Work Hangover Wednesday: Duck!

I really do have 5 days off now and I need it. Iris had her duck fixed, dad stuffed the guts back into it and sewed it up in a brief surgical procedure yesterday.

I am looking forward to catching up on a little sleep and feeling better so I can run, run, run. I want to get another good week of training in.

So far today I took the girls for a walk but I'm brain fogged. I might need a nap before the run happens. It's supposed to get cold and snow this week, so this might be my last chance to get all hot and sweaty and wear shorts and a tank top.

When I got home from work last night Iris was giving me this look, we call it the curl lip. She's trying to figure out what's wrong with mom.

It's the Australian Shepherd or Buffalo curl lip, and no one does it quite like an Australian Shepherd. It takes a special talent to look like that. It's a look of perplexed concern, with a hint of amusement.

If she could talk, she would be saying, "What is it with you?"

She finally decided I needed a hug. She's the most perceptive about my feelings, more than her dad or her sister.

I had the absolute nightmare day from hell at work on Tuesday, I am sure I was tired, mostly an accumulation of working a lot of extra shifts last month but also a lot on my mind. It was one of those days where no matter what you do, nothing goes smoothly. I couldn't hit a vein to save my life, for one thing, and then every order for every patient all day required at least one extra phone call to the doctor for one reason or another.

It takes a lot of extra paperwork and steps whenever we find an order that needs to be changed, fixed, or clarified. Like they say, nurses are the only thing that prevent doctors from killing you.

And then I had my RPB moment. Everyone has a coworker or someone they have to deal with at work who is difficult, and my workplace is no exception. We have our resident drama queen, I'll just call her DQ, who needs all eyes focused on her, and immediately, no matter how insignificant the issue is, it demands your full attention at that moment, regardless of what else you are doing. Drop everything, everyone, I can't find an alcohol swab! Really, it's that bad.

DQ has been getting under my skin for a while, and does this to a lot of people. She's miss know it all and she talks condescendingly to people all the time. She's also pushy and unaware of how rude she is, but she's not doing it to be intentionally mean. She's just socially clueless, lacking the social skills to understand why she gets under other people's skin. Most of the time I'm able to let it run off me, like a duck.

But lately I haven't been quite so tolerant of other people's bullshit. My bullshit-o-meter is extra sensitive. And DQ has been upset lately because there are lots of changes happening at work that are out of her control and she needs to feel like she's in control.

By late afternoon I finally had it with DQ's latest little outburst while I was busy writing an order I had just taken from a doctor. It's important to get details right on these things, you don't want to write down the wrong drug dose or some other mistake that could hurt a patient, you need to pay attention to what you're doing. I was sitting there at the computer, only a few feet away from the bed where my patient was.

Obviously DQ doesn't get the nuances, and when I told her I was busy and couldn't focus on that issue at the moment, she got all huffy with me, "Well, EXCUSE ME for even ASKING!" Right in front of my patient.

I finished what I was doing and my first impulse was to talk to her right then and there. But unlike DQ, I don't discuss such matters directly in front of patients. I prefer to step aside somewhere, where it can't be heard by the patient.

So I went downstairs and got my patient's blood from the blood bank, thinking I might cool off a bit, and once I got the transfusion started I found DQ and asked her to talk in the back with me. I was still furious but decided to get it done and be brief. So I let her have it in as civil and brief a way as I could muster.

I told her point blank that just because she thinks something is a priority at the moment, that doesn't mean it needs to be a priority for everyone else at that moment. I was furious though, and I know my tone and my face showed it. I had OH, SO MUCH more to say that I didn't say.

Anyway once I said my piece I was still furious and I walked away to breathe. DQ went home for the day soon after that, and once she left, one of my coworkers said to me, "I think you said what we've all been wanting to say to her."

That sort of drives me crazy. I believe in being civil, but I also think things sometimes need to be said. Especially to children who are being unruly and need some adult guidance.

Even if they are old enough to be grandparents.

End of Rant. QUACK!