couldn't have planned it better!

Today is Nurses Day, the beginning of Nurses Week. Every year Nurses Week starts on the 6th of May and ends on the 12th of May, Florence Nightingale's birthday. Today is my first official day as a Second Year nursing student. It's just coincindental that it fell on Nurses Day, but it feels very appropriate. Other than that, a follow-up with my FNP and a pedicure the day's been pretty uneventful. Exhaustion has caught up with me, and left me with little motivation to do much else today. I did weed through the basket we keep in our office where mail and other paperwork piles up. Most of the paper in it went straight into the recycle pile that will be taken to the local high school to support their recycling efforts.

The drippy, drizzly, grayness of the outside world left little to be desired other than curling up on the couch catching up on TV shows we DVRed. A nap soon followed. We were supposed to have LB's double header this afternoon, but once again Mother Nature thwarted the game schedule. Next week we'll have so many baseball games to go to, to play catch up, that we'll be at some field, somewhere nearly every afternoon/evening. For the love of the game....and the family ball player...

I did witness another very weird occurence today as I was leaving the town I live in to take the highway north. I followed a pick-up truck pulling a trailer, and in front of him was a van/truck kind of thing that was piled high with all sorts of crap. Seriously, the crap was piled on the roof of the vehicle. Along with the crap was a dog kennel. It wasn't empty. Inside a frantic German Shepherd twisted and turned, probably in fear of plummeting to serious injury, if not death.

We all ended up at a stop sign and waited for a clump of traffic to pass. Wouldn't you know a police officer rolls up behind me. We're sitting there waiting and the car that was in front of the van/truck thing pulled out and entered traffic, leaving us to sit and wait. Then the guy in the van/truck thing, still sitting where he was puts it into park, gets out and walks back to talk to the guy pulling the trailer, in front of me. Um, hello. We have things to do here!!! He gets back in and it's about that same time I think to take a picture of the horrifying spectacle of the dog, in the kennel, on the roof of the van/truck thing. Once he got going he was out of there, and my small window of opportunity sped by quicker than the flash of a camera. Bummer.

We all get to pull out by this time though. I pull out using my turn signal into the close lane, as I'm supposed to, especially when a police officer is tailing you. I signal and get into the left lane. Mr. Policeman speeds by me and turns onto the same road to follow the weirdos driving the van/truck thing, and the truck pulling the trailer. If I wasn't pressed for time I probably would have followed to see if he was in fact going after them. Alas, I had to get to town and sit for my pedi, which actually made me a wee bit late for my appointment. Thank goodness for 15 minutes of free time before being declared late! As it was I had to have the girl give me the speedy version of a pedicure.

of all the weird things

Yesterday I had my second nurse externship interview. Let's do a brief dissection of the two interviews and prospective employers, shall we?






First Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~70 bed facility
~opportunities in ED, family birthing, ICU, stepdown, med/surg
~40 minute interview with 6 nurses including department directors, guy from HR, and education specialist
~asked questions about teamwork, problems/challenges and how they were handled,workload, etc. In other words they asked several regular interview questions.
~interview held in a ground floor, service hallway conference room

I walked out of the interview in good spirits, but unsure of how I actually did. I answered the questions authentically. By this I mean that I gave examples from my experiences, rather than robotic, "best" answers. I really hadn't taken the time to come up with manufactured answers, so they got me. good, bad, indifferent...

Second Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~over 80 beds, Planetree Facility
~opportunities in ICU, med/surg, and a unit that is primarily telemetry (best way to describe)
~20-25 minute interview with 3 nursing directors
~they asked siilar questions
~interview held upstairs in a unit conference room

Yet, I walked away from the interview pretty unsure of the chances of me getting the position. This wasn't because of the interview itself. It's because of a request that was made by the HR person beforehand. After escorting me upstairs, she'd stepped into the conference room and then came out after briefly speaking with the directors about the previous applicant. She comes up to me, "Do me a favor. They're going to ask you a question about group projects, setting up a scenario where one of the people in the group didn't pull their weight. They are going to want to know how you would or did handle that situation. I want you to have been that person. I want you to say, 'Oh that was me. I was the slacker. I totally dropped the ball...' Only do this if you think you can. Do you think you can?"

WTF???

I politely told her I didn't think I could pull it off. I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Being the slacker in that situation is not in my nature, and if I wanted to become Julia Roberts I would have a long time ago!

In her defense...since that is in my nature-to give the benefit of the doubt...I can say this goes with this woman's personality. She seems like a very gregarious, slightly eccentric individual, who would love to play jokes on others. I can get in there with the best of them, I assure you. But during a job interview? Where you don't know any of the people sitting there and how they'll react to such a display?

uh, uh no way...not me, no how...no can do!

One of my classmates, with whom I've become friends, was interviewing next and walked up as I was walking out. The HR person goes into the conference room in between the interviews, so while she did that I chit-chatted with my friend. Out comes the HR person and she makes the same request of my friend. My friend has a "WTF?" look on her face, but she was more willing to give it the ole college try. She said she'd do her best to do it, but didn't want to promise anything.

It had already been a troublesome morning as I'd watched the DVRed ER finale....bawling throughout (nope never got around to studying yesterday morning). After the show I intended to study for a bit, but by this time a migraine had set in. I decided to take the time to take my meds and lie down for a bit, hoping to relieve the pain from my being. The phone interupted my solace after about 20 minutes and never gave up. Between Big B and LB the phone rang about 5 times.

The boys had a half-day of school for exams yesterday, and LB had stayed after for a club activity. He was calling because he needed a ride home. By this time it was time to get ready for the interview, with about an hour to spare before I wanted to leave. I commenced to yelling at them ("them" because both Big B and LB called concerning this after I had deferred LB to his father...) over the phone. Sorry, not the most effective way to handle things, but I was in pain, the nerves were wracking up, and time was a tickin'!

And you want me to come get you???

Evidently I was his only option as Dear Ol' Dad was still up north, about an hour away. Now I had to rush through getting ready so I could go pick him up, and head to the interview. Luckily it's ok to leave a 16 year old out in the car. Can you imagine me walking into the hospital with my kid, and there stands the HR rep?

Who knows? She might have flirted with him!