Working 9-5

Ok, I haven't been working 9-5. that's just a catchy Dolly Parton song. What I have been doing though is working 5 days a week for the past 3 weeks. Most people would be shocked to know that I have never worked 5 days a week in my life. One of the percs of being a nurse is that you can work full time and only work 3 days a week, and that is what I have been doing for the last 5 years of my life. Until I moved to Chicago.

Apparently Northwestern has recently done a study that found that when nurses work more then 8 hours a day while on orientation they go into information over load and don't absorb anything after 8 hours. While this might be true for a new nurse who has never done anything for twelve hours, except maybe drink, I'm sure it can be tough. I'm not a new nurse now and don't function well working anything less than 12 hours. Sadly it is hospital policy and there are no exceptions to the rule, so I have been stuck working 8 hours a day 5 days a week. To most this might not sound so bad, but I hate it.

The way a day is for a nurse is you usually are so busy in the morning that you don't even sit down from the time you walk into your patients room until 1pm if you are lucky. After that you need to catch up on all the charting you didn't do in the morning because you were busy taking care of your patient. Somewhere in there you factor in lunch and that is about when you have to leave if you are only working eight hours. I end up feeling rushed all day and not getting the full experience of a nursing shift. Not to mention that my house has fallen into disrepair, I haven't gone to the gym except for twice this week (!), and I have had to lock Moose inside everyday while I am at work.

Lucky for me the policy only extends for the first 3 weeks and today was my last eight hour day. I cannot wait to hit the mid day lull at the gym or buy my groceries at the store when no one else is there!