Well, my best/worst nightmare came true...
Last Wednesday morning, the local sheriff's dept reached out and offered their medical staff from the local house of corrections and vaccine supply to our elementary staff. They called at around 11:30a and asked to meet at 2:30. Myself and another nurse met with them for 30minutes, and came up with a plan to hold this clinic for up to 125 staff people in the MS/HS gym on Friday.
It seemed like such a great thing. It was in-service day, so no need for subs to cover classrooms. The gym would be empty! It's on a Friday! FREE HELP! All the things I wanted and dreamed about. I spent the last couple hours of the day drafting an email, creating a sign up form, and answering questions from the elementary admin team. All seemed well.
By 9:30 Thursday morning all of the elementary staff had been able to read the email and sign up for the clinic, and only 50 slots were filled of the 125. There are a total of 70 staff combined at the MS/HS level and our HR/Central Office, so we reached out to the MS/HS principal and he became irate that he was not consulted, shouted at our MS/HS nurse twice over the phone, nearly giving her a panic attack. I tried to write a "smoothing over" email, but was given even more flack from our super for not following the proper protocols and involving upper level Admin. They ultimately agreed to let it go on, but I was left incredibly upset and disappointed. All we were trying to do was get our staff vaccinated. It was all lining up so perfectly, to get yelled at by admin just felt like a slap in the face. I worked tirelessly all day (on a pre-planned day off, no less); I made over 20 phone calls, fielded numerous email questions, all while navigating the bajillion things I HAD to get done personally that day (hence the day off). It was one of the most stressful days of my life.
Friday rolled around and the clinic went off without a hitch. We only had one no-show, the superintendent apologized to me in person for the tone of his email, and thanked us (the nurses) for setting it up. They even made an announcement over the loudspeaker for the MS/HS staff to come down and get their vaccines - not many showed up, but still.
Lesson learned. Even in a pandemic, if you don't go through admin you're gonna get yelled at.
