Hell to pay????

I think we all might be in trouble at work. Friday and Monday our Unit Manager (charge nurse+) and another nurse that we don't actually know what she does (her title is supervisor of the aides or something) were gone. Oh and the director was gone Friday too. Crap to me that I was on call and the charge for the day. It was a bad day. The nurse in charge of the aides made a very poor decision to leave someone who has been here for like a month on her own to take the only aide with experience to a meeting. Not good. Not good at all. We didn't even have any extra nurses to help her until afternoon. We are lucky she came back!

Anyway, that just has me pissed what I am worried about is the boss. We have meetings every Monday morning to help educate us staff. That is good, most of the time. Our presentation was very short this week so we sat and talked because we could. All the people you have to worry about what you say were gone. People could speak freely about how stressful our charge makes everything and how in her attempts to make things go well, we are actually getting screwed. We also all realized that we don't know what this other nurse actually does all day everyday and she stays for hours and hours of overtime when we are in a time of very tight money. We all talked about talking to our new boss and our fear for retaliation from our charge. It is horrible to live in fear of what awful things the person in power over you will do to you. It is awful. There are some newer people that don't know the hell you pay and don't understand why us old timers don't demand change. They know how she is, they just have never experienced months or years of torture.

I was in a room all day until I left early because of a call from daycare that Jake had a temp of 103. He did still when I got home too (Mike went to get him). Poor boy. Anyway, I understand that after our morning meeting that many people went to the boss's office and were in there for hours. Some went as individuals and some went as groups. I know the boss was aware of our fears of the charge nurse, but I don't think any of us ever talked to her before. I don't know what we would. I don't know what we can do. Someone has to be in charge. She also is doing a ton of stuff that she didn't do before we got this boss. When someone else is in charge we just run the desk. We don't do all her "other" stuff. Well, when she is gone for any length of time, it has always been the nurse that we now don't know what she does that would be in charge day after day. Well, in the past, she might have been a good candidate for the job, but now she does not have the respect of the staff. Not at all.

I am very afraid the can of worms we thought we were opening was a actually a bottomless snake pit! I didn't say anything, but I will stand behind my coworkers that did because whatever they said is true. And as bad as moral was for awhile, we have all realized it is worse now. We are looking at the holiday schedule and there is no one to work. It is bad. We won't have many late shifts so people can go home at a decent time. The end of the year is always when we do the most surgeries. People have met their deductibles and want to get it done and don't care what time or day of the week. Doctors are grateful for the business and will work us to death. Each doctor only sees their own needs or how some other doctor is standing in the way of their needs. They don't see or care if they are burning out all the staff by keeping four or five rooms going until seven, eight, nine at night. We just aren't staffed for that. I am scared. We have already had some huge fights at my house over our work schedule. With impending cuts with the railroad, I really have to keep my job! It is just a big problem right now. I'm scared, but my family is more important than my job. However, we do have to eat and have a place to live.