vestmoria

on my last thread somebody wrote that unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

I'm guilty of this, I'm a nurse: after changing units an expectation was that the new one would be one where the physical workload would be evenly distributed. Another expectation and a promise from management was that my new unit would assign a nurse I'd shadow during my first days to get a grip of the unit. The third expectation was that I could do my job and use my downtime to learn.

None of these things are happening.

How do I stop having expectations?

ETA: A problem I see with this approach is: if every job turns out to be shit like this, why even bother? My new attitude should be go to work, work the least possible, fake it, play theatrics to do as little as possible, go home, get paid. No expectations = no disappointments.

But then, why even advance to ICU-nursing, get certifications or study medicine?

I couldn't come with a better title.

As previously explained, I changes wards, a doctor working for more than 35 years at my old unit wrote me an excellent recommendation letter and I went my merry way to my new ward, hoping to find something new.

I introduced myself to nurses and some doctors there. Because the nurses were yelling and punching tables, something I'd never seen from nurses, I started a conversation with the doctors about what abbreviations they use there (completely foreign to me), if they allow their nurses to take blood samples or arterial and venous blood gas probes, to decide if a patient needs blood cultures, to do an EKG without consulting a doctor first, what emergencies they have there...

I had lucky with one of the doctors who answered all my questions.

The next day, my new boss comes to me saying people complained about me talking to the doctors, accused me of playing being a doctor.

I asked if the doctor who answered my questions, Schimdt, complained. My boss refused to identify the person who complained.

My reaction to that was to say that this person could have talked to me instead of escalating, I also told my boss that I'm going to ask no matter what because I want to be a better nurse and the best suited people to do that are doctors (because most of the nurses only want to gossip, whereas doctors are more cerebral and explain correlations, I didn't say this out loud).

His answer was telling me to stop talking to the doctors, otherwise there would be consequences.

2 hours after he left an Anesthesiologist I didn't know came to check some PCAs, so me being me, started asking questions about the device and given that I'm thinking about studying medicine I asked about it and he told me where he studied, what he did afterwards, started showing me the documentation anesthesiologists use.

This is something I cannot avoid, I like talking to smart people. My new boss seems to be like my old one, only wanting dumbed down nurses.

Other nurses I asked at the unit told me that no, I'm not supposed to be smart, but just a drone.

It's ridiculous I have to censor myself. The best I can think of is to play theatrics while he's at the unit but be me when he leaves.

If you claim I'm talking to the doctors as an excuse not to do my job, you are wrong. I need the money and I use my downtime to learn.

It's true that people believe what they want to believe and judge you in 5 seconds.

Is there a better strategy than playing theatrics?

on one of my lasts posts, most of the people that answered agreed with the idea I'm on the spectrum. I don't know. I don't see anything wrong being myself.

I'd just like some serious answers from neurotypicals explaining to me why my question triggered my coworker so much:

Manager called me to ask if I can take an extra shift at a different unit because they're short staffed due to illness. I agreed.

Because that unit sometimes overfills and nurses there have to take care of more patients than the ratio agreed with the union I called the unit to ask how many patients they do have today, to have an idea if my shift tomorrow is going to be an easy or a difficult one.

The coworker started yelling and calling me an idiot and using some other choice words, so I said "ok" and hung up.

I didn't yell at her, I simply asked the question in a neutral tone, and I still don't get the animosity.

20 minutes later the same person calls to inform she called our manager and tomorrow I don't have to work at that unit.

All this stupid drama because I asked how many patients they have? I simply don't get it.

Am I really this autistic?

I've got a new job as a nurse but I'm still comparing positions, maybe something better comes along.

What I want to say to any of my potential new managers:

one of the reasons I left my old unit is how colleagues give report there: some give report about patients that are no longer there. I just don't get it. Patient is gone, it's not our problem anymore. Who cares where he is now? Give report about the patients I have to provide care to!

Some interrupt report to talk about what they did on the weekend or if the coworker only works 2 times per month, they give report about the 2 weeks they spent not working. It baffles me that they feel offended if I remind them they have to give report and can talk about their private lives when they're done. A report that should last 10 minutes lasts 40. It's tiring and I don't care about their lives.

Others, after giving report, remain in the room to loudly gossip about god knows what in the room... while another nurse tries doing her job and give report. If I remind them I cannot hear report, they feel offended. You do understand it's very difficult to get the information I need to do a good job under this circumstances.

Others interrupt their report to rant in minute detail how they transferred a very heavy patient or how they had to fixate an aggressive one. It's never a short rant, it's always a five minute one where some nurses feel they have to compete and tell an even more egregious story about other obnoxious patient. It's ridiculous. I just don't understand why they cannot move on, get to the point, give report and tell me what meds I have to give him if he has another crisis. I find this very tiring as well.

I really don't want to work with people like that. It's tiring and nursing doesn't have to be. I'd like you to pair me with the nurses who like to do their job, get to the point when they give report and go home with no drama involved. If after this conversation you feel that I'm not going to be a good match, then simply say it so, so neither of us wastes time and I keep looking for a unit with a better work culture.

To me this makes perfect sense: I tell a potential employer what I need to work better while offering him the chance to be upfront and tell me if I'm a good or a bad match.

