The Crier

Sort of like The Thinker, but with less nobility. It's like when I was a new parent, all self-critical and self-depreciating. Only, now it's happening in the workplace and I'm almost 40 years old. Hooray!

Work has been hard lately. And not hard in the way all-work-is-hard kind of way. Hard in that soul-sucking kind of way that leads to tears and self doubt. Lots of tears. Tears that flow in shower or into whatever dinner I happen to be making. Tears that flow freely upon the iPhone.

And there's no better time for all these feeling to reach their peak than during the annual review.

When my very sweet boss says to me, "So, can you believe it! You've been a nurse for a year!" and I look at her and begin openly weeping, one can conclude that the meeting isn't off to a great start.

About halfway through, she manages to tell me that crying is OK. I remind her that crying in the car is maybe OK. Or in a locked bathroom. It is no way OK to sob during the annual review.

Being a new nurse is hard. And it's extra hard when you are scheduled 5 night a week and when you have to attend quarterly meetings and when the day nurses take every opportunity to tell you how shitty a person you are. And sleeping 4 hours in a 40 hour stretch can take its toll.

Now I'm forced to contemplate changing jobs. This sucks because I finally know where all the rooms are and where they keep the emesis basins (puke tubs). But while emailing a former classmate, I learned that not ALL day nurses are bitches! What!!!

For now, I have finally come to the conclusion that it isn't all me. That I'm not a horrible nurse (my boss even said this as I cried upon the papers that state clearly I'm doing a great job) and that sometimes, you have to re-evaluate your first choices because they're not all going to be winners.