Me

You will recall from my post in May the manager of the ED calling me in to the office to tell me that “people” were complaining I was too slow. I proved, using the analysis tools in our charting software that I wasn’t slow. In fact, I was in the middle of the pack. That first conversation was in April.

In May, we had another talk that I wasn’t seeing my share of patients, and “people” were complaining I wasn’t carrying my share of the load. That’s what prompted the post in May. Again, I turned to the charting software and showed I was the third most productive nurse in the ED in terms of number of patients, even though I am PRN and worked far fewer days.

In June and July, I was getting some serious overtime with bonus money. In July, the department announced only full time employees are eligible for bonus money.

Two weeks ago, I was working with a pair of charge nurses. A patient came in and they were assessing the patient. They missed the fact that their patient was having a stroke. I pointed it out to them, and they said they were handling things and not to worry about it. The patient was in fact having a stroke, and the hospital is now freaking out about liability. I got called into the office and was asked about the case. I responded things could have gone better. The manager told me I was being written up for not overriding the charge nurses. I responded by telling her I didn’t want to be a scapegoat, especially since the two charge nurses aren’t receiving any discipline. I was overruled by the charge, I don’t see how that’s on me, the patient wasn’t even my patient. She replied by saying I am a nurse just like they are, and I am legally responsible for whatever happens to the patient, since I was in the room. She said she didn’t care if I signed the discipline or not, it was going in my file. The other manager who was there as a witness was sitting behind her, nodding at the points I was making. I got up and walked out of her office, walked over to the charge nurse and told her I was going home, clocked out and left. When I got home, I called the manager’s boss, who agreed with me and said I should not receive discipline for that.

It turns out my plan from May didn’t mean a thing when you can get disciplined for what your boss did:

So my plan here is now: No write-ups, no escalations, no drama, not being the fastest, best, or most efficient nurse. Keep my head down, collect my $50 an hour, and go home at the end of the day. If someone says something to correct or counsel me, the answer will be “Got it—I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you for your input.”

My next shift, and the manager acted like nothing happened. This morning, the new schedule came out. I am not scheduled to work a single shift for the next schedule period. That schedule means I won’t be working for most of October and all of November. Since she can’t write me up or fire me, she is going to just not schedule me to work.

The part telling you this is a personal thing and not a management decision: two of the nurses who work there got ten overtime shifts between them, complete with $500 per day bonus money. Each of those bonus shifts is costing the company $800 to $1000 more than a PRN nurse (me) working that same shift. I asked why I wasn’t scheduled and was told it’s because we “are fully staffed, so there is nothing left for you as a PRN.”

EDITED TO ADD:

The charge nurses are supposed to randomly choose 3 patient charts to audit from the previous month. There were 1100 charts available to be audited from last month. Both of the charge nurses on the night shift picked my charts for all 6 of them. The odds of 6 charts being randomly selected from the same nurse out of a pool of 1100 charts are 1 in over 700,000.

END EDIT

This is like a girlfriend who doesn’t want to date you any longer, but doesn’t have the guts to break up with you herself, so she makes you so miserable that you initiate the breakup, then she gets to play the role of the injured party.

This is why it sucks to work with women or have a woman as a boss. Women are scheming, drama seeking backstabbers doing underhanded passive/aggressive stuff like this while patting themselves on the back for being a powerful boss woman.

Anyhow, I am looking for another part time gig. In the meantime, my income is still higher than my expenses, so I don’t need to work. The loss in income will just cut into my guns and ammo budget for a bit. I don’t think I want a regular job any longer, unless someone comes along and offers something awesome.

I’ve been getting recruited pretty hard for travel positions, so I may just take a 13 week contract January-March. There are a couple available that pay more than $2k a week. One of them is just a 90 minute drive from here. I will call the recruiter and see what they can get me. I won’t quit for now, because I get to say I still work there, which makes a resume look better.

I thought about putting in for unemployment, but you only get $275 a week, and that isn’t worth the hassle.

Part of me wants to take the fact that young nurses are being paid overtime and bonus money while a PRN nurse who is older is being cut out of the schedule. Isn’t that how people get ahead now?

After this morning’s post went live (I wrote it last night) I was supposed to go to work. I was scheduled to atart my shift at 10 am. I got a text from the charge nurse at 8 am, telling me I was being pushed back to 1 pm. That cuts a 12 hour shift down to only 9 hours, but since I am PRN, that happens all the time during the slow season (summer), so I have just learned to live with it. I’ve been on my way to work and been pushed back, having to turn around and go back home for a couple of hours. Not personal, just business. Still, the ED is a bit slower than planned on those days and they are saving a few dollars by having less people there.

