intothenight81

During my clinicals, several of my classmates and I were in a resident's room (he has dementia) when I asked him if he was ready to take a shower. (He had indicated earlier in the day that he wanted to take a shower, but not at that moment.) I didn't think to have the others leave the room before I asked (we all kinda ended up there because several of the class were absent so we were all helping each other out and checking on other people's residents) and he said "That's all fine and dandy, but my wife would throw a sh*t fit if she walked in here and found me in the shower with 2 guys and 3 girls. Especially the girls. I done f*cked around on her once and she wasn't very happy about it." It was hilarious.

I'd like to apologize for the fact that I got back so late. I've been having computer difficulties at home and although I'm on campus several times a week, I've been doing a lot of make-up work for school. I appreciate all the replies I've received so far. As far as agency goes, my instructor told us that we'd be better off waiting to try agency until we have solid experience because of the "hit the ground running" with no guarantee of any kind of orientation aspect. That's true in other areas too but she said that agency isn't the best avenue for new aides, especially those that are nervous (and that's most people.) She wasn't necessarily trying to discourage anyone but rather inform them so they didn't go in blind, so to speak. I'm not necessarily saying "Oh, I've got it" -- I was just pointing out that the last time I worked in a hospital, it took that time frame to get in. Thankfully at that point I had two other jobs so I wasn't hurt waiting for it. The money that I'm living on is money that I saved for other purposes but have now had to fall back on while looking for employment. I'll be much better off if I don't have to go through all my savings waiting but if I don't have a job tomorrow I won't be homeless or starving either. It's not gonna last forever though. I've come across posts from both CNAs and nurses where members pointed out that calling the hospital helped. Most of the time, hospital HR representatives seem to rattle off the automated message about how your application will be active for X amount of days and if you haven't heard anything at that point, try again... but I've never tried calling HR in a hospital about a position in nursing. Although it seems pretty self-explanatory what to say when calling to follow up on an application, is there a best way to go about it or perhaps someone of a particular title I should ask for? For some reason, "Hi, my name is X and I'm calling about the X position I submitted for on X" (or any other closely related variation) doesn't seem like it'll cut it this time around but I'm not sure how else to tackle it. Over the past week (now that I've got my paperwork in hand) I've applied at four different hospitals. I've applied for nursing support and transport. I'm usually pretty good at crossing all my t's and dotting all my i's and I think the resume I created is pretty good (and I'm pretty critical of anything I write or compose.) I know that patience is a virtue and sometimes you just have to wait, but I'm more active and less passive and I like making things happen. You never really get anywhere in life waiting for things to fall in your lap. I also applied for a dialysis patient care technician position that I'm qualified for based on the fact that they're willing to train the right candidates and I have everything they're looking for in trainees. I'd like to start making phone calls this week but I'm kinda lost.

I passed my written and skills yesterday. Woot woot.

Before looking around this forum yesterday, I didn't even know hospitals took volunteers on that kind of basis. I'm open to that. I'm not necessarily adverse to working in a certain type of facility; I did my clinicals in an assisted living facility and if that facility was closer to me, I'd go to work there. I've got a little bit of money saved up and I'm being recalled to my old job in a couple weeks (working hospitality) so I'm okay for now... it's just that sitting here, doing nothing, is driving me crazy. I'm 18 and I have worked in some capacity almost continuously since I was 11 (except for now.) I'm in school two nights a week plus alternating Saturdays and that isn't enough for me. I go for my state tomorrow so I figured I'd just wait until I got it to go putting in applications. I figured that'd make the process simpler and easier. One problem that I'm facing right now is that I'm not driving right now. I have to get another car but that's not gonna happen tomorrow. Thankfully I live in a big city where it's not too awfully hard to get around if you don't have a car. Admittedly, though, it does narrow my options down a little.

I just finished my CNA class last Friday and I take my state exam on Thursday. There's a hospital pretty close to my house that I'd love to get on at and the best thing is that I've heard that they will hire new CNAs with no experience and even train the right people to draw blood, do EKGs, admissions, etc... but the hospital hiring process is almost always painfully slow (I worked at one before doing utility and it took me 6 weeks from the time I applied til the time I sat orientation) and I can't not work for 6 weeks. Common sense tells me to call and follow up with the hospital when I apply, but the only thing is that I'm not sure exactly what to say to them. When I was trying to land the utility job, all I got told was that they'll call you if they're interested, etc, but I was told by a few different people in my class that sometimes it works different in nursing. Do I need to talk to a certain HR rep or recruiter? What do I say? I have a solid work history and I've never had a problem navigating the job landing process but for some reason undergoing this career field change makes me feel like my brain's been wiped clean sometimes and it's a little confusing. Any help, suggestions, advice, etc, would be greatly appreciated. :)