And yes, they threatened my nursing license too…

I didn't put this out there so publicly, but now that it has come to naught, I feel it needs to be stated.  Not only did I get fired from the most toxic job I have ever held, I also had a cloud hanging over my nursing license, they really couldn't just let me go in peace, they had to make the special torture last with one last threat.

When I was canned, they told me that they had filed a complaint against my nursing license with reassurance that “these things rarely get investigated or become anything.” The reasoning they gave is that they had to cover the county in case of liability. I also spoke to the union representative who said that they used to do reports on nearly every nurse’s license and that she had to send them the state regulations and tell them to cool it.  What this tells me is that they have quite a history of filing BS complaints… and the next thing that pops up in my mind is “The why do it?!”

I think that “Why” question is the one that really sticks in my craw.  With as personal as the firing was, it just seems like it’s another way for them to twist the knife and feel like they have power.  There is also an element of them playing C.Y.A. and trying to convince the world that their feces is odorless and made of solid gold…. and that they train people well too!  No matter the reason, I have more pity than anger for them. 

The reason I was given for the complaint was a vague “you gave wrong information over the phone” to someone on 2 occasions.  I have acknowledged my mistakes all along.  I’m not perfect, and they said I didn't have to be perfect, while the unspoken subtext was that I did have to be perfect. One of these occasions I remember and I called to correct the situation as soon as I was aware of it.  The other one, I really don’t know.  However, the letter I got from the state yesterday said, “The Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission received a report about an alleged failure to satisfactorily learn and perform duties as a public health nurse.  After careful consideration of the information received the Nursing Commission decided not to investigate because there was no violation of nursing law and it is considered an employer-employee issue.”  That is rather different, IMNSHO.

Unfortunately, I have had to mark “yes” on some job applications when asked about complaints against my license.  I had to be honest. However it shows that their petty, vindictive action has had some lasting effects that may have cost me some interviews. I cannot prove or disprove this, any more than I can about my being in the military being part of the reason that I was fired.  I just don’t understand what exactly would make a person or organization act in this manner unless it was warranted.  The good news is that I can now answer that question “no” on future applications.

Because of everything that I survived in that 3 ½ months, I am a bit bumped and bruised, but I will heal and I will prevail. They cannot take my dignity, they cannot take my soul.  They tried to tear down everything that was important to me, because they didn't “approve” of something… who I was, where I was from, my Army service, perhaps my very existence on the planet… I will never know.  In almost every situation I have done fine with people using my quirky charm, even those I haven’t liked a whole lot… but this was the rare instance and for whatever reason, there was no way I would have or could have ever fit into their special little corner of hell.  For those who have known me a long time, I will say that given a choice, I would return to the dining hall at Rhein-Main before I would the Seattle King County Public Health Department… the latter of which has earned the special distinction of being the worst job I have ever had.

I know I’m stronger for the experience.  I also know what is important to me.  I will take the gifts and walk away.

Please be kind to yourself and others.  Gentleness and compassion go a lot farther than vindictiveness and revenge.

How to train (or not to train) someone...

Sometimes, when you go through something, it takes some time to tease out what exactly the problem was with certain aspects of events.  I am finding this to be true of this recent job experience and I think it will be valuable to examine going forward.

The issue that I am really thinking about is the training piece.  I worked with some folks very well there and my direct supervisors not well at all… and the latter were the ones who pretty much sealed my fate.  I did read the performance review (after fishing the pieces out of the recycling and taping it back together) and it pretty much said that I couldn’t communicate my way out of a paper bag.  It also said that they tried to train me on how to interview people over the phone but that I improved but was never good enough.  (This was among other things, many of which were pointedly personal.)

First, lack of clear training standards, benchmarks and objectives make the training process amorphous and all too subjective.  You need something more than just a checklist that says, "you should be able to do all of this stuff by 6 months" Goals should be measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-limited.  Lack of specificity allows far too many variables, based on assumptions to take precedence over clear, measurable, progressive standards.  Also, lack of clear objectives also allows for goalposts to be moved or even removed.  A trainer can make arbitrary decisions based on how they feel, as opposed to objective reality.  Telling someone “I want you to be able to carry over ‘x-skills’ to the next task may sound clear, but doesn’t begin to take into account the nuances that differ task to task.  So a “squishy” direction like that only serves to disadvantage the recipient of such instruction.  It’s hard to tell someone that they haven’t met standards when the standards are constantly changing or unclear. It puts the trainee in a situation of never feeling secure or knowing how things are going. 

