No Stupid Questions

This is going to be a long post involving old supervisor, new supervisor and manager.

I'm a nurse working in a hospital, cardiology.

I already know I'm not going to do this job for the rest of my life, it should be obvious why but if you don't know, it's a hard job and we get insulted, smacked, hit and spit. And no, this is not a calling, it's an effing job.

I'm looking for a way out, but I don't want to waste my bachelor. My hospital system is the best paying one in a 50 mile radius and I don't want to relocate. I'm union and applying for internal positions.

Four months ago I applied for several no bedside job positions in research. Most of this departments ignored me, only one wrote a rejection letter (at least I got something).

To increase my chances, the union advised me to add a performance review from my old supervisor, except that I never had one with him, so I asked this old supervisor to conduct one with me.

What I got was a bad review, but here's the catch: this review wasn't conducted with me present, I wasn't asked to meet with the old or the new supervisor, I was handed a 2 page document with several items graded A to F and most of them were Ds, but no explanation whatsoever, no examples of any kind, just Ds. This review was signed by old supervisor and somebody else I don’t recognize. Union told me this document is not enforceable, to ignore it and to never sign it.

There are union members and union members: we got the ones who get that a job is a job and we all have lives and others convinced you have to do free overtime, because otherwise you’re lazy and an unworthy nurse. It took me 8 weeks of asking till I found a competent one who belongs to the first group. This person is now advising me and is the one who's going to be present when a new performance review with me is conducted, so new supervisor and manager don't try something funny this time. I already sent the email to the union and management and I'm waiting for an answer to conduct the meeting.

One of the open positions in research I applied to was in cardiology, where I work. Neat! I thought: I know the field, I know the manager, I already work there, so I should be an obvious candidate. I sent the application, explaining that at the time I cannot show a performance review (this was before I got the bad review conducted without me).

I never got an answer. 4 months after the fact, the manager has completely ignored me, which means he doesn't want to offer me this job. Fine, but why didn’t he write an answer? Don’t I at least deserve that?

There are several things that are rubbing me the wrong way:

The day after I sent this application, new supervisor came to me exasperated and asked me point blank: do you want to work here? I was surprised and meekly replied: uuh.. yes. 'I can see that' replied she ironically. I didn’t know how to react to that, but she didn’t push it.

2 weeks after that, old supervisor came unannounced to my unit because she wanted to talk to me. I didn't think anything odd about it, but I wasn't ready for the list of accusations she had against me: I come in late (it's known why I do this and the union was informed months in advance), I sleep on the floor (during my pause, after I make sure patients are taken care of and somebody else covers for me) and that I don't look happy (wtf??). Why is this person trying to scare me?

At the end of this conversation she said: 'I know you better than you think'. How am I supposed to interpret that? To me it sounded like a menace, but I think she meant she knows I’m applying for non bedside jobs and that somebody showed her my application form and my CV, which to me means somebody disclosed personal information about me to somebody who shouldn’t have read it. It doesn’t sound that far fetched if you consider how my new supervisor reacted the day after I sent my application for research.

These 2 episodes make me think both supervisors and manager talked among themselves and decided I’m more useful to them working bedside than researching but at the same time decided not telling me about it. They’re friends and to me, they behave like a mafia.

From a manager’s point of view makes perfect sense: If I quit bedside, this is a position they have to fill, this is a new nurse they have to show how to work at the unit and I already now how the unit and adjacent units work, nobody want’s to do nursing (for obvious reasons) and the last 2 nurses they brought in quit after one day, not even knowing the basics of nursing.

I want to quit, even if I have to keep working bedside at another department, because I feel disrespected, not taken seriously and they believe if they don’t answer my questions I’ll eventually forget about it, won’t make waves and accept working bedside at their unit. I feel there are things they know they are not telling me, which to me equals lying and manipulating. They treat me like an idiot and it makes me so angry I want to confront them, when we conduct the performance review, but they’re banded together and they’ll never admit it. It hurts even more because I used to be very close and open with my old supervisor. Now I feel she is using it against me and each time she was friendly she was fishing for information.

So I don’t know what to do. I want to get even.

It gets more complicated: the unit where I work at has many informal perks: when our patients leave, we get to eat their food, patients tip us and with that money we buy food for every nurse. Technically it’s not allowed, but everybody at the unit does it, including new and old supervisor, there is always milk, juice and tea it feels like a free drinks buffet (it’s brought in for the patients but most of them don’t drink that much, so most of the times is the nurses that drink it, technically stealing, but as said, both supervisors and every nurse do it). Some days I don’t have to cook at home, because I already ate at work for free, saving a considerable amount of time and money. If I go to another unit, I won’t have these perks. Even if I get a research position, I won’t have these perks.

There is also the fear of not knowing how the new work is going to be, I could regret it.

I don’t know what to do.