Questions from Apartment #412…

1.  What do you do?

I’m a nurse at a small-ish hospital.  I coordinate patient care between the various departments: physical therapy, respiratory, pharmacy, imaging,etc.  The rest of my time is divided between paperwork and actual bedside care.  I’ve been there two years, and the paperwork only continues to grow exponentially.

2.  Do you enjoy it?

To be completely honest, not so much.  There are those moments when I feel as though I made a difference in someone’s life, but they are so few and far between as to not be worth the extra stress the job has brought into my life.  I keep Exedrin Migraine in my locker.  My feet ache so that I can’t even wear my pretty shoes.  The idiocy of upper management is mind boggling; patient safety seems to fall lower and lower on their list of priorities while the key word “patient satisfaction” grows in power.  And I’m not a people person.  I knew that going in.  I’m good at it (I rock in receiving positive comments in patient surveys), but it’s exhausting to be forced to interact positively with so many people all the time.  Especially when much of the time the patient is a whiny, needy little punk who can do more for himself than he pretends.  (And yes, it usually is a male.)  What the hell was I thinking?

3.  If you could switch paths or fields – what would you choose instead?

My answer is probably the same as many: something creative. I like to knit.  Maybe if I spent more time improving my skills, I could eventually write patterns. (I’ve sold one before.)  I like to write.  Maybe if I improved my skills, I could eventually write professionally.  Ultimately, my ideal job would be to follow through on a brilliant idea that would eventually do most of the work for me.  I like to sit with my brother and come up with random get-rich-quick ideas. Most are idiotic or are complicated to start-up, but you never know when you’ll stumble on a simple yet financially viable idea. Why, oh why didn’t I think up the Snuggie?

Yeah, I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately.  Why do you ask?

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