whitewriter | Mistake on Monday

Wendy's daycare starts at 0730.
Work starts at 0730.
we don't have a "Real manager" atm at my ICU. We have acting manger.
I made the mistake of asking the manager above if I can come 10 mins late each shift (lolz) so that I can at least drop off my kid before coming to work.

Unsurprisingly they said no. But this sent me into a bit of a spin all day. I'm like crap. Do I need to cancel my childcare? Where am i going to put her? But I love this place and really want to try it, I think Wendy will do well there and I think it will benefit all of us if our family can have a mini break 2 days a week. I need time to study, and clean and organise properly without little munckin causing havoc, Apoh probably needs a bit of a break too. Sad we have to pay for our weeks while we are in Japan, but that's how the cookie crumbles -

Anyways. So I asked Pete if he can do drop off, meaning he will have to forego cycling to work and skipping some meetings with the US.

Turns out his workplace is more family friendly. It's considered gender uninclusive if they say no (to either gender - Mums or Dads).

But you know what-- I think secretly in my heart i wanted the boss to say no. Cause secretly I wanted dad to do Drop off -- because Drop off is the absolute worst. Screaming, crying all sorts and you have to sort of leave your heart at the door until your child bonds with the teachers at the place.

I went through this last time and I never bonded with the teachers -- and neither did Wendy so it was ok at first when she didn't realise what was going to happen (we'd leave and not come back for 8 hours) but then when she started to realise (3rd week in) then comes the screaming and the rest of it.

Plus -- my colleagues will have to wait an extra 10 mins to hand over to me post a nightshift. I will be the most hated staff member on the roster. Sure, people with kids are frequently late, but thats a reputation that follows them.

So. It's probably for the best that I get someone tell me no. Lol. From a manager without children - and he's new too, so I think he's looking to set the mark and establish boundaries and all that (so totally the wrong person to ask).

The acting manager came to me and said "Rita now that you've asked them I can't go against what the upper manager said, but -- and this was a nice way to put it-- he's like we're family friendly here at (xyz) ICU, and just remember for the future to escalate appropreately okay, because, well. Yeah." And all I could think was damn. I could have gotten a yes.

But I do think I secretly wanted a no.

Or rather a quick answer because we are enrolling this week.

Anyways. so that put me in a bad mood all day -- so

So when the newbie asked me what "Reverse barrier nursing was" and "what do they do for a patient like that". I spent all of 2 minutes explaining it to them,

Pt is neuropenic and has no white cells. They can't fight off infection so we wear PPE to protect them.

They looked at me blankly. I explained it again. -- I couldn't think of a real other way to say it.

So then I said, look the crux is: you wear PPE. They don't have an MRO but you have to wear the same level of PPE for them.

.... and then they changed the allocation before she could even get a crack at having the pt -- they changed her allocation 3x that afternoon, I think each time, realising that she couldn't handle xyz pt cause she's so new, so they kept downgrading her...

I felt mildly sorry for her - she is in training - and she just finished her grad but come on.

She's up against other newbies who have a lot more experience - or dare i say it- better English- such that they don't have to decipher what I'm saying before they understand it.

Dunno how long she's going to last around here.