Secondly, how many times do you really think you need to tell someone what needs improvement? You should be able to tell someone something and then see if they implement, then correct as needed.  To be so unsure that someone has heard you that you feel you have to hammer home a point 10 times in the same conversation only serves to both instill that lack of confidence in the trainee. It also makes them feel that lack of trust.  Gentle reminders tend to work better than a “omfg, I can’t believe you make this stupid mistake again” attitude and approach.

Third, watching over someone’s shoulder constantly makes him or her feel like a trapped animal, heightens tension and only makes him prone to more mistakes.  A person who feels trapped and afraid is much less likely to achieve the best results.

Fourth, public ridicule/reprimand is not a good training tool.  It only serves to alienate your trainee and make them more resistant to what you are trying to train them to do.  Public belittlement is also damaging to the confidence you are trying to build, it only heightens the sense of being cornered and watched.

Fifth, micromanaging is like squeezing a fistful of mud… the harder you squeeze, the more you lose hold of.

Those are some of the things that ‘went wrong ‘in my training process.  It’s taken me nearly two weeks to be able to get most of the emotional drek out of the way to begin to a clear post-mortem on it.  The good news is that a bit of analysis gives me tools that I can use moving forward.

Rebuilding

I have many tasks right now.  A  huge one is regaining the confidence that was effectively trashed in this experience.  I also have to stop living through fear, but that entails rewiring my brain. So I have a lot of rewiring to do all over my brain.

I have a core confidence that we will get through this. I just don't like the uncertainty and that puts that uncomfortable queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. That feeling is my fear response, so I am having to learn to recognize the fear, honor it, but not let it sit with me and spiral me down into dark, negative space.... and that is so easy to do.  I don't think I am a normally depressed person, but I do have times when it gets dark and everything feels like a battle. So then the trick becomes sitting with and accepting the unknown for exactly what it is.

When the fear response sets in, it tends to dominate all processes.  But like one website I read, you have to learn to not pull the alarm bell... you can feel the fear without freaking out.  And you can intellectually know a lot of things, but until it translates into GUT knowledge, it is harder to integrate that knowledge into your process.

In this society, women are told to be humble and not take credit for their own successes. You downplay your success... while men are told to trumpet their successes to the world.  This is evident in the wage gap, the lesser value of women's work unless men have taken it up, etc.

But the truth is that I HAVE achieved a great deal. I have been a successful nurse in many settings over the past 10 1/2 years, I am a successful US Army officer, I have two great kids who are achieving in their own interesting ways, I have a successful (almost) 27 year marriage, I lost 60 lbs and have kept it off, I am an accomplished knitter and spinner, and so many more.  And what's funny is that I feel compelled to explain why I am enumerating my positives... which is a form of downplaying what I do.

Additionally, the way I was treated in school by the other kids often made me feel incompetent and stupid.  I have always been the sensitive one, easy to tears, easy to anger, easy to laugh... just generally emotional.  I was raised in a nurturing home, but when I got out into the real world and saw that other people didn't treat me or anyone else with lovingkindess, I was confused.  And honestly, I am still confused.  Things work better when you are nice and genuine with people... but only if everyone is on that same page.  Most of the time, my trust and openness has served me better than subterfuge and general asshattery... so I expect back what I am giving... and I get hurt when it doesn't work that way.

I guess you would think that after getting burned as many times as I have, I would be a hard person, but it really isn't in my nature to be that way.  I don't want to be bitter, cynical, mean.  I like having an open and happy approach to the world.  The problem is also that when I meet people who aren't trusting, the act as though I'm playing an angle or trying to get something over on them... even though I'm being genuine.

So I guess some other takeaways from this experience, apart from the learning to surrender (not in a let the world run over you way) to what is, is to learn to not tip my hand or open myself up too soon.  I need to be cautious and get the lay of the land first... or I will end up railroaded and humiliated like I did in this most recent misadventure.  Some lessons are harder won than others.

ruminations

I am glad that I have drill this weekend. Once again, the Army has come through for me.  It is keeping me busy and getting me out of the apartment for the weekend.  I got to talk to people about everything and nothing... and have a general change of scene and society... and that carries a value that is hard to enumerate.  So now I'm safely ensconced in a hotel room while the snow falls outside.

I am still feeling angry and resentful to a certain degree, but honestly it's actually quite small. Mostly I just feel sad... sad that it didn't work out, sad that there are others still working there, sad for those who hurt me.  And it's a real feeling of pity.... I'm sorry that they are so convinced of their rightness, their perfection, and yet seemingly so unhappy.  I don't think that many of those who treat others badly are particularly happy themselves. There is usually something they are trying to protect, be it turf, or something deep inside of themselves. So really I feel more pity than anything else.

