It’s 5am and I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to get back into good sleeping habits for awhile now and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve been going through a lot of turmoil emotionally lately but I’m feeling better. I’m seeing the big picture of the events of my life in the last 6 months and I’m looking forward to the future. Our lives change like the seasons; we go through periods of growth and change and periods of just straight crap that dumps on your life and you have no idea why or how it could have happened that way and you think to yourself what the hell did I do to do deserve this? Then I realized that I did bring some of it on myself by the choices that I made and why oh why was I so stupid and so foolish to squander something that was the best thing to ever happen to me at that point in my life? And why oh why did I fall in love with a guy who is so bad for me? Because, well, how I can I learn if I don’t make mistakes right?

Right whatever the point is is that I hope today is the day that I find out some good new on the job I recently applied for. After my last job I thought I’d never say this but I am really excited to start working again! At the very least I need some structure back in my life. I’m ready to start fresh with a new attitude and self-confidence. I was so intimidated by EVERYTHING at my last job, which was my first “real” job in a professional, not mention healthcare, setting. I was Health Unit Coordinator on a busy hospital unit. (Health Unit Coordinator is a fancy way of saying medical secretary.) Prior to starting my last job, I had just completely ruined my life from depression and drinking and had to move out of my hometown into a tiny apartment with my grandma because I had nowhere else to go. I saw a commercial for the HUC program at a college and decided to enroll so I could at the very least get a decent job and learn how to support myself again.

It was the best decision I’ve ever made. I got the training I needed and landed a great job with the University of Minnesota Medical Center. It was my first real job and I learned a lot, even though I hated it the whole time I was there. From day one I knew I didn’t fit in and some of the nurses I worked with sure let me know I didn’t belong. It doesn’t help that I initially come of as a bit of a bitch to most people who don’t know because I’m really shy sometimes but multiply that with a group of stuck-up, cliquey nurses and that equals me coming home crying almost every night for the first 6 months I worked there. Eventually people got to know the real me and they realized, hey, she is pretty smart and does ok. But then I started to get really burnt out working there fulltime and having basically no life outside of work because I was so exhausted from the stress that I developed a pretty bad attitude and eventually I got fired.

But all in all I have to say it was a good learning experience. I learned a lot about myself and I think I may have even grown up a little. I learned how to conduct myself professionally, developed good telephone etiquette and a very professional sounding telephone voice (Doesn’t even sound like me! Sounds like a very mature woman to be taken seriously. Booya!), was able to put my problem-solving, organizational, and multi-tasking skills to good use and learned how to ask for help when I need it and employ the assistance of others at the right time (and oh baby! on a busy hospital setting that takes finesse!). But the most important lesson I learned was how to keep my mouth shut!

In healthcare there is a saying that nurses eat their own. Most of my friends are nurses and I love ‘em to death, nurses are great people, but man, they are also the most difficult group of people I have ever worked with. To say that nurses are bitchy does not begin to describe the everyday drama that takes place at the nurses station and in the med rooms and breakroom. Nurses can not only be very bitchy, but also very two-faced. They’re the worst shit-talkers ever. They bitch and complain about everything and everyone and if there isn’t something to whine about, they will find something! The worst part is that they slam not only their coworkers behind each other backs but also their patients, and to me to have sat there day in and day out and listened to some of things they say, that is downright cruel. Sure, everyone has a bad day now and then and needs to vent but DAAAAMN!

So I learned to be friendly, but not too friendly. I learned to keep everything about myself on a need to know basis because if they can, at some point, they will use whatever they’ve got on you against you. When I started at the hospital everyone asked me if I was going to school or planning to go to school for nursing and when I said no, it was like they turned up their noses at me and walked away. I’m sorry but I don’t want to someday turn into YOU. Trust me, I thought long and hard about it; the science of healthcare and the cool stuff nurses get to do is very interesting and exciting to me but the drama is just too overwhelming. I would die. I would literally die. Which is another thing I learned, I learned that I want to go into social work. I think I am best suited to help people in that way.

So with my next job I feel much more secure and self-confident in my skills and abilities now that I know what is expected of me and how to to behave. I want this job sooo bad and I know I would be great at it! I might even like it! I didn’t do well under the stress and pressure of the hospital unit- I just don’t have the patience for needy patients and the tolerance of bitchy nurse’s attitudes. I’m sure the clinic has a set of different challenges all its own but honestly I think I would do really well there. The position is called Scheduling Secretary so my main job responsbilites would be the receptionist role and on the phone and computer and chart maintenance. No answering patient call lights THANK GOD! Yes there will be nurses there and I’m sure the clinic gets very busy and hectic at times, but hey, I’ve been to hell and back so I’m pretty sure I can handle anything they throw at me!

Right around the time that I got fired from my last job I was just getting over the burnout and things were starting to look up. I had started a second job in the hospital and was going to be doubling my monthly income. I truly had it made. I thought this year was going to be my year and that all my hard work was going to pay off and I was finally going to get ahead financially and be able to move onto the next step of my life: college. But as soon as it came, it was snatched away. So I’m back at square one and I have no one to blame but myself. At least this time around I’m a stronger person because of what I went through and now I know what I want and what I deserve out of life.