Any drawbacks?

countries I have in mind are most of the EU, east Asian and south American multiparty democracies, our neighbors Canada and Mexico.

As I see it, these countries share with the US more than with other countries, like African, central Asian or south Asian countries, where liberal democracy and its practice only exists on paper. Up to now, we shared common values like the rule of law, free markets, freedom of the press, political liberalism, atlanticism for our security, our trust in science, institutions and facts... The US was an ally, an indispensable one you might add, even a benign one in some circles.

Now this ally has turned to a bully in an incredibly short period of time: in less than a week trump has started bullying Denmark so they sell Greenland to the US, threatened about taking the Panama channel back, also threatened most of America's trade partners with tariffs if they don't do what he wants, pausing aid to Ukraine, in effect condemning that country to be absorbed by Russia within the next 2 years, he even wants an American flag on Mars... what for?

I don't see why he thinks our trade partners wont also raise their tariffs to our stuff if we do so. What I also don't understand is why he blames the victim (Ukraine) and cozies up to putin. Not even Reagan would have done something like that.

Autocrats in the world are sure having a good time watching our disunity work to their favor.

I wonder what's going to replace the post WW2 and post cold war order, now that liberal democracy is being so successfully attacked from the maga right and people trust more what they read on their ecochamber than what centrist, established media report (I'm not saying that the Washington Post, NPR or the LA Times are neutral, but are more neutral that fox 'news' or 'news'max).

And, should I change?

I'm 38 years old, single, not interested in starting a family (my mother was a drama queen and I couldn't live that again with a partner or a child), don't own any property, not really a consumerist person, I max my 401k and save 70% of my net income because most of the stuff society tells me to buy is irrelevant to me (I still own clothes I bought 20 years ago and they still fit me), don't need a car and use a bike or public transportation, I prefer to cook at home because it's cheaper and I can choose what I cook. I stopped drinking alcohol 10 years ago. I'm definitively not an extrovert.

I majored in philosophy because I liked it and I still do, but never found a job with my major. I tried being a high school teacher, but teenagers are way too much for me. Nursing, what I do now, is a versatile and safer job, even if I think it's slowly killing me.

I feel cheated in life.

For 15 years I lived paycheck to paycheck paying off my debt, often having to move due to increased rent so this might be my way of coping with trauma. I still feel I'm way behind most people my age. I feel like a loser because I imagine them knowing better than me what they want in life.

It's true that comparison is the thief of joy, but I cannot stop ruminating about this.

If you read my post history you'll realize I don't really care about my job, but stay because I need a paycheck and I like having a big rainy day fund. If I was a millionaire, I'd stop working. I don't like any job.

It might be true that I'm autistic, because close human connections where never that important to me and most people I work with are not close to me, but as I'm nearing 40 I'm starting to think if my destiny is going to be to live and die alone in a nursing home. Sometimes this scares me, but I always go back to my apathetic, indifferent self, like I'm on some kind of drug that makes me not feel anything, neither good or bad, like my emotional brain is underdeveloped.

What I don't want to be is this desperate loner craving for any kind of human attention turning to post his whole life online hoping a good Samaritan comes and saves me. First because it's pathetic and secondly because that's never a good foundation to build a friendship, I'd be inviting a predator, another crazy loner, a newborn Christian to save me with god, somebody trying to scam me with a MLM scheme or an antivaxer into my life. And I'm not a 20 year old discovering the world, I'm almost 40.

Every woman I've been attracted to has ignored me and every woman that showed an interest in me wasn't good enough to me: she could be eager to make a connection, put an interest, even pretty and genuine but I cannot fake being in love or feeling attraction. I always ended up considering them as friends or acquaintances. I'm too old and too introverted (autistic?) to visit a club and try to impress a woman to go out with me.

I don't think this is depression, depression would be me not going to work not even calling in sick.

It seems clear I need a friend, but I don't know how to make friends anymore. I focused so much on surviving that I stopped caring about anyone else.

I'm a unionized nurse and basically I'm on an unenforceable PIP because management simply wrote what I, according to them, do wrong and gave me the filled form, but without conducting an interview with me, the union wasn't contacted and they even didn't ask me to sign it. Union already told me this is not enforceable.

There are union representatives and union representatives: the one who feels a job is a job told me to calm down and keep applying for jobs elsewhere if I so decide, not asking for a 2 month 'reprieve' to be better at a job most days I don't want to do anymore (working bedside with difficult patients).

The other union representative who still considers nursing a calling but works with compliant patients (pediatrics), told me the hospital can fire me if I don't ask for a meeting with management to ask how I can be better and that only after being better I should apply for jobs elsewhere (which I call BS).

I'm still undecided about how to play this, but I sure want to quit bedside. If playing theatrics and pretending I have an interest in becoming a person they consider a better nurse helps me quit this job, even if the PIP is unenforceable, I'm playing this game.

Except that my first impulse to the question if I like my job would be a 5 minute rant about non compliant patients, stupid family members working against you, people calling for you to refill their water when they can walk, being blamed for things I cannot control, bad ratios, having to get up at 04:00 to get to work, having to work nights, listening to my coworkers talk about their holidays in the middle of report, drama...

So, how do I become a better liar to the tune of: I want to keep working here, I like what I do, I like seeing patients leave healthy and independent to live their lives... until I find a job I like more?