From March 23, 2009: Assignment Woes

I will always volunteer to take a day off. Or take a half-shift. I'm at the point in my life where I enjoy the free time substantially more than I need the money. All the other nurses marvel at my nonchalance about income. I'm sure someday when I have a family and a home to pay for and no longer live at my parents' I'll care. But for now, I'm livin' life :)

So I show up to work as usual, and they're working on putting the assignments together. The Charge tells one of the nurses, C, that she will give me her patients, and then go "on committee" to work on her computer training modules. C says "To work on the computer for only 4 hours doesn't make sense. I am so slow I won't get anything done. I want to keep my patients."

Of course, I chime in "Wait, if C won't give me her patients, then you don't really need me here, right? Because if she stays till 1900 then one of the 1900-0700 nurses will take over her patient load. Can I just go home?"

The charge looks over the assignment sheet and says "Sure, have a good day." So, happy as a clam, I go back to the break room, grab my stuff, and get the heck outta dodge.

I get to my car, I head on down the road, make plans to go hang out with some friends and am [this close] to getting to my friend's house. Sitting in traffic on the freeway, one exit away and my bluetooth thingy starts ringing at me. I answer, assuming it's my friend. It's not. It's work.

Apparently the Charge thought another girl was scheduled to work that day, but she wasn't. I was needed after all. It's 1518 at this point, and I am still very much stuck in traffic. I take the next exit and dipsydoodle through side streets to get back to the other freeway that gets me to work faster. I don't actually get to work till 1600. The Charge gives me report and I start hauling ass to get all my ducks in a row so I can start actual patient care.

Everyone asks why I'm back. Everyone says "Why the hell did you answer your phone? Never answer a work call once you've left." They have little sympathy for the fact that my phone was in my pocket and I was driving and didn't look at the caller ID.

I don't know how I did it, but I managed to actually get *everything* done my shift and get off on time. I'm gonna give credit to my amazing Resources. They make life so much better on the unit.

I guess I've learned to screen my calls better...