Tales of Plan B: Over Committed

Part One is here where our writer authorizes “Operation Survive The Storm”.

I’m waist deep in email alerts for nursing jobs available. The irony is I’ve been writing for a year how real estate has been completely changed because of the Internet, and how newspaper advertising is basically worthless. Yet I’m actually taken by surprise at how much looking for a job has changed since I last looked for one. Thankfully my wife explains it all to me in three simple words…

I’ve got an online resume set up on Pongo Resume and spend a half day sifting through Career Builder .com. Then just fax my resume through Pongo Resume to whoever is the contact person. No newspaper, all sitting comfy in the living room in front of the computer. This might just disintermediate the unemployed.

I send ten resumes out for starters and over the next 2–3 days I get about 5 return calls. I very much like the first one that calls back as it’s the Director of Nurses (DNS) herself rather than an HR flunky. We set an interview time for a couple days later.

Then the office top producer calls me because she’s heading out on vacation. I had agreed a month earlier to cover her email, now the day before she’s leaving she’s begging me to also cover all the showing feedback follow up. I’ve done this before, and it’s hunting down buyer agents, and then smoozing with the sellers to calm them down or whatever. This seems to take 30–40 minutes a day to actually do, but it’s phone tag spread out over 4–5 hours sometimes.

I’m NOT keen on doing it, I don’t like being cornered into this, but grrrrr I’ll do it.

Nursing interview rolls around, I like the DNS a lot, she likes me (I am so adorable!) the place seems okay. Hiring seems 50/50 though as I’ve done nothing but group home work as a nurse and been out of the nursing loop for over a year, and this is Sub-Acute and Long Term Care. Also I said, um… some very honest things… before I quit my last nursing job and now the people I said them about will get sent the interview reference forms.

Fluffy Bunnies, why was I honest. That’s a stupid policy.

Anyway, I go out in faith and buy new scrubs, shiny white sneakers and locate my drug book. I don’t read it, just locate it. Uh oh…. CPR card expired too… need a course and pronto. FYI to American Heart Association your websites are all horrible to find CPR course information from national to every local branch. Just start over kktx.

Oh got one – Bristol Hospital – ring ring – next Saturday. Awesome. Phew.

Ring ring, I get the job at 16 hours a week (they always seem to start like that, foot in the door etc) and whatever per diem that pops open. I need to come in and orientate etc etc, Monday morning. Yay! I orientate Monday and get a whole weeks worth of shifts assigned to me. Excitedly I say yes, it’s money, which is another way of saying “it’s MUN-eee”.

I drive back home with a full calendar. Though with a sickening feeling that I’m also covering for the top producer. And the snow. The snow is coming. The evening news is ripe with the Mid-West getting reamed by snow and ice. That storm is coming to Connecticut. And a second storm is following that – an ice storm to boot.

I’ve got young kids, a working wife (she’s great) a full day CPR class, two harsh snow storms, 40 hours of nursing plus maybe getting locked in for who knows how long and I’m pretending to be the office top producer all happening at once. Something has to give because there ain’t no way I can do all this.

So I give up. I tickle and play fight the kids for ages. Then take a bath.

Like magic the CPR class slips in between the two snow storms. I do have a horrible four hour commute home one day, but no lock-ins. The kids get a snow day on my wife’s work from home day. The ice arrives on the one day this week I’m not working at the Health Center. And as to covering for the top producer, during the two weeks I covered…

…she hasn’t had a single showing.