Sunday, August 3, 2008

Everyday People


Alright. So I gots a license. I gots my ACLS. Now all I need is a fucking job.

Gave my heart and soul to the county. Did two internships. Licked the festering bung of the endless stream of managers, assistant managers, nurse educators for the SICU at the the hospital I wanted to get hired in as a new grad. Hard to do but I'm psychotic. Had 3 fucking interviews that were like totally Japanese. It consisted of the unit managers screaming at me: "You are shit! You think you know so much but you know nothing! You pissant. It will be a year before anyone will trust you by yourself for ten minutes. Tell us how you are similar to poop. Tell us! List, starting from the most similar way, to the least similar way, the ten ways your very existence as a nurse is similar to a meaty turd. Begin!"
So I get hired. After I tell them what a piece of shit I am and how I will become maybe, a squirt of piss if I follow their SICU tutelage. The following Monday the head manager quits, a new interim manager is named. I calls the new manager, I think she said, "County wide hiring freeze and besides you are 4th in line. Get another job." Click. Fucking click. Or should I say fucking clique. Not a word of thanks, apology, let alone acknowledgement for the internships and multitude of interviews. Anyway I think that's what she said but my Tagalog kind of sucks. I'm sure she has like six cousins and a husband who want the sweet position. So I calls downtown.
"Oh no baby, it's not a hiring freeze. It's a hiring hold. Just wait until October and then we can process your paperwork."Just a typical LA County, "I hate my job I'm just here to retire before we find this bitch floating dead, tits up. Go fuck yourself, na-ah, don't you talk to me like a human being, na-ah" attitude. They don't even say "please go fuck yourself."
Oh, okay! Great! I'll sit on my duff for 3 months while Schwarzabastard and the stooges from the now totally defunct "Killer King" fuck around. Why pay rent when you can get evicted?
Fuck me? Fuck you.


So you know what I says friends? Fuck county. 7 days later I got hired at a Catholic private. Even before the interview I knew I was home. Just like county, patient wise. I loved the lobby: Dead bloody Jesus statues on every wall, at eye level. Dude, they nailed that fucker through his hands AND his feet, crazy. Maybe that crazy bastard really did die for me cuz it looked like that shit hurt- and crackheads everywhere. It was like a mid 80's Cure video. I immediately thought to myself while I waited in the lobby for the ICU manager to come down, "Yes. Just like county. These are my people. Broke, dangerous, desperate, grateful, entitled, high, low, furious."
They check you out but they don't judge because they are in no place to judge. and neither am I.
I immediately accepted a position as a new grad in their completely dilapidated, fully understaffed ICU (no Na's, clerks, RT's, or EKG techs). One commode in the whole unit. ICU designed by Stevie wonder. The manager was like, "I gotta tell you, the nurses up here are a little tired of new grads right now. But do what you're told and lay low and hopefully you'll make it." Fair warning. I appreciate that. Bathing in toxicity. Wouldn't expect anything less nor do I want it.
I accepted the position with a non-contract 5K sign on bonus for working nights for a year, and then, the next day, a recruiter for the most prestigious LA private (Hint:they give the babies of celebrities shitloads of heparin) called. When I told him I had accepted a position at St. Mother of Dead Holy Jesus Mountains of the Tired Goat Naked Guadalupe in the Rivers of Nacho Bel Grande he started foaming at the mouth and wanted to talk money right then. Jews. My people. So I hustled him back and tomorrow I gots me an interview with the much coveted hereby named: "Your Jew Masters of Beverly Hills Hospital, yeah That's Right We Are Shitting Money" SICU manager tomorrow. *
La' Chiem!

The HR building I'm going to tomorrow is named after a very famous director. He's made movies about a sex addict archaeologist, an extra terrestrial that likes little boys, dinosaurs that eat Jeff Goldblume. It's literally called the Steven S------- Human Resource building. Gimme some of that private health care baby, let me see what you taste like.

Poor people, my people. Scandalous people, my people. The other clique, on the west side, my people (I guess). I'm not looking for the perfect place. I'm looking for the place where the waterfall beats down evenly with its harsh cold stomp onto the nape of my neck and I cease to exist.

Bring it!!!
* As a Jew, and a poor working class one at that, I reserve to mock the gaudiness of my own culture

1 comment:

Mother Jones RN said...

Holy crap! I look forward to your next post.

MJ