shadow460's Blog - job transfer

RSS Bot · October 11, 2008

I guess I probably blog more when I'm stressed. I was told today that my job in Norman would be ending soon, and the person who will fill it is going to be working a week from Monday. The company has made arrangements for me to transfer to a different facility. I've been to the different facility and met some of the people there. Still, though, the people I'm working with now are the ones I've gotten to know and got used to seeing every day. It's not just the employees, either. The residents make the place unique, and I will probably miss them more than I miss the employees.

Some of the residents have moved away. They have gone home after staying with Grace and getting healthy enough to live on their own. Others, well ... didn't make it. They have passed on. I was not close to very many of them, but I was close to a couple who went home. I did have some interaction with some of the ones who are no longer with us while they were still at Grace.

Now it seems like all of that is being yanked away. Ya know, I was told that this job could really get to you, could really push your emotions, and I knew that leadership of any form could be tougher than a normal position. I have a good reputation within the company I work for, and the administrators I have met and the people who are above me want me to stay with Grace. I'm fine with that. But how do you deal with losing 160 friends at once!?

The person I filled in for was on deployment. I'm glad he's safe. If anything had happened to him, I'd have probably quit the position. I've met him and worked with him before, and he's a great guy.

Then there's the fact that everything's gonna be different, too. I won't know just instinctively where, say, the fire panel or the hot water tank is, won't have the things at hand that I'm used to (it'll all be different)... it's like playing your favorite game on a different console, ya know?

I dunno what bugs me worse...having to learn a new facility or knowing I probably won't see the friends I've made in Norman again. I might see 'em at their funerals, but that ain't what matters. I ain't trying to remember them by seeing them at a funeral! Right now they've all got life left in them and I don't ever want to forget them--I don't want that to be stained by death!

Ya know, money ain't what it's about, either. You can't buy or sell friends. My friends are worth more than the $1.25 extra I'll be making.

I wouldn't be surprised if I do have a good future with Grace. With that is going to come the times I have to explain to a family that their loved one is gone. It's going to come with times when I have to transfer to yet another place, and another, and another... and go through the associated emotions all over again. I'll never be able to get used to it, but the one thing I know is that when it gets the best of me, I can come home and cry all I want to about it and nobody will think less of me. Men aren't immune to tears, either. I wonder what our male CNAs go through when they lose a favorite resident or two ... or three. I know it's gotta catch 'em all off guard sometimes...someone doesn't make it through the night and they gotta try desperately to revive the person they've bonded with.

Ya know, I kinda started bonding with one of the more well known residents, then one day the crash wagon was gone and they told me later what happened... I wonder how many employees went home and cried that night.

I guess as long as I can have my time to release emotions I will be fine in the medical field. Maybe this helps explain why my ex wife, a CNA herself, seemed to have something bothering her sometimes. I wonder if my current wife is surprised when I come home stressed about a certain resident. It's not like they didn't warn me it would happen--we were told up front that it can be very hard on the emotions.

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