The central supply lady has gotten herself a new job. A better one with less work and more pay. Today she had a going away party. Tuesday I was asked to cook something so I made two large batches of squash casserole. At 1p.m. everything was supposed to start. We were one person short on the hall today. Three were supposed to be working but there was only two of us. I didn't even get to take a break. I planned on just dipping out at 1 to get something to eat but that didn't happen. By the time I was free everything was gone. I didn't even get to taste the casserole I made but I was told it was tasty so w/e.
There was a new LPN on the floor. It was his first day on this particular hall and he wasn't aware that the guy from my March 09 post likes to cut the hell up when the medicine cart is on the floor. You can't take your eyes off of him if he can see the cart. He will run for it and he is fast as hell so it's hard to catch him if he gets ahead of you. I was running up and down the damn hall after him a couple of times today.
I got my paycheck today that I should have gotten Tuesday and it isn't shit. I hope my next check will be better, this is crazy. I only got 300 bucks for these two weeks. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I needed to pay at least 250 on the credit card I cancelled a while ago but that's not going to happen. I wonder why it feels like I've been working at this place forever. I need a desk job. This is killing me. I meant to put in an application for central supply clerk today but I didn't have the damn time. I forgot to get the application on my way out the door so I could fill it out when I got home. I don't think they will have picked anybody by tomorrow since they didn't today so I will try to get to work early (if my ride cooperates) and fill it out before I clock in. I would really love to get that job. I don't know though, everybody and their grandmother and great grandmothers want it and they have been there longer than me.
My internet was out when I got home. I don't know what's wrong with it. I can't access the router from the other computer. It seems like everything is still up downstairs but you never can tell with suck ass bellsouth. Nothing is as it appears with them. Could be because of the weather. I'm too tired to care at this point. Nothing to do really when I can't get my main computer online anyways. I just have to wait for my cat5 cable. I think I'm going to splurge and get a new external enclosure and hd. I seriously need it. For around 170ish I can get a coolmax with a 120gb maxtor drive so I think I will. I could wait until my brother gets here, he says he's coming on the 5th of April. He MIGHT cave and get it for me. I have hopes that he'll get me a car instead though. He says he wants to spend his money on him but he sees that transportation is my main problem. Getting the car needs to come first, learning how to drive it can come later. Hell, if I had a car I could do private duty. It pays more and probably won't be as hard as working in a nursing home.
I have given up all hope of getting this shitty network card to work. I don't even care anymore. I read all the FAQ about it and none of it helped. Now the damn thing refuses to install the codecs and is inactive on the lan monitor. Oh fucking well. I ordered a 100ft cat5 cable and will just run that shit upstairs. I had to resist the urge to break this god damn card in half. What a waste of 40 bucks. Hell, it was a waste of 100 considering I got the wireless router and network card and won't be needing either of them.
Those cheap bastards. Today I worked the hall BY MYSELF. The other girl who was supposed to be there called out. The day started with me and another girl for all of like 10 minutes and then they pulled her to the 600 hall. I NEVER want to have another day like that. It was crazy. A LOT of people weren't changed because I couldn't do that shit by myself. People getting bitchy about no smoke break. Who's going to let them out to smoke? When I'm the only one on the hall and I don't know where the hell the shower team folks who were supposed to be helping were. I noticed quite a few people who should have gotten showers didn't. There was a thunderstorm warning and a tornado advisory and people were set all out in the hall and shit when they didn't need to be. And here these folks are still bitching about why there isn't a smoke break. It's a god damn storm outside. I'm not going to sit out there in that, smoking is bad for you anyway. You need to skip a couple of smoke breaks every now and again damnit. I dunno how I made it through yesterday, but I did. I may not have done everything I should have done, but I did everything I could. The hall looked straight from a glance and nobody was TOO wet. I left it up to the second shift to change people. What more could I do? I hate that but that's what happens when you leave one person to do the work of 3.
What's the point of getting a wireless dsl router if you still have to connect it to the router the isp gives you. Crap ass linksys. To make matters worse, my wireless network card is not cooperating. The bitch just will not install. It looked like it installed and the lan monitor said it was active but it wasn't connecting to the network. Not to mention windows telling me the network cable was unplugged -- when there is NO cable. Windows said it was not malfunctioning but I guess it was lying to itself.
