Chirrup

About a year* ago, I nearly lost my job. The problem was the other people, but the solution was entirely in my own hands. I got to the work counselor (for those in the states - EAP is an amazing benefit, use it if you need it.) She was all about how to solve the problems, change my behavior, since I was the only one who could, and the only person I had any control over was me. I turned it around, completely, with a huge, sea-change effort. Just by actively choosing how I acted, not allowing the moods of the handful of drama queens affect me.

Yesterday, I got to prove myself. One of the worst of them, who'd left precipitously for a "better" job has been re-hired. I was to scrub in her room, for the surgeon who'd also put his oar in during the whole mess. Two cases I am not used to doing, and have not scrubbed for him in over a year, and never scrubbed for him much before that - only circulated. Very different knowledge set. I objected the evening before, feeling set to fail, and P, the nurse coming in to cover lunches offered to come in early to scrub those two. She had to finesse the politics and just treat it as a training session for me, but she wound up being witness to the circulating nurse's bullying of me. And after P bucked me up, before the day started, I pasted on a smile, soothed my knotting gut, and P saw me act cheerful, laughing and calm and non-reative, for at least the first part of the whole, long, painful day. (Turns out, Drama nurse is ruffling a lot of feathers, not just mine.)

One advantage is exactly what I wrote about last week, just standing. One of those rules, especially for nurses who scrub, don't try to circulate while scrubbing. Drama nurse was MIA when one of the patients was brought in the room (by the anesthesiologist.) I had set up earlier, but had not scrubbed back in yet. So I got the patient onto the table, warm blankets, and when Drama nurse came in, I immediately went to the sink to scrub back in, even though I had at least ten minutes that I could have helped. (And been slapped down and contradicted and berated in the most sweetly fake tones imaginable.) Instead, I had license to just stand there, and repeat to myself "It's not my job, it's not my job." Actively calm. Untouchable. Doing my job exactly. It was a momentary stroke of minor genius, if I do say so myself.

By the end of the (late) day, I was exhausted, but calm, and rather proud of myself for staying cheerful. I got to list my astonishments at the arrogant stupidity witnessed, without personal rancor. Not a happy day, not easy, but I chose my own mood, my own action, moment by moment.

Slept well, if not long enough.



*From April of last year:

Having pulled my head (Smmmpuuuck) out of my stressed out rectum, I have come to a number of realizations, some of which see previous angsty posts. The knowledge that I get no free rides, cannot charm myself out of trouble, can't lie to my personal advantage, is one of the well disguised blessings. Not that I didn't get away with some stuff as a kid, but it was mostly in matters of chocolate chip stealing. Anything more serious, and I always got caught. My working theory has been that all the rules apply to me. There are some folks to whom most, if not all, of the rules just will not stick. They can, actually, get away ignoring them. Really, I suppose some of the rules don't work on me, either, but I'd be hard pressed to enunciate them. This need to live an honest life, swallowing whole every hard lesson, lest I have to get beaten with it again, isn't an easy path, but it does leave me regretless. Maybe it's just because I feel the consequences so acutely, and others do not. Or I can imagine the consequences so graphically, and prefer to avoid walking on glass to picking out slivers.
It's all of whole cloth, and mine is duck, canvas, worsted, not pretty, but made to endure. The endless patches merge. Best get on with it.