Even though this makes my situation financially rather precarious, I need to move forward and not spend all that time and energy on anger and resentment.  It's fine to acknowledge them, but not to live in them.  I'm going to forgive and move on.

Sometimes it IS personal.

Yeah, I’m still processing being fired. How I could go from such success in my most recent job at Callaway County and with my Army MOB to Ft. Hood, TX to being such a seemingly abysmal failure here seems incongruous to me.  I’m in no way saying that I didn’t make mistakes…. Hey! Human!  I wish those mistakes hadn’t happened, but if I were perfect I would be a robot.  I have only been fired from two jobs, the previous one truly wasn’t personal, it was situational… but I feel this firing had a lot of personal elements to it.

So of course the fault lies somewhere in the middle of this whole thing…. Some theirs, some mine. Fair enough.  To try and press the point that my poop don’t stink and is made of solid gold… well no flight on that goose. However, in retrospect, I still stand by my gut intuition that says there was a personality conflict with my direct supervisors very early on and that combined with me tipping my hand early on about being nervous about the situation working out since there was so much riding on it was my downfall.  They smelled blood in the water and took advantage.

I just got early on that they really didn’t “get” me… my sense of humor, my personality, my Army service, any of it… nor do I think they really wanted to try. They were put off early on, which sealed my fate.  Usually just being myself will ease situations and initial personality conflicts smooth themsleves over. Sadly, I think I was prejudged. In retrospect, I was bullied too.

Perhaps these statements sound paranoid, but please keep on, it will make sense as you go on.

First off, I moved 2000 miles for this job and have been the main support for my entire family for a long while now.  Those stressors alone were extraordinary.  Then I chose to uproot to a new city, new job, new everything… alone.  This was way different than the MOB to Ft. Hood… there I had the support and familiarity of my Army unit… though not my family, they were friends who knew me and people I could talk to since we were all in the same boat.  It wasn’t easy but it was a cake walk in comparison to what the last few months have been here in Washington.

So, I landed at the job on my 3^rd full day in Washington.  Everything seemed fine.  I tried to crack some jokes and be myself but the chilly reception was apparent to me.  I was given a checklist of things that stated at the bottom that they expected me to be able to do by 6 months into the job.  So I am concerned because of the niggle in my gut, but not too worried.  However, I did express my concern and was told everything was fine.  Hand was tipped, weakness shown, blood in the water.

So I had my 6 month checklist and was working diligently on it. I was being given different diseases to work on, but there was always something wrong and positive feedback was limited or eclipsed by the negative.  It was really difficult to go to work on a daily basis with any confidence when any gains you feel you are making are constantly being undermined by the “Yes… but…”  So I had a check-in meeting with a higher level supervisor and aired my need for solid benchmarks and more frequent feedback.  I felt like I wasn’t really being trained, but more being expected to know everything upfront and then being excoriated for making mistakes.  I also felt belittled and stupid. 

So the meeting with the supervisor was helpful for a few weeks, it did get some benchmarks and a training plan. However, at the next training meeting I was told that my meeting of one of the benchmarks really didn’t count… which pretty put me back at square one.  I accepted it and didn’t report it higher (and probably should have) because I was trying to move on in my training anyway.  I really didn’t think about it much.

However I think the fact that I talked to the upper management put me on the radar and also inadvertently exacerbated a turf war between the new upper management and the old guard middle management.

In these training meetings all the way through, I was told my telephone interviewing skills weren’t right, they needed work. I was not allowed to make calls. We worked on my phone skills; I gained confidence as they wanted me too.  I was never told that my skills are good or adequate, just that they were “better”. Goal was never achieved…I was given lots of tips and pointers... and I worked to put them into practice, but I still got the "it is getting better"... with no direction past a certain point. In one meeting I was told (paraphrasing here) that Public Health messaging always has to be right (no argument there) and “flat”, so to speak.  I’m guessing that meant no personality or at least not my personality.  I was told not to use any colorful language because it might confuse people, this was after I had been dealing with a facility that had an outbreak and I said, “Norovirus can spread like a fire in a dry Kansas summer.’  Okay, yeah, I could have said “wildfire”… but if it had just been a message of “tame your metaphors”… no sweat, but they had to add “People here wouldn’t understand that. It must be a Missouri thing.”  The other piece that came out of that same meeting was criticism for using the military alphabet to help someone spell my last name “Sierra-Charlie-Hotel-Mike-India-Delta-Tango”.  I was told not to use military slang since it might offend people. They did not want to turn off the public since “most people in Washington didn’t support the war”.  If their reason was “use something more people will understand”, again, no sweat… but there was a veiled assumption about my military service and how I felt about the current conflicts our country is involved in.  So yeah, it was personal.

