It’s been quite a while since the last time I wrote a blog. It’s because I was so distracted with attempting to find a job. My summer sabbatical ended after I finished Camp Kesem Maine. I stupidly thought I would be back at work by the beginning of September. I had no idea how applying for a job had changed since the last time I applied.

It had been twenty-nine years since I walked into St. John’s Mercy Medical Center Human Resources and asked for an application. I filled it out and then handed it back to them. I don’t believe I even had a resume and if i had it would have been typed out on a typewriter. I went home and received a call on my land line to set up an interview with the head nurse, assistant head nurse and a staff nurse. I’m pretty sure they offered my the job either right there on the spot or the next day and I started two weeks later after I gave notice to my other job. Now let’s jump into what it was like this time.

First of all job applications are filled out on line and you attach your resume. I do believe when I applied for the Lutheran School Nurse job I did do a resume on a type writer as I did not have a computer. Microsoft Word and I do not get along so my friend Liz was kind enough to let me just input the major information and she straightened it out for me. After it is submitted then I waited for an email to see if they were interested in setting up a phone interview with a nurse recruiter. That consisted of a schedule in which I picked a time that best worked for me, when she was also available. The phone interview lasted approximately thirty minutes and then she would decide if I was worthy of having an interview with the nurse manager. Then I had to drive in and interview in person. At one of my interviews I was asked why I became a nurse. I wasn’t expecting this, nor had I thought about it in many, many years so out of my mouth came “I wanted to be a doctor, but my father refused to pay for medical school and my mom caught my sister and I playing with matches under the covers when I was eight and threatened to take me to St. Johns burn unit.” Later I remembered the real reason why I became a nurse. When I was fifteen I had an emergency appendectomy and ended up in the hospital for a week. I had two incredible nurses, Joe and Caroline and I wanted to be just like Joe. So I was all prepared to say this at future interviews and I was never asked it again. The interview went well and then I had to set up a time to shadow. This means following a nurse around on the unit I had applied for to see if I liked it. I loved it and then had to wait for over a week to see if I would be offered the position. It was by far the longest week of my entire life!

So now I have a job and I am like great I will get to start working. It would be another week and a half before I would begin nurse orientation. Before I could start the classes I had to agree to a back ground check and go to the lab for a drug test and blood work. I am still immune to hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox. I was negative for TB. I just had the whooping cough vaccination four years ago so the only thing I needed was a flu shot which allowed me to whine about my arm hurting for three days.

After I passed all that it was on to five days of classes, computer stuff, videos etc. For me it was a very nice review but while sitting through it I thought I cannot imagine being a brand new nurse and be hit with all of this. I probably would have said forget this insanity. I’ll just be a hooker. These classes were called nurse integration and the managers are not called managers but team leaders. The charge nurses are called clinical support nurse. It gives the entire process a more family team feel to it. I suppose this is the type of stuff non medical jobs come up with.

So tomorrow I start in the unit and I cannot wait. However, it’s only for four hours and then I am off to another computer class for four hours. It’s how to chart specific for my unit and something I have never done so I’m pretty excited to learn something new. After that I will be working full time for six or seven weeks and then fear not I will be back to part time girl.

Mole Moral ~ Good things come to those who wait!