So, having been rescheduled, I got in the middle of a couple of small projects. At 10:30, I got another text saying never mind, they are now swamped and they want me to head in.

No. I will head in when I am ready.

That is a game that I am not playing. There is a rule in nursing that they want you to call out at least two hours prior to your shift’s scheduled start so they can find coverage. As I said in the first paragraph of this post, I’ve been called off while already on the way. It’s just rude, but I live with it.

However, pushing my 10am shift back at 8am, only to change your mind at 10:30 is bullshit. I don’t want this to become a habit.

I was scheduled to come in at 10am. Then you unilaterally changed that schedule to 1pm. Now because you are suddenly busy, you are asking me to come in earlier than my shift.

So I will teach them a lesson about courtesy. I will let them be in the weeds until I am good and ready to come in. Again, paying me for my services doesn’t mean that you own me. Will they fire me? Of course not. They already don’t have enough nurses, and this is more the charge nurse’s fault for calling me off than it is mine.

If they decide to be irrational and fire me anyhow, I have options. I get at least 10 recruiting emails per week. There are half a dozen emergency rooms hiring within a 45 minute drive of my front door. Therre are also plenty of travel gigs. I don’t need to take abuse. Employers think that, because they can eventually hire someone to replace you, they can treat you as a consumable stock item. Next time you go to call me out so you can save a little money, remember this day when you were swamped without enough help.

Entitled Teen Fired from Walmart Refuses Vest, Gets Arrested

At a Walmart store, a 16-year-old employee was fired for repeated issues like eating at the register. Managers demanded her company vest back per policy.

She refused, claiming she'd only give it to another manager… pic.twitter.com/69NtSf2S3r

— WWG1WGA🇺🇸♥️ (@WWG1WGA_QQ) August 25, 2026

I don’t think arresting her for refusing to return the vest goes anywhere. They are arresting her under the claim that she was stealing her company vest. She didn’t steal it, they gave it to her. The easiest way for an employer to get the vest back is to hold her paycheck until it is returned. This is a bullshit charge that goes nowhere. Since they gave her the vest, this is purely a civil matter and not a crime. I am willing to bet the charges don’t ever get filed over this.

Back when I was a firefighter and a much more outspoken person than I am now, I had a job at a theme park on my days off, working as a life guard. I caught the manager altering time cards to eliminate the other lifeguards’ overtime. To be fair, we had a history because I was busy dating my way through the female lifeguard staff, and he was angry because I had been spending some quality time with one of the lifeguards he had been dating. We had a heated discussion, and I told him I was going to HR. He told me that the argument had made me late coming back from my 30 minute lunch, so he was suspending me and wanted my employee ID. I told him “No problem, but the paragraph on the back of the ID says I owe $20 if I lose it, so I want a receipt.”

He refused to give me a receipt, and tried to snatch it from my hand, so I stuck the ID in my wetsuit. I then went to the locker room to retrieve my belongings. He followed me in there, calling for security on the radio and demanding I also turn in the wetsuit. I told him he wasn’t getting the wetsuit because we were forced to pay for it through payroll deduction. (they took the cost of the wetsuit out of our pay in 4 equal payments) He replied that this didn’t matter, because the company logo on the wetsuit meant it was company property. I grabbed my stuff from my locker, including the bag that had my Glock 19 in it.

I laughed at him and turned around to leave, only to see a company security guard standing in front of the exit to the locker room with his arms folded. The guard told me I couldn’t leave without turning in the wetsuit and my ID. I told him to get out of my way, or he would regret it. It was at that moment that the manager jumped on my back. As I tried to get rid of him, the security guard jumped in. So I did what I thought I needed to do while being attacked by two grown men- I drew my handgun and told them to get the fuck off of me. That worked.

As I walked to the exit of the park, security followed me. By the time I got to my car, I could hear the sirens. I locked my gun the car and waited. When the cops showed up, I told them everything. They went to talk to the manager. I was soon called over, and in front of the manager, the Sergeant asked me if I wanted to press charges. The manager couldn’t believe it as the cop explained to him that attacking me for what was obviously a civil matter was illegal. I was honestly surprised I didn’t get arrested.

I didn’t press charges. I was fired. I didn’t care, it was a shitty job anyhow. That manager only lasted another few months, then he left as well. Quit, fired, I don’t know. I still have the wetsuit and it still has the company logo on it. That incident was more than 20 years ago, and the wetsuit no longer fits. Oh, and the lifeguard I was dating? We broke up about that same time. I later found out she spent some time on the wrong side of the law for establishing a fake charity and scamming people out of money.