I don't know what the hell is wrong with this thing. I haven't been able to really be online for the past few days. It sucks. I think I'm going to buy a wireless router or something. My ethernet card could possibly be going bad though. I connected my router to a usb port and it seems to be stable for now. My comp is still a piece of crap though. I'm going to have to save and build myself another one. This thing is stressing me out lol.
I'm on a different hall today. It was the hall I began with and after Sunday, I'm damn glad to be there again. Only problem I had today was with a new guy that they have on the hall. He's pretty young but he's mentally retarded. His eating habbits leave a lot to be desired. The guy likes to throw up what he ate and rechew it and swallow it etc. It's quite disgusting. If I weren't starving to death I wouldn't have been able to eat my lunch.
I really didn't want to go take this test today. I woke up with a very bad feeling because its been so very long since I've done any math. I figured I'd pass everything but the algebra portion of it. I almost talked myself out of going. That would have been a fucked up decision. I left the house at 12:30 and just made it to the place by 12:50 -- which is the time the lady said we needed to show up at. I took all 4 parts of it in an hour and fourty-eight minutes. I got a 96 on the pre-algebra, I only needed 39. I got a 51 on the algebra, I only needed 39 on that as well -- not too proud about that low ass score but it was more than I needed so I can't complain. I got a 93 on reading, needed 74 and an 89 on writing and I needed a 60. I think I did pretty damn good. I'm very glad I actually took it and passed it in one shot.
My sister called me a little bit after I got back home. She needs 200 dollars. Her husband asked her for 1,200 for some shit and swore he'd pay her back. She should have known he was going to fuck her like that. She needs 500 dollars to pay for her car to be fixed and she will have 300 I guess. I will try to get the money to her when I get paid. My brother called me at around 3 in the morning and said I should ask his friend to give me the money he promised. I tried to get her on 3-way but my phone was acting funny and I ended up dropping him I guess but I talked to her and she said the bank still needed some info from him. I told her he may be calling her (he did, he called me back and I told him what she said etc).
Today has been pretty uneventful other than that. The maintenance people called saying they couldn't get in. They could have tried the front fucking door. I was told they came Friday but they are some liars. Both of my screen doors were unlocked Friday. The doors were locked but they have a key. I will see if they come by tomorrow because I'm off tomorrow and I will be here.
If I have too many more days like this, I'm going to quit my damn job. I get to work at 7a.m. and there are NO linens and shit on my cart. I mean there isn't a pad to be seen. There's one fitted sheet and a couple of flat sheets. I was only able to make up one bed. I got up two people out of the 3 on my side who needed to be up and the breakfast trays came out at like 7:30. So I start passing out trays for the entire hall BY MYSELF for about 15 or 20 minutes before the one other lady who is on the hall (pulling a double shift...she's really 3rd shift or some crap like that) decides to stop whatever she was doing to pass out trays. By the time I feed my last person it's 10a.m., nearly 10:30 and snacks have to be passed out and we passed out ice and refreshments for the residents of our hall. The one lady I didn't get up in the morning is still in bed. I changed her brief but I didn't put her on any clothes. She's in the fucking bed, why would she need to put on clothes but anyways. There is this one guy who doesn't speak english who likes to wander around and I change his brief throughout the day. Same with one other guy who just doesn't have any sense left really and one lady who just needs help putting the brief on but can do for herself more or less. I check on those people throughout the day to make sure they don't need their briefs changed.
11a.m. rolls around and its time for me to take my 30 minute break. There are still NO linens. I went to laundry and it was a fucking ghost town. I tried going to the hall across from mine and they didn't have shit either but I shouldn't be surprised, they are the last to get anything. So if my hall who is first for meals and shit and most of everything else doesn't get anything I know they don't have jack shit. I come off of break at 11:30 and still no linens. Keep in mind that without fresh linen I can't strip my beds so my side of the hall looks fucked up because some of them don't have sheets or they are unmade and have dirty linen on it. The other side of the hall looks fine. I'm not surprised. Do you want to know why it looked fine? Because that lady made up those beds with dirty god damn sheets. Didn't matter if that shit was clean or dirty. That side of the hall is the heavy side because you have a few of the patients who are bedridden. My side of the hall only has one person who can't get out of bed but I have to check on 4 or 5 people frequently to make sure they aren't wet etc. Noon rolls around and the linen guy is still nowhere to be found. Well, I'm sure he was somewhere in the facility, I just didn't know where and didn't care because I was busy. I still haven't changed the one guy who doesn't speak english and the lady who didn't want to get out of bed's clothes. Not getting the linens has thrown off my entire day because I'm not going to make up a bed with dirty linen like some people.
