too little, too late.

i just came from a meeting in which i was handed everything that i wanted.

terrible manager is leaving.  nice CNS is now new interim manager.  staffing is improving.  we're taking the next six months to "focus on us".

and it sounds ungrateful and entitled, but my mind was screaming the entire meeting: IT'S NOT ENOUGH.

not enough to make up for the past 5 years in which we were constantly told to do better.  not enough to undo the repeated threats of "consequences" and "corrective action".  not enough to make me forget the agonizing meeting i had in the office where i was told that i'm negative, or the one where i tried to make them understand how bad things on the unit were getting only to be handed a mental health brochure.

i. am. so. angry.  they made me feel like a failure.  they made me believe that there was something wrong with me.  i felt crazy, like it was all in my head and maybe i just couldn't cut it as a trauma nurse and that it was all my fault.

then, in one 2 hour meeting, all is supposed to be forgiven and forgotten?  as if the "leadership team"  didn't know exactly what was going on all that time?  i feel like some bullied kid, picked apart for years and years and now the bully is gone and i'm just supposed to put a smile on my face like it never happened.

it happened.  it hurt me.  it made me a different person.

and you can give me more staff, a kinder/gentler manager and free prizes, but it doesn't make it go away.

i'm not sure how to deal with this.  everyone is so happy, so relieved, and i'm just sitting here frustrated and uneasy, wondering exactly how i'm supposed to get over years of hurt and bitterness.

like how terrible manager chased away so many of my coworker friends.  or how i would send emails about problems that were never addressed.  and when i did bring issues to light, i felt as if i had a target on my back for mentioning something that wasn't positive.  or how we had terrible staff satisfaction scores for years, and wasted so much time making action plans that never changed anything.

i resent all of that.

and, if i'm being honest, i think i resent that this change is happening when i'm finally ready to move on.  here i am, more likely than not getting a new job in the next several weeks and NOW is when we're finally going to solve the problems?  NOW is when we're going to start listening to the staff?  NOW is when we've decided to say out loud what we've all been thinking for years?  really??

well go figure.

i think that what i've realized above all else is that i'm doing the right thing.  if i can't be happy about this, about the best possible scenario coming true, what would make me happy?  nothing.  so i'm trying to make a conscious effort to be glad for my coworkers left behind.  to embrace these changes and not say the things that i'm thinking.  to let this news make other people happier and more satisfied at work.

but for me?

it's just too little, too late.

seven years

i was thinking about nursing, and about what i've learned over the last year.  there's always something...another crazy story, a new way to get doctors to do what you want, how to fly under management's radar.  but when i really thought about it, i realized that this was the year that i finally learned how much of myself to give to other people.

that sounds silly, because nurses are supposed to be this bottomless pit of compassion and selflessness, but sometimes that's just not realistic.  i've learned the hard way that i have to take care of myself, or i'll have nothing else to give to other people.

i've said it before, this job is HARD.  you see and hear terrible, sad things that make you ache for people and wonder how the world could possibly be so cruel.  and you're frustrated on a level that you never thought you could even get to, because you're literally fighting for peoples lives and yet still have to deal with trivial things like money and ego and resources.  meanwhile, the people who are supposed to be supporting you are some of your biggest rivals, and you find yourself fighting for better staffing and more security and things that you really shouldn't have to ask for, much less beg repeatedly for.

and in the midst of all this, i let myself get worn down to the point where i could barely keep going.  i kept hearing how much i was supposed to be giving to my patients...the hourly rounding, the mountain of charting, the folders upon folders of teaching, and i actually believed that i could do it.  and when i fell short again and again, i started to believe that i was failing and that i was terrible and i started asking myself why i even wanted to be a nurse in the first place.  so before i went completely crazy, i decided that something had to give.

hourly rounding?  not going to kill myself over that.  CHF teaching on people who have 23908457 folders at their house?  nope.  i started to delegate more tasks, because that's why our techs are there.  and as bad as it sounds, i started to help my coworkers less, because they don't need me hovering over them all the time.  i am not lab and dietary and PT and pharmacy and social work.  i started to worry less about everybody else's jobs and think more about my little piece of the pie.

i'm a micromanager and i'm particular and i like things to be tidy and perfect.  but that's not realistic, and i've finally realized that i can't kill myself over those things anymore.  i'm getting better at prioritizing, and taking time to sit down and chart, and also at not giving everyone everything that they want right this minute.

it makes me happier, and it makes me feel like i'm doing a better job.

and then there are the days that i just say screw it and decide to do the things that people really need, efficiency be damned!!  the last shift that i worked i gave 2 people afternoon baths, because it really needed to happen.  then i wheeled my GSW to the chest over to postpartum to meet his twin sons for the first time.  and as i stood over there for a half hour, i probably should have been initialing some rounding logs or filling out some duplicate paperwork somewhere, but i really didn't care.  because i got to watch the patient hold his babies for the first time and just stare at them.  it was a rare and magical glimpse of what nursing should be and what i thought i signed up for, and it was worth it.

in the past seven years i've learned a lot about caring for other people.  its taken me a long time to realize that i need to be just as focused on taking care of myself.