I can’t tell you how helpful the comments were on my third-day-of-work post. The fact that they ranged from “OMG, QUIT AND RUN AND NEVER LOOK BACK!” to “It is WAY too early to tell, and you should stick with it, and in fact all these things seem like GOOD signs” seems like it would be confusing, but it was both stabilizing and freeing in a way it’s difficult to put a finger on.
I think part of it is that when I encounter a situation where people have a lot of different takes on it, and especially when a lot of those takes are “I THINK such-and-such, but I’m not sure either,” it makes it clearer there’s no One Right Obvious Answer I can keep looking for. I think that must be one of my big fears: that there is a Clearly Right Way, and I’m missing it. If I say, “WHAT SHOULD I DO??” and there’s no consensus, it means that what’s not obvious to me isn’t obvious to us as a group, either. It makes me feel okay about not knowing, which is stabilizing.
It also feels massively supportive, which is freeing. That is, I felt like I could stick with it, I could quit right this second, I could give it a few more shifts and then quit, I could decide not to make any decisions yet—and all of those decisions had significant back-up. I know from popular culture that I’m supposed to feel confident in my OWN decision without caring what other people think, but I’ve never been like that. I’m not sure I even admire people who ARE like that. And in any case, that concept only works for people who DO have a strong, confident opinion about something. Wafflers can’t stride ahead confidently.
Anyway. The upshot is that each comment made me feel better in its own way, and snippets from them go through my mind whenever panic starts rising. I was going to give a little string of example snippets here, but every single comment I was looking at had at LEAST one snippet, and often SEVERAL snippets, so suffice it to say there are abundant comforting snippets. My decision for now is to not decide yet. “Give it some more time,” I say to myself. “Think of the scrubs.”
In the meantime, while waiting to decide, I played my own psychologist. “What would HELP?,” I asked myself, “And is that something you can HAVE?” What kept springing to my mind is that MORE CO-WORKER TRAINING would help. I wanted to follow someone on the same shift I would be doing, and see everything they did, and ask questions. This felt very embarrassing to ask for, but it had gotten to the point where I was thinking, “I will finish this shift, and then I will quit and never have to go back,” and when things get to that point it seems as if some risk is worth taking if there’s ANY hope that the job is salvageable.
I composed an email to my supervisor, then came back to it a few hours later and changed it around, then read it again the next morning and sent the final version. And she answered back saying absolutely, and I got to spend a whole shift following around a co-worker, and she told me a million things I didn’t know, and I asked her a million questions, and I took notes in my little notebook, and I watched her doing the job and absorbed some of her casual and comfortable attitude, and in general I ended up feeling a lot happier and hopefuller. ALSO, and this is another reason I think this training should have happened ANYWAY, the CLIENT ended up feeling a lot happier with ME: letting them see me WITH someone familiar really helped to break the ice.
My other answer to the “What do you WANT?” question was that I wanted some videos or illustrated instructions or something that would show/tell me how to transfer people (i.e., help move them from chair to walker, or from walker to bed), something I could watch/read again and again until I felt more comfortable. If I follow a co-worker, I can only see the maneuver once: obviously we can’t put Mrs. X in and out of her bed again and again until I get the hang of it. I want to STUDY.
So I emailed the staff nurse and asked her if she knew of any resources. And not only did she say she’d send me some links the next day when she was in her office, she also said that if she’d had any idea I’d be working with Mrs. X, she would have recommended more training for me, because Mrs. X is one of our more difficult clients. This gave me two huge wallops of relief. ONE, that I was thinking I’d been put with this client because she was one of the EASIER clients, so I was thinking there was no way I could hack the job if this was the easy setting—but it’s NOT! it’s the HARD setting! TWO, that I’m not silly to have asked for more training, and in fact if I want to I can imagine the nurse feeling considerable relief that I asked, since I SHOULD have had more training and that had slipped through the cracks. And third bonus wallop of relief: just the way she said “if she’d had any idea”—as if it were a little outrageous that I’d been put with this client. It was balm for my panicked soul.
I’m so relieved to hear this! Good for you! I’m glad you got the response you needed, plus I think you got an added bonus in there- it makes you look GREAT to the employer! You are an employee who is genuinely interested in how to do the job well, and who is taking the initiative to be better at it. This is good news for everyone!
I second Chrissy’s comment!
“Obviously we can’t put Mrs. X in and out of bed.” cracked me up! I want to bookmark this post and save it for when I go back to work.
That’s awesome! And a good reminder that we should always speak up and ask for what we know we need…
This is a fantastic update, I’m glad you asked for help and your employer seems very supportive and is helping you out! I can see this working out for you, now! ~hugs~
This. I suck at asking for help in jobs…I am very good at deciding that my employer sucks and that that’s just something I need to deal with because I need money. I am so glad that you gave your employer a second chance and that they deserved it.
well done, Swistle!
