Approximately 10 months ago, I was offered PRN positions on not one, but two, units at my local hospital. So, I had two job titles: PRN Outpatient Behavioral Health RN and PRN RN Case Manager. As I found out in the job interview, the "outpatient" part is a misnomer. Rather than seeing patients outpatient, we make visits to patients with a variety of mental and behavioral health challenges in various units of the hospital. This has been the case since about 5 years ago, when the real inpatient psych unit closed down due to inability to find psychiatrists to cover the unit 24/7 (I have some ideas as to why, but I will try to keep them to myself). It wasn't what I expected (or wrote a cover letter for, not that anyone there actually read my cover letter), but I figured I would give this job a try.
From the moment I graced this clearly short-staffed facility with my stalwart presence and sunny disposition (or at least, my warm body and RN license), I knew this place was strange. For starters, I was supposed to have a general hospital orientation on my first day. The educator emails me a basic rundown of the hospital orientation and instructs me to meet in North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. I enter the hospital, and the screeners at the front door are super busy, since they were also screening patients coming in for appointments at the family medicine clinic attached to the hospital. The information desk was empty, and all two people at the registration desks each had a long line of people they were checking in to have labwork done. So, I called the educator at the phone number provided in my email to let her know I am here and to ask where the North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. She heaves this massive sigh over the phone and says it's right by the HR office. (Who the heck sighs over the phone? Do they not have any idea how freaking annoying that sounds??? It would be so easy to sigh with your mouth pointed away from the mouthpiece, but no, she has to be passive aggressive and make sure I can hear her irritated sigh blowing in my ear. Yes, this is a petty post.)
I had interviewed virtually for both jobs, so I had no idea where the HR office is. (You know what would be really helpful at times like these? Signs. But I digress.) The educator gets pissy and says that the HR office is right near North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82 and I can't miss it. I was asking where the HR office is so that I can use it as a point of reference to FIND North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. Useless witch.
Another person entered the building a little after me and asked if I'm looking for North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. I think that it's someone who can show me the way, so I hang up on the educator (who is still bent out of shape about me asking where the HR office is) and talk to her. Turns out this is another orientee who also does not know where North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82 is. Together, we manage to locate an employee who wasn't currently tied up with ten million patients, and she is nice enough to walk us to North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. I thought when I walked in that I was on the bottom floor of the hospital, but navigating to North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82 involved taking an elevator down to the hospital's basement, passing by the HR office, and taking a narrow corridor to North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82. We managed to arrive at orientation five minutes early, only for it to begin ten minutes late.
Apparently, the educator has a daughter, who works as a monitor tech at the hospital. And to hear the educator tell it, said daughter is horribly mistreated. The educator went on a long rant about how there is a patient in the ICU for the past few days after choking on his own vomit because nobody listened to her daughter when the daughter was sounding the alarm. The educator went on to assure us that she introduced her daughter to the person in charge of Risk Management and the lazy, incompetent floor nurses would get theirs. Reading between the lines, the educator's daughter appears to have some interpersonal issues with her colleagues. I am not this tech's mother, so I will not waste the time of a group of nurses (assuming anyone read this far) by weighing in on who caused these interpersonal issues. I've actually never met the daughter. She may be a figment of the educator's imagination for all I know. Perhaps the daughter is better off not existing. After all, if this is what her mother thinks new employee training is, I'd hate to see her definition of "home training." (Yes, I'm from the South).
Having gotten that off her chest, the educator finally felt prepared to show us where the HR office is so that we could make copies of our driver's licenses and fill out paperwork. She kept an eagle eye on us the entire time, almost as if she were afraid we would report her angelic tech daughter to HR for some nonsense unless she carefully screened anyone who came near the HR office. (After all, why else would she object to telling me where the HR office is when I called before?)
We were then led back to the North South East West Conference Education Fornication Fermentation Room #82 for more general hospital orientation. The educator enlightened us on how, when she was travel nursing in the South, her would-be preceptor spent the whole time sexually harassing the younger nurses. She blamed the younger nurses for this. I'm not sure why. But none of this actually mattered, because she, of course, knew everything there was to know. I'm.... not even sure how we got on that topic.
After a general hospital orientation that was just about as useful as watching an episode of "General Hospital," it was time to get to work!
I started out training on the Behavioral Health Unit, though training is a strong word. What was actually happening is I would go see patients throughout the hospital by myself while my preceptor sat in the office and gossiped and compared people who are administering the Covid vaccine to Nazi's.
(It's worth noting that we didn't even have any kind of Covid vaccine mandate at this time. My preceptor, who theoretically sees patients involuntarily committed to the hospital despite the fact that they very much do not want to be there, felt that people who administered Covid vaccines were Nazi's and was very vocal about it. I still have no idea why she felt this way. She eventually go her Covid vaccine, once the hospital actually did institute a mandate. The person my preceptor did most of her gossiping with elected to quit rather than get the vaccine. She is now working at a school, prompting me to wonder who the heck runs the schools in this town).
As you can imagine, there were some safety issues and questionable practices on this unit. I couldn't deal with that level of bull crap. I quit after a month.
When I had tried to put in my notice on the Behavioral Health Unit, the person in charge, who is a Psych APRN, told me to clock out and go home. So I did. Psych APRN then complained to the boss on the Case Management unit (my second unit) saying I didn't bother to put in any notice.
So, I get called in by Director of Case Management and I have to explain what actually happened, then re-interview for the Case Management job.
Nine months later, I secured a paid MSW internship 75 miles away (I'm in grad school for social work) and quit my Case Management job. I was allowed to give proper notice. I let my supervisor know (both in writing and in person) on Feb 2 that my last day would be Feb 18. I also forwarded a copy of the email I sent my supervisor to my personal email, since I didn't want anyone deciding that I didn't give notice after all.
I'm PRN, and I've been so busy with packing and cleaning that I didn't pick up any shifts in February. Five days ago, my supervisor sent me an email asking me to drop off my hospital ID badge at the main entrance. I've been busy with getting ready to move (I'm in New England now, so 75 miles away is a whole other state), so I didn't even notice the email until today.
This may sound weird, but I've never actually had to turn in a hospital ID badge. I always thought they could be deactivated from a distance, like room card keys for a hotel. The badge didn't actually give me access to critical areas like the med room or anything like that. Also, it's not Feb 18 yet, so what's the rush?
More importantly, after all the drama the supervisor dragged me into after I quit the Behavioral Health Unit (which she does not manage), why is this the only acknowledgement I get after quitting the unit that she actually DOES manage?
I'm considering being petty and responding that, based on what I've seen of the hospital's communication skills over the past 10 months, I have my doubts that this would result in the badge being delivered to the correct person. I am considering requesting an in-person meeting with the supervisor, thereby ensuring that the badge is returned properly and follow the resignation protocol that was established when I resigned from the Behavioral Health Unit. I know it's petty, but shouldn't the supervisor make a bigger deal about me leaving the unit she manages than the unit she does not manage?
2BS Nurse, BSN
703 Posts
Very entertaining post! I recently took a job where the supervisor was annoyed that she had to shoulder my department. I didn't last long there.
BTW, I've been asked to turned in my badge for every job I've left. It's standard practice. Just throw it in an envelope and mail it to the security dept. ?