Hi Elph,
Well I had my first shift without a 'buddy' last night, and man was it tough!
The shit started as soon as I walked in the door.
The carer I was working with was Sudanese.
It was literally like dealing with a client suffering dementia, I had to constantly repeat myself with carefully selected closed ended questions otherwise she tried every trick in the book to talk over me, or get out of it, or she was 'sick' (pretended to faint onto the lifting machine whilst lifting a resident) or disappearing and not answering her phone to get out of work.
Then she tried to get me to do paperwork for all the residents that I didn't do, or that we hadn't checked on yet, and to do all the assessment paperwork for residents who were new and were being assessed for funding, and this is all on my first shift!
Then, whilst toileting a resident, I go to change the continence aid, and she tells me that it's still dry, and we can't change it until the last round, despite the obvious fecal smearing on the continence aid.
I reacted very firmly and told her ABSOLUTELY NOT, and to go and get me another aid, so she decided to argue with me in FRONT of the resident who was FULLY cognitive and sitting on the toilet watching our face off.
It took 10 MINUTES, but I kept repeating myself, 'we cannot leave this on her, it is unhygenic, uncleanly, undignified, and NOT proper care.' I think I repeated myself about 5 times over 10 minutes while she dallied around and tried to do other things so that I would cave, but I was rock solid, and would not give in until she did it.
At the end of it, we were turning a client over who was bed ridden, and halfway through she decided to do the whole 'I'm sick' thing, and let him go half way, which meant I bore his full weight, and instantly pulled a muscle in my shoulder/neck.
She kept complaining about her neck and shoulders all the way through, and pointed out that she had been feeling sick since yesterday.....so I asked her what she was doing at work if she was sick.....and she kind of laughed it off, because she had no answer.
She kept complaining the rest of the shift until I pointed out that this was my first shift in nursing after 2 years, and I was getting no help from her at all, AND I had pulled my shoulder.
The supervisor saw me gripping my pec muscle and grimacing, and asked what happened, and I told him, turns out she bullied him the same way when he started a year ago too, so he took me and gave me a whole heap of panadol.
As I'm packing up to leave, she tells me that she will walk home with me, as she lives not far from me, so I told her that my partner is picking me up, as I am not walking home after dark and with a sore shoulder.
So she immediately asked for a lift home, and I told her I will have to ask my partner when he arrives.
I stood outside waiting for my partner to arrive to drive me home, and she keeps pushing me to walk with her, and dancing around saying 'I wanna walk, I wanna walk, it's not far, come on, come on.' Again I refused, and then my partner drove up.
I told her we are not driving as far as her place, and she could only go as far as our place, so she immediately said that it's not far, and we can drive her, once again, I said no, we are going as far as our place, and if it wasn't good enough, she could walk.
So she shut up and got in the back, and we dropped her off 400m from the facility.
She refused to get out of the back seat, and kept telling us that it wasn't far, and that we could drive her home, so I turned around and said "goodnight, ****."
She got out of the car, and stood there, not closing the door.
So I turned around to her and said, "****, next time we are going to work a bit better together, aren't we?" She tried to play stupid, and said "what do you mean?", "This shift could have gone much better, and next time we work together, it's going to be much better, isn't it?".
She asked me what the problem was, and so I said, "I'll talk to you about it when we meet up again, it's late and I'm going home."
She stood there silently for another minute, and then shut the door and we drove home.
I have had 5 hours sleep, my heart rate is elevated, and my shoulder is aching, but by God Almighty, I made that bloody bitch pull her f*cking weight, and I got everything done on shift without any help or direction from her at all.
I bloody well won, I might be tired, and still winding down from 7 hours of being as unmovable as a bump on a log, but I bloody well won, and I'm proud of myself.
