I very rarely talk about work, even though it's a huge part of my life and says so much about me. I work twelve hours a day Monday through Thursday and nine hours on Friday. I'm on call for Saturdays. Although I was hired to work with HIV/AIDS patients during the evening shift, I was picked up a little over a year ago to work Pedi during the day. If only I could turn back time..

In the past year and a half I've worked at the clinic, I've watched things go from okay to the seventh level of Hell. We surpassed Bad and Worse months ago. We're short staffed, in the middle of our third hiring freeze in six months, and they're thinking of cutting more people. Pedi gets the short end of the stick quite a bit, since they float us all over the damn place when another unit's short, but no one will work for us, so we're screwed if someone's out. We can't even get the supplies, machines or hand sanitizers allotted to other units, but were expected to let them use our rooms and leave them looking like hurricanes have swept through.

We dread the monthly nursing meetings not because they're long and boring, but because they leave us more angry and frustrated then when we started. "Nurse advocates," my arse. Truthfully, none of this sounds horrible, nor is it unusual, since people across the world and in various professions deal with the same or similar crap. But it's just like anything else -- unless you deal with the situation, day in and day out, watching your crew become demoralized, stressed out and cynical because we've not only been proven time and again to be the red-headed stepchildren, we've been beaten for pointing it out, you just can't truly appreciate where I'm coming from.

Yesterday I was told that since we actually had a full staff and only one doctor, I could do my IA's and stock my rooms. This was vital because our Unit Manager has been out sick and will be going on a three week vacation starting next week. Less than an hour later I was on my way to another facility because of poor staff management and sheer idiocy. I was a special request from one of our doctors who'd been sent over there under the same Chicken Little alarm. Unfortunately, not knowing a doctor was coming in to relieve them, the nursing staff did what they thought was smart and canceled all the patients that would have been given to him. I spent the entire day doing absolutely nothing but thinking of all the work I could have gotten done.

So today I went in an hour and a half early to get all those things done. Dr. Weasel, who comes in early and stays late almost every day, actually frowned and chastised me when he saw I was there before him and working off the clock. As soon as I clocked in I was informed that we were short staffed and I had to work with my doctor alone. Fine. Dr. Weasel and I work well together. Oddly enough, when it's just the two of us, we always go to lunch on time, we leave before anyone else on the unit, and my work is always completed before I leave. It's a hectic haul, but it's manageable. In fact, I prefer it because, being the control freaks that we are, we have utter control over everything we do.

I'll deal with the screaming children and their Medicaid Mothers, the adults whining about how much longer it'll take and I had an appointment at xx:xx, and babysitting Dr. Weasel by myself. What I don't need is the dumb ass broad the next doctor over bitching and moaning all day about how she has no one to vital for her, she has to do that and disposition all her patients by herself, and how's she ever going to get anything done. This is reality; get over it. I was in the same boat and so was the nurse working with the WitchDoctor. Either shut the fuck up and shuffle along like a good little robot or join my tiny rebel cell and fight for change. Bleating like a damn sheep doesn't do anything but get you eaten.

Leading a revolt would be so much easier if I had decent followers. I have a tech who's been with the clinic since it literally opened and the Unit Manager, who needs to get her own damn soap box instead of stealing mine. We're two of the most outspoken, opinionated and demanding nurses in the clinic. That's probably why our unit gets treated like shit. Too bad I take that as a challenge.