Nurse Follies: A Culture of Caring Nurses

I had to go to a mandatory thingie this evening. I don't like driving in for meetings and whatnot because A. the parking sucks and B. I just don't like meetings. However, this was mandatory, worth one whole CEU. I opted to go in the evening because I knew my chances at finding a parking spot were more promising.

I go to the auditorium, and for two hours, I get to hear about how nurses are supposed to be caring and whatnot. I don't really get into the preachy stuff about my personal reasons for being a nurse, well, because it's personal. So, I simply say I became a nurse to support my cruise habit. I made it through the inservice without incident. Considering I haven't been feeling well since Sunday, "without incident" means not barfing on the nurse sitting in front of me. It did take some effort on my part, though. They played some audio of a lady talking about lifeforces and some other blather. I just concentrated on the piano music, and the scrambled eggs that wanted an encore appearance.

For two hours, it really wasn't as horrible as some other nurses told me. In fact, I was expecting something entirely different. Something I had gone through with a previous employer. Something that still makes me shudder when I think about it.

The last Culture Inservice thingie I went to, was a two-day event. I was told I would get to take a nap, and I would need to bring my own pillow. Hey, sounded like a great inservice to me! Wrong! It was orchestrated by some new-age shiester. The pillow? Well, at one point we were told to lay on the ground with our pillow. They turned off the lights. I immediately close my eyes to get a jump on my after-lunch nap. Suddenly, I feel hands on me. What? Someone tossed a sheet over me and was "tucking me in". I guess the idea was for us to feel how good it was to be tucked in, and maybe we should tuck our patients in at night.

Another activity involved half the group standing in a big circle, the other half in a smaller inside circle, facing everyone else. New-Age Shiester plays this sappy music as we are to move from one person to the next after 2 minutes, not saying anything, just holding their hands and looking at them. For some unknown reason (I personally think there was subliminal messages in the music), lots of people cried. Grown people, sobbing and hugging each other...with no reason. I was confounded! I'd stand across from Sobbing Sally, and I would just pat her on the arm. In one instance, I had to stand across from this ridiculously hot guy, who was notoriously gay, and hold his hands while we just stared at each other.

He cried, and all I could think was, "What a waste."

There were lots of other likewise activities with this Culture of Caring thing, but my mind has blocked them from being remembered because they were too traumatic. I do remember, though, going back to work, no more different than what I was before I took the class, which was also mandatory. I do know that Gay-boy seemed to avoid me for a while.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will feel better. Hopefully, I can get some laundry done because I have a mutant laundry pile in my bedroom. It's hard to be relaxed in my Tantric/Asian bedroom when there is a pile of dirty scrubs and underwear right there on the shag area rug.

It also makes yoga damn near impossible.