I have also come across some information that has validated my experience.  One nurse admitted she takes Pepto Bismol every day, another told me that in her first few weeks there, she would end up on her living room floor sobbing in a fetal position and that an MD stationed there (via the CDC) spent her early days wondering what she was going to get yelled at about each day.  I also spoke to the union rep who said that my experience wasn’t unusual and that the lack of clear training, and that it's not uncommon for former employees to have PTSD.

In the end, I cannot argue that it was not a good fit. I am honestly glad to be out of there. Strangely, the stress of being unemployed is less than the stress of going to work sick everyday.  I am not proud about how I let them made me feel. I am sorry I tipped my hand so early. But I am proud that I stood up for my needs.

I have learned a lot. And those lessons will go forward with me.

Examining the rocks... day 2 of whatever this is.

Woke up early… with some things really coming clear in my head. Today is going to be an angry day, I think. I woke up thinking about that training issue. So I will try to be constructive about what I think a good training system is and isn’t…. and then I will look at what I just went through.

At the outset, any training plan needs to have general goals undergirded by specific, measurable goals and benchmarks with general timelines. And the only way to make this work is to have clear, unbiased communication.

Here’s what happened to me… I was given a general checklist of things that “I was expected to be able to do by 6 months”. I had to fight to get clear benchmarks with measurable goals, but didn’t get them until 2 months in. So I was already behind the 8 ball in behind in trying to reach the goals that had been set out. I thought I was starting to “get it” only to find the goalposts had not only moved, they had been removed and replaced… all the stuff I’d been working to master no longer counted. I was also given other goals to achieve, which I understood needed to be completed by the 6 month point… but I only started being given additional things to master a few weeks ago. And yet, ostensibly, I was fired for not meeting standards.

In addition, instead of an ongoing dialogue about how I was doing… I would be told I was doing fine when I would ask and then get slammed in training meetings. Things would be “getting better” but they would still be vulturing over me. At some point in training a person you have to let go and let them make mistakes… that is what training is for.

In this passive-aggressive atmosphere it was nearly impossible for me to succeed. It was uncomfortable from very early on. So honestly, yesterday’s events really weren’t all that surprising… I just honestly thought I would have had more warning.

Sudden crash onto the rocks...

The unknown is very scary. I am sitting very solidly in that space that makes me very uncomfortable, but you know, considering what I just left, I’m not really sure it’s any worse. I can get some of the rest that I desperately need… and have needed for 5 or more years. I am bone weary in just about every way imaginable. I’m tired of struggling… tired of fighting… tired of you name it. My heart is weary and needs some nurturing. In a way it’s a relief to not have to go to work every morning with my stomach in knots and feeling like I’m going to throw up.

I don’t regret leaving Missouri, it really was time to go and Mark and I wanted to move out here. The job just seemed perfect and I was so excited and happy to be headed out on a new adventure, but from very early on, I started having misgivings.  It’s not any one thing, but I think I got off on a wrong foot and I can’t even say when it happened exactly… but whatever it was a fatal mistake from which I never recovered. Additionally, I did make mistakes, which I know but choose not to enumerate here… but I’m not sure any of them were truly fatal… but they certainly seemed to be aggregated in such a way that they couldn’t be overcome, no matter how good I was doing in every other aspect of the job.

The fault lies in the middle somewhere, I’m honestly not sure where. It has been chalked up to “not meeting standards” and “not a good fit”… which, as one friend put it, “Translation -- bonking heads with ... who? The boss or the old hand?" Also there was an issue I had with the training system, or lack thereof… the newer management was trying to change things but the middle management that has been there forever really didn’t seem to want to. So as the same friend put it, despite my mistakes, I became collateral damage in an apparent turf war. And how do you know about something like that before you take a job?

So… here we are, moving forward into completely uncharted waters. I am frightened, scared, angry, depressed, lonely… and every imaginable combo of emotions… often all at the same time. I have been much heartened by the amazing outpouring of support by friends and family. One of my friends from my (now former) job even came to spend a few hours making sure I was okay. So we baked cookies and watched Mamma Mia. That helped more than I can say.

So here I am, washed up on the rocks of life. I need to start by regrouping myself and then start forging a new path forward. Mark will be here next week, so I won’t be alone for too much longer. I have hope that being on the rocks won’t be for too long.