DAJ and I have been chatting prior to her leaving on vacation. She's got worries about the NCCU, and so do I. She's the best formal, businessy-type letter-writer I've ever met, and I'm good at editing, so we're going to work together--after she gets back--on a formal letter of complaint about what's been going on. Meanwhile, all of us are going to keep on filling out incident reports and yelling and pointing out problems and inadequacies, and I'm going to ask for a meeting with the person who's the head of education for the chemotherapy nurses. I'm going to throw myself on her mercy and ask her if she thinks it's a good idea that we, the NCCU nurses, take over chemo administration after our chemo unit moves across the street.
I'm also going to chat with the director of the unit.
But, after that, then what?
Here's the deal: we're moving the unit sometime later this year into a designated space. Rather than carving out space in underused rooms with borrowed beds and semi-working monitors and pumps, we're going to have an actual six-bed unit, with *stuff* that works. I'm holding out hard for central monitoring (the patients could be monitored remotely in the surgical CCU, but I don't like that idea for a number of reasons) and in-room recording monitors. Frankly, not having those two things would be a dealbreaker for me.
I'm also holding out (dealbreaker again) for actual written policies as concern staffing and duties, not a make-it-up-as-we-go approach, which is what we've got. The Big Boss of the Block told me a few weeks ago that the reason we don't have formal policies yet, after ten months of being open, is that we don't *officially* open for business until this coming fall.
Which makes me wonder what we've been doing since September.
All of this is making me very thoughtful.
The Big Boss is a bully and a terror. I've known this since I started working under him five years ago, and he and I have gone head-to-head on a number of issues ranging from his harassment of other nurses to the way he treats people on committees. He doesn't like me; I don't like him. We can work together, just barely, provided our interests don't conflict too much. We both realize this.
I'm not sure I can outlast him. He's older than me, and much fatter, and in rather poor health. Unfortunately, given that he's a lump of Concentrated Evil, he's likely to last in his current position for a very long time. Evil don't die easy.
Should I leave now? Should I wait, since this unit has become my baby, and leave after we transition to a workable space? (Just the space we were given is nearly impossible, given how it's laid out. I mean, really--you guys wouldn't believe it if I told you.) Should I stick it out, hope to outlast the Big Boss, and continue to fight the good fight?
I don't think I can stick it out. I'm convinced that part of the reason I got cancer was the amount of stress I was under during the year before I was diagnosed. I don't want a second malignancy.
At the same time, how easy would it be for me to get another job within Giganto Research & Education, Inc, parent company of Sunnydale, with Big Boss still in the picture? Leaving the GREI fold isn't workable right now for a number of reasons I don't want to go into.
Will an infusion clinic hire a nurse they have to train? Is there a way I can make myself more or less bulletproof as regards Big Boss? If I'm not naturally very diplomatic, how do I learn those skills, and will they actually do me any good? Should I try to get another job here in the state, or just up and move to Missoula? Should I stick it out for a year while DAJ finishes her degree, then move with her to Seattle so we can split rent?
I tossed and turned last night and had to do deep meditative breathing to keep from getting so angry I couldn't sleep. I simply am at a loss.
I think I'll go make a coffee cake.