Oh, there is NO BETTER FEELING than finding out what you thought was hard, but assumed should be easy, WAS IN FACT HARD and other people OPENLY communicate that it’s nuts you even had to go through it in the first place. SO VALIDATING. Yay :)
I agree and would go further to say that I’m giving a little side eye to the person who paired a new employee with a notoriously difficult client without warning the employee!
Glad to hear this! So encouraging. Also – “think of the scrubs” – too funny.
Oh, yay! I’m so glad for the additional training. That is exactly the sort of thing that would make me feel better too.
Swistle, I am SO PROUD OF YOU. First of all, as your supervisor, I would be delighted, yes DELIGHTED, that you asked for help and more training. But since I’m not your supervisor but am your friend and blog reader, I know that it was super difficult for you to ask and I am so proud you did. Really. WELL DONE. And I hope that doesn’t sound condescending, because I do not mean it to be. It would be really hard for me to ask for more training, and I don’t know if I could have done it, but now that I read how YOU did it I could call upon that memory if I need it in the future. So it is definitely not condescending. It is pride mixed with admiration, even. And I think your idea of training videos is an excellent one. Maybe this is something that you could at some point help create, even.
So given this turn of events I hope you can stick this out for a bit and that it will soon be much improved. I was so sad when I read your post yesterday.
It does not sound condescending! I am preening!
Yay!
Also … have you tried YouTube for training/examples on the transfers? I ask because as far as I can tell there is nothing civilized (er, you know, SFW. Probably also some NSFW stuff but that is not the focus here) you cannot learn (or least observe some else do) on YouTube (though I myself often forget this at times when it would be useful to remember), from changing your brake pads to giving yourself an IM shot in the rump, to … helping someone transfer from a bed to a chair? Probably? I mean obviously you want to make sure whoever’s video it is knows what they are doing, but it seems likely that you have enough knowledge of this process to evaluate that, while also maybe picking up some tips?
I second this idea. Maybe you can practice with one of your older kids who is a height/weight of an elderly person? They might enjoy helping you learn.
Well, this is good news! I’ve been thinking about you a lot and I’m so, so glad that you got a little bit of what you wanted. What a relief that it was the hard setting when you thought it was the easy one. I hope things continue to improve.
This is GREAT. Way to advocate for yourself!
I’m glad you had a good response from the nurse, too. I will say that as a nurse who has precepted new nurses, it is MUCH more reassuring to have someone who asks questions and double checks things instead of someone who strides ahead confidently, assuming that s/he knows everything. That second nurse is the one who’s going to hurt a patient.
See, this is where I wish your post had a LIKE button. Because I got down to where you asked for help and was given it and its the BEST thing I’ve read all day. YAY YOU!!!
This is great! I am so glad things seem a bit brighter.
Oh good! I’m really glad you were able to request what you needed and that they came through for you. Hopefully they will adjust their training approach for future new employees based on this feedback!
So proud of you and happy for you that things are, well, going in the right direction. As I was reading this, I had a thought: you are such a good writer, and very observant and thoughtful. Perhaps you could keep an ongoing notebook and jot thoughts that occur to you about points and topics that would be helpful in a video. Could lead to a career itself, or at least you might convince your employer to let you have a go at it!
Hooray! I’m so glad you decided to ask for help and that it had such a great outcome! Also, I’m not sure how this could help, but it sounds like a lot of the skills you’re using are ones I learned in my CNA program. I don’t know if you want to go to school and get that certification, but maybe there are classes you could audit or some kind of videos you could Google if you used that phrase? (Because transferring non-mobile clients is HARD and I swear one of the most valuable skills I learned in that class was how to change the linens on a bed with a person in it or how to use the bedsheets to move someone in the bed if they’ve scooted down too far or something! My grandfather was recently in hospice care and my nurse sister was able to teach a bunch of the family members who were caring for him those kinds of tricks that are IMMENSELY helpful!). But good luck and keep us all posted!!!! Even after finishing my program and doing clinicals and passing the certification exam and getting a job . . . . sometimes it was still scary. But so is being a parent, so you have a lot of training in taking care of people already :)
Oh joy! I am so relieved for you. And I have to say that I have LOVED hearing how this new job is working out, since I am a few years behind you on this, but soon all my children will be in school and I’ll be ready for some kind of manageable part-time work!
HOORAY! I am in a sort of ad hoc position of RUNNING MY ENTIRE ORGANIZATION’S TRAINING PROGRAM OMG, and I am GLOWING with joy that you asked for training and then got it! YES. Go, you! Sometimes the people who are running things don’t KNOW what people need! And if it is brought to their attention, they can SNAP TO IT and provide it! When I hear that someone say wistfully that they could have used such-and-such resource, and it DOES exist, but I didn’t know about the request, so the person has gone on unequipped, I feel awful. So, that to say: good on you! On to the next small victory (brisk clap)!