12:15 or so rolls around and the lunch trays are out. I start having a deja vu moment because I'm passing out trays for 15 or 20 minutes solo, not even giving a shit where the other lady is. I know that she will show up eventually from whatever the hell she was doing. Oh, let's not forget that during the day I was looking in on a couple of the residents on her side. I changed two or three of her folks. But anyways, after I finish feeding my last person it's like nearly 2p.m. and I only have an hour to go. Sometime during lunch we got clean linen so I start making up beds and what not. Usually around 2p.m. on a regular day my shit will already be fine so all I do is do my rounds to change briefs and see if anybody needs anything. You can imagine the rush I had on me because when it hits 3p.m. they want you to clock the fuck out. Second shift starts coming in 15 minutes or so before they need to clock in which is rare I've not seen many that early. I get the nurse telling me that the non-english speaking guy has to have his clothes changed because his family comes in the evening and they will be pissed and second shift will complain about it and we will all get written up in the morning plus I need to get the lady who wanted to stay in bed dressed and I had to make up one bed that was completely naked of sheets (where the fuck were this lady's sheets? there were NONE on them when I got there in the morning... not so much as a pillow case...for all I god damn knew there was no one in that bed anymore. I'm the new girl, give me a fucking break). So, in 15 minutes I have to write up my ADL chart for the people on my hall and write up the bowel and bladder book for the hall since all 3 people are on my side. I have to get this guy's clothes on and put the one woman on some clothes too and make up one of the beds. The non-english speaking guy is a fighter a lot of the time. I had to get help to get him back to his room. Then I had much fucking trouble getting his brief changed again and putting him on some more clothes. I like to take my time with these people, I had to really manhandle him to get his shit changed so I could go on to the next person because of the time I had left. I needed help but the other girl was in the back sitting on her ass laughing and talking to the second shift people. Her side of the hall has been fine since this morning...Who's going to notice that she didn't strip the beds anyway...But I finally get this guy changed into new clothes and I get the lady on some new clothes but I didn't make up that one bed all the way, I didn't have time to get a new bedspread. It was already five after three so I clocked the hell out and went home.
I can't work like that again. For all I know I might still get written up for that bed and I didn't dump the trash. But I'm going to tell those people that it wasn't my fault. How the hell do they expect people to work. It would have been ok if the person I was with wasn't a fucktard who only cared about her side and didn't want to lift a finger for anybody on my side. Even though she knows I was waiting on those linen all morning and didn't get started on that shit until an hour before I had to clock out. I didn't say a word while she was sitting in one of the rooms on her side watching television for most of the day and I saw her making a personal telephone call on the god damn lady's phone but hey, I should mind my own business and try to do my own thing I suppose.
Doesn't feel like a day off. I'm sick as all hell. I can't stop coughing and my ass is very angry today. I don't have any medication to take for it so I'll just have to hope it passes. I know that it won't, not quickly anyway. I haven't been sick with so much as a cold in a very long time. Now that I've got one (or whatever the hell this is) it will take me a couple of weeks to fully get over it. I haven't done anything all day but sleep. I haven't eaten much since I began working. I'm too damn tired to cook. One day just isn't enough to rest. They need to break people in slowly. I worked 7 days and only get this one day off. I could have had Saturday and Sunday off if I wanted it though, but I wanted to really learn the ropes. Silly me.
The lady who's been training me on this hall has given me my own assignment. We are taking seperate sides of the hall. She helped me when I needed it. I had a good time today. Its hard for me to turn the bedridden people but I'll get the hang of it. I was very tired when I got home. My feet were killing me. I've learned pretty much how to do the ADL book. Sometimes you have to do a guestimation of what people did that day. I don't really know the residents yet but if I'm on the hall long enough I will start to remember them so that I will be more confident when I'm filling out this thing.