My work history, in a nutshell.
Sometime in January 2000, I had my first job interview with HR on a Friday morning. I had spent the night with my parents the night before picking up data for my senior research project and then drove here for an interview. That night I worked at 12 hour shift in an adult ICU back in Hickory. I was on an odd schedule that semester.
In February, I had an interview with the nurse manager, and woke up in the middle of the night to see almost six inches of snow on the ground. I got up early and drove like a snail, the one hour drive taking me almost two. I originally interviewed for PICU, but the unit terrified me. The manager showed me the NICU, even though I wasn't interested. By the end of the week, she had offered me a job, my pick. Twelve hour nights in PICU, 8- or 12-hour nights in NICU, or NICU evening shift.
I accepted the evening shift. I didn't like my NICU rotation in college, but I liked the layout of the NICU. There would always be someone else with me if I needed help. I had been around babies my entire life. My sorority's philanthropy was the March of Dimes. I was learning ventilators in the adult ICU. This could work out. And if I didn't like it, I'd transfer to another unit after six months.
I graduated in May, took an NCLEX review course mandated by the nursing school in which I did worse on the post-test than I did on the pretest, and moved into an apartment with a nursing school friend. We spent the rest of May and most of June studying. I drove to Gastonia to take the boards, and the machine cut off after 75 questions, the minimum it was possible to take. And then I sweated bullets waiting for the automated test results to become available. (The technology was there for you to find out instantly, they just like to make you sweat). I even had to wait a few extra days due to the Fourth of July holiday. Finally, calling from my grandparents' house in Warroad, I whooped with joy when I found out I passed.
I started hospital orientation on July 10, and on July 17, I walked onto the unit in scrubs for the first time. Funny story. I forgot my watch the first morning and turned around to get it, only to find out you couldn't wear watches in the NICU. I'm 99% sure I have never worn a watch since. My first day EW was my preceptor, and the very first thing I did was put down a feeding tube. It was all novel, and much more interesting than I expected. For the next three months, I had two regular preceptors. KB, you were such a role model to me. You gave me the solid foundation I needed to handle whatever my shift brought me in later years. My shifts with LL were always full of chaos, to the point she used to say, "Please don't quit." (I have paid that type of orientation forward to several others...it makes you a better nurse.)
After spending the summer on day shift, by fall I was ready to learn what to do on evening shift. In the twelve years I have worked there, evening shift is always a fun shift. The shift is always much better friends than any other, girls genuinely enjoy being together, even when they aren't at work. It was a fun shift to work in 2000, and it was still a fun shift to work in 2012.
Nurses have a history of eating their young, but our unit isn't that way. After six months, I felt like I maybe knew what I was doing. After a year, I couldn't believe I thought I knew stuff before that. After two years, I settled into a groove, which coincided with me getting a day shift position. By being present in rounds, you're able to learn all the whys of why your doing what you're doing. I started working extra shifts whenever they needed me, sometimes working 60+ hours a week. Nurses get close, because there are some weeks you spend way more time with your coworkers than you do with your family. I have been with these ladies through boyfriends, engagements, weddings, divorces, babies, miscarriages, sicknesses of family members, deaths of loved ones. Just as some people have work spouses, I have had work moms, and older sisters, and younger sisters, and BFFs.
I worked up to two days before I had Seth (at a different hospital). I had lots of coworkers come visit us at the hospital, and while I was on maternity leave. When my twelve weeks were up, I went back to work part-time on evening shift. That schedule suited our lifestyle until Amelia was six months old, at which point I started working prn. That status only required me to work 16 hours a month, although I usually worked more. It allowed us to only need 3 hours of baby-sitting a week, and then no baby-sitters once Seth started kindergarten. The schedule suited us all through Nathan's half-ironman training, after which I was able to be a little more flexible about when I could work.
During the winter change started brewing, and I started working once in the evening and once during preschool. By spring I was only able to work the preschool shift. I will be forever grateful to my boss for allowing me to do that this spring. It was very hard to say goodbye to the job I loved, and those shifts were my way of processing it. My last shift was in mid-May. Our summer has been really crazy, so I haven't missed the shifts, or even the meager paycheck, but I miss doing something important, and I miss my girls. I have seen people come and people go, and I guess I got so comfy I never thought it'd be me. If you think about it, I've been going there waaaaay longer than I've ever gone anywhere else in my life. Heck, I went to six different schools in the same span of time!