This is such a relief and I feel so proud of you for sticking it out and seeking solutions and OH thisis just great! Best case you are going to do and feel better and worst case you are going to know you did All You Could if it doesn’t improve! And think of the character building life lessons you can share with your kids!!!! Well done and YAY!
This is GREAT news! Wonderful – good for you!
This post actually made me laugh b/c so often the solution to any problem is: talk about it with the people creating the issue. Especially when the problem results from not having enough information rather than being a confrontational issue – the person on the other side of the problem would have to be a complete nut to respond any way other than positively. Either they will say, OK thank you for telling me but unfortunately I don’t have any additional info to share. Or – and MORE LIKELY – they will say, oh I’m glad you asked, here is what you want to know. I need to remember this myself!! I keep having work issues where I fret about my frustrations and the easy solution is right here: speak about it to the person generating the frustration. He probably has no idea that he is doing it and talking through the stress will likely make it greatly reduce.
I didn’t comment the other day because I didn’t think I had any helpful advice and I wasn’t sure what I’d do. But maybe I do have something helpful! I am looking at this from the other side – I am one of the owners of a small business and I am part of the hiring and training process. My business is very specialized and we used to tell people it will take a year before you feel comfortable. But we have gotten that down to 3-6 months, I think, mainly because 1) we have gotten better about hiring the right people, and 2) our training process has improved.
So, looking at it from an owner/trainer’s perspective, you should be reassured that they hired you because they think you are a good fit for this job. Even if you don’t know a single thing going into it (which is how it often is with our new employees), there is something about your personality that they thought would be a good fit. That’s why they hired you. And they do not expect you to be perfect right off the bat – trust me on this.
Going and asking for help is also very beneficial, both for the people in charge of training, and for people who come after you. I incorporate the things my new employees tell me that would have helped them into the training program. By taking the initiative and asking for help/more training, your supervisors will hopefully see where improvements can be made. This is great for the people who come after you! You have made someone’s future life better. Not to mention your own, by taking the initiative to ask for help when you needed it. Great job! No matter where this job goes in the future, you have taken a step toward making the world a better place.
Perfect!! I think you took exactly the right course of action and IT PAID OFF in virtually every possible way. Validation that you drew the short straw (especially when you couldn’t have known that was the case) is HUGE. And more training! And questions answered! Yesssssssssss.
Also, I forgot to comment on the SCRUBS! post from last week, but that is reason enough to stay at this job. Almost every day, I see someone in scrubs, walking or taking the subway to their presumably medical job, and EVERY TIME I want to melt with envy. Lucky you!
What a wonderful update! Lots of echoes to what the others have said, but also want to add that from a manager/trainer perspective – sometimes they just.don’t.know. Maybe they have just been promoted, maybe no one gave them structure on how to train new hires, a million other things.
So in a big way, you are helping them by speaking up. Because maybe now, they’ll add some more training for the next person, or assign patients with more managable needs to the newest hires.
Much good can come from that. Good for you!
Yay! I’m so happy to hear this! I, too, am the type of person who deeply cares what other people think so I know exactly how the comments on the last post would be freeing and stabilizing.
Joining in the chorus of yays! I’m so happy that the comments helped, and that you got such good responses from your requests. I really like the suggestion above of asking your kids (or Paul) to allow themselves to be transferred – that’s the kind of thing that will feel awkward for a while, and having people who will tell you if you’re accidentally pinching them is great.
Even if it isn’t a super-long-term job for you, I’m really glad that your supervisor and the nurse responded so positively – that’s (sadly) never a given at new jobs, but it’s great when it’s there.
It sounds like you handled this in the best way possible! It’s so easy to assume that asking for extra help will make you seem inexperienced and incompetent, when in reality it usually makes you seem like a dedicated employee who wants to the best you can possibly be.
It seems like the job will probably start getting better from here! And if it doesn’t, at least you’ll know that it’s because it just wasn’t the right job for you, not because of something fixable.
Is it weird to be relieved and excited for someone you have never met? I literally sighed with relief over this post and thought about it all day. I’m just so happy for you!
This makes me so happy! It also says something about the company if you’re asking for more help/training and instead of saying “No you should be able to do this via magic” they have given you what you asked for!! Hurray!
YAYY! Oh, this is awesome, and it is also super super useful for me — both because the “What would HELP?” trick is just the greatest, and because I sometimes need to be reminded that OF COURSE doing an utterly reasonable thing, like asking for additional help or training, is in fact more than okay to do. Thanks/Go Swistle!