This is the thing.

This is the thing about school nursing: the kids do not care about the personnel drama of your organization. The secretaries, for the most part, don't know about the personnel drama of the nursing staff. And yet, that personnel drama is what will make or break the job. I love some of the school sites I've been at over the years; they are a joy to go to. Others...not so much. But in the case of school nursing, it's not just whether or not the school site is a pleasant place to be, it's the leadership and camaraderie, or lack thereof, of the nursing staff. Even if I don't see them, or maybe because I don't see them, the worst part of my job is the "team" I work with.

So, it's important I separate the kids and other staff I work with from the other...people...I work with, the ones that are the reason I am leaving. I will trudge to work tomorrow and put on a smile, leaving it out from my daily conversation that the LVN that was supposed to "support" me with my impossible caseload this year has been more work than she's been worth. Critical thinking isn't one of her high points - I will never understand the medication error she made early on* - but attendance hasn't been either. Perhaps I am the only one who grew up thinking you're supposed to go to work, school, whatever, unless there's an emergency, because she's been out approximately once a week for the last few months and seems to think that's the norm. But I am even less impressed when she sends me an email with a "P.S. Also I am taking a sick day tomorrow." Not a question to ask if she should find someone to cover her assigned diabetics or if I will, just, this is what is happening.

These situations create a cloud of frustration for me that I need to check at the door, because not one of my secretaries or students will understand, or should have to try to understand, this kind of thing. <Sigh.> I really do like what I do, just not who I do it with (or who I don't do it with). This is why I only have 16 work days left with this district.

*The infamous med error: This LVN administered an inhaler to the wrong student...and not just any incorrect student, but a student that didn't even use an inhaler. Apparently she was expecting another student - one in the special day class, that isn't easily mistaken for another general education student, mind you - and gave this other kid who wasn't having trouble breathing an inhaler. He was in there because he "didn't feel well" and when the school nurse gives you an inhaler, I guess you're going to take it, right? This one still boggles my mind.