement, I would. But its not a possibility. I can't walk. Well, I can but it hurts like hell and more. My tortoise can walk faster than I can.

Well, long night is past, and my eyes are just about rolled up backwards and closed.

to sleep then. Hopefully no dreams. I would like nice quiet rest, thank you very much. To help balance the 'sucks green donkey dicks' kind of night we all had last night.