Part I

I'm working summer school this week, which means I get paid per diem to work in a ghost town. I was driving home yesterday and thought to myself, just 48 hours of this district left to go - hallelujah. As a work environment, it has headed in a quick downward spiral over the last two years. The lack of entries here are evidence of this; instead of being able to enjoy my job and the people in it, I've been driven increasingly crazy just trying to stay afloat in it.



So, my thoughts on my drive home yesterday were that I will have worked for five years for a supervisor who literally doesn't know my name. Seriously. I sent him an email voicing my concerns for student safety given my unreasonable caseload earlier this year, and he had to call our lead nurse and ask "which one" I am. Then, another nurse who happened to be at his office when he received my resignation letter, told me that he said of my resignation, "another one bites the dust." I've not sure what I expected, a simple "thank you" would have been nice, but after five years of service - and I know I am one of the only nurses who he's never received complaints about - I did not receive even a small acknowledgment. C'est la vie.

In the credential program I am in, I have met a couple of my future co-workers I will be working with in my new district in August. One of them mentioned that they like to go in before the school year starts to prepare for the school year and earn some comp time. She continued on to say that she was going to be working on care plans for one of the nurses that was retiring, so whoever filled her position would be ready to go. Compare that to the situation I was in on Tuesday morning, scrambling to make care plans for students that should have had them all year long, that our lead nurse never did. Yes. Our lead nurse failed to make care plans, one of the key things we do so as to educate staff and substitutes regarding health needs. And, being the lead summer school nurse this week, I had the pleasure of doing the work that she should have done nine months ago.

I've been asked several times if I might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, and the answer is, I don't know. It might be similar, but I'll at least have a monthly consolation prize in the form of a higher paycheck. The environment may not be better than this one, but I can hardly imagine it will be worse. I have never felt so stranded in a work environment as I have in this one.

To be continued...