So yeah, I have had some shitty bosses. Being my boss doesn’t make you my owner, nor does it make you my boss when I am off the clock. I can be a stubborn asshole like that.

Just not feeling like blogging today. My tank is empty. I’m going to spend the day in the pool, maybe go get a haircut. The nearest barber that uses a straight razor and cuts hair for men and not queer haircuts is about 40 minutes away.

See you all tomorrow.

I don’t like broadcast radio. Too many commercials. In an hour of listening, you hear 6 to 10 songs, and it’s difficult to find a channel that plays music you listen to that comes in clearly. I’m an adult, I don’t need my songs changed. Radio versions of songs sometimes play with entire verses removed. For example, Semi Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind has an entire section of the song edited out.

For more than 20 years, I have maintained a SiriusXM account. I liked it because it played uncensored songs. The big draw for them was Howard Stern, but I never found him to be entertaining in the least. I think I listened to his show twice. Here is how his show typically goes:

• Stern: Here is my guest, Miss Cherry Forever. Hi Cherry. Nice tits.
• Cherry: Thanks.
• Stern: Can I see them.
• Cherry: Sure.
• Stern: Oh, those are awesome.

Stupid. It’s radio, I can’t see them or her, so why do I care about this juvenile conversation? The dude is more than 70 years old, and isn’t entertaining at all. It’s like listening to your grandfather hit on a 20 year old. Creepy and childish.

For music, I started listening to iHeart radio through their app and using Android Auto in the car a few years ago. The only reason I maintained a subscription was because I liked the talk radio on the Patriot channel. That channel was good, but many shows I enjoyed have been removed.

• The Mike Church show was one I enjoyed. They replaced it with Breitbart news, which is a complete snooze fest. It’s like listening to Conservative NPR and is frankly boring.
• There is Sean Hannity, but that guy comes across as a phony to me, and his show is just pandering.
• I used to find Mark Levin entertaining, but haven’t listened to his show in years.
• Stacy on the Right is the DEI version that lets the channel have a black woman on the air.
• The only show I enjoy now is The Wilkow Majority.

Sirius was $4 a month when I began listening. Then it went to $9. Now, because we have two cars, it is costing over $50 a month. My cable TV provider doesn’t charge me for each TV, neither does Netflix or any other company. I just can’t justify $50 a month to hear Andrew Wilkow. He was the only reason I stayed with Sirius for the past few years, and I just don’t want to keep on doing it at that cost.

So for the first time since about 2003 or so, I am without satellite radio. When I called to cancel, they tried to get me to stay at a monthly rate of $18 per car plus an extra fee for Internet listening. If anyone from SiriusXM happens to read this:

Your service is not so different from a hundred other streaming services. There is iHeart radio, Amazon music, Pandora, and a plethora of others. None of them charge $50 a month. You either have to offer real value over what those services offer, or you have to charge less. It’s not just you- I also dropped my Amazon music subscription, and they were charging me only $17 per month.

Once my employer stopped paying nurses bonus money for coming in when staffing was short, nurses naturally stopped coming in. I know I did. I stopped taking extra shifts, because my time off was worth more than the little bit of extra cash. I mean, I only work one day per week, sometimes two if I feel like it.

So now the ED is back to a staffing shortage.

So badly that I was called this morning and asked to work an extra shift today. I turned it down, because I am already working four 12 hour shifts this week, and had been cheated out of two of my three bonuses I was told I could have until they cancelled the bonus system.

So then they offered me a $25 per hour bonus if I would come in. OK, so I am working 60 hours this week. That’s just more money in the IRA for the future. I can be a whore like that sometimes. I guess they need to keep the emergency room open more than they need to save money.

A couple of examples of people being shady and not doing honest business on a handshake. The first is:

Because I am no longer a full time employee, there are benefits I no longer receive. One of them is insurance, so I just bought life insurance on my own. We don’t have a lot of debt, so two months ago, I got a small policy: $100,000 of insurance. I applied and got several offers from different companies. One of them came up with a quote for $1300 per year and received a letter that I would be covered for $25,000 until my physical exam, after which it would be increased to $100,000 unless issues were discovered. I paid the first year in advance, lump sum. This morning I found a letter in my mailbox, dated two months ago on the face of the letter, but postmarked three days ago. It said that due to my diabetes, they can insure me, but at a higher rate, and they would bill me for the increased rate. I disclosed the diabetes in my application, and I still haven’t had the physical exam.

Maybe the fine print gives the company the legal right to do this. That isn’t my point. My point is that the company knew about my diabetes when it quoted the price, accepted my payment, and told me the rate could change if the physical uncovered a problem. No physical ever took place, and no new problem was discovered. Changing the price under those circumstances feels less like underwriting and more like bait-and-switch. The problem is insurance policies are long, complex legal documents backed by a large insurance company with tons of lawyers on staff. You take what they give you, and don’t fight. Any fight will be long, expensive, and will involve some sort of legal exemption buried in the 40 page legalese of the policy. They are free to screw you as they see fit.

The second involves my employer. First, an explanation of how nursing scheduling works. This is how it works at every hospital I have ever worked at: The schedule comes out for 6 weeks at a time. When the new schedule opens for bidding, nurses can begin bidding for days on the schedule, full time first, then part time, then PRN. You can place bids for available to work, want off, PTO.

That is, for two weeks, full time employees get to ask for schedule changes. Let’s say you are a full time and normally work Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, but your kid has a dentist appointment on Thursday, so you request M-T-W this week. You would put in a bid for available to work Wednesday, request off for Thursday. As long as there is a spot, you get it. Alternatively, you could request PTO for that day, but that’s burning vacation for nothing.

Then for a week, the part time nurses bid for days that are left. Finally, the PRN nurses do the same for a week. After the four weeks of bidding are done, the schedule closes. The scheduler spends a week balancing and filling slots, then the schedule is posted. Once the schedule closes, no more requests are allowed. If you are assigned to work a day and can’t work, you either have to call in sick or find someone to swap shifts, which almost never happens.

Alright, so that’s the background.

You also know that recently, we haven’t had enough staff. It’s a regional problem- three different ED’s in the area that are part of the same hospital chain are critically short of nurses. They started offering bonuses for working extra shifts. I piled them on, and wound up working eleven bonus shifts in a single schedule. I collected nearly $5,000 in bonus money for picking up extra shifts.

When bidding began on the new schedule, I signed up for a total of eighteen extra shifts in a six week schedule- that’s 24 days of work in six weeks. One week, I am working five 12 hour shifts. Hey, I figured the bonuses wouldn’t last forever, and my wife is back to school as a teacher by then, might as well make some extra money. That would wind up being more than $23,000 in a six week period.

The day after the schedule was closed, my employer made an announcement: No more bonuses until you’ve worked 36 hours in a week. In other words, any full time employees get bonuses for every extra shifts, but part time and PRN dont get any unless picking up multiple extra shifts.

Whatever, I knew bonuses wouldn’t last forever. The prolem is the schedule is closed, so you still have to work the days you signed up for, but aren’t eligible for the bonuses that made you take them in the first place. Here is the closing of the email we got:

If you are interested in increasing your hours or exploring full-time opportunities, please reach out to management to discuss available options. Thank you for your continued dedication to our patients, your teammates, and our community. We are grateful for your commitment and the important role you play in delivering exceptional care every day.

I don’t care that the bonuses went away. We all knew they would eventually. What makes it shady was removing the bonuses AFTER people had volunteered to pick up the slack and telling them they can’t cancel the extra shifts. I value time off enough that I’m not interested in full time. I’m mercenary like that.

It’s enough of a “screw you” to anger everyone, but not enough of one to make you quit. What it does mean is that I won’t take one hour of extra shift unless I already have the details in writing, lest the deal get changed.

The part time and PRN nurses are all of the opinion that management deliberately waited until the schedule’s bidding process was closed. That locks the nurses into extra shifts for the last two weeks of the current schedule and the entirety of the next six week schedule, but without the employer having to pay the promised (and now retracted) bonus money. Eight weeks of nurses picking up extra shifts for a fraction of what it would cost to pay the promised bonuses.

Dishonest. Unethical.

OK, you got me. I am not going to quit over this, it’s not that big of a deal, as I still get my regular and overtime pay for it. However, it also means that I am highly unlikely to do you any favors in the future.

And don’t call us a team, because teamwork is a two-way street. Your employer isn’t your friend, they aren’t your buddy. This is a business arrangement, and I don’t come here because we are friends. I’m here for the money.

Both organizations made representations designed to influence my decision. After I relied on those representations, in one case by paying the premium, and committing to extra shifts in the other, they changed the terms while treating my commitment as irrevocable. Maybe their paperwork allows it. Our legal system means the fight is harder than the reward justifies. That does not make it honest. Nor does it make you ethical.

This is just how business is done nowadays. Get money however you can, and screw the other guy if he doesn’t like it. That’s his fault for being a gullible rube and trusting you at your word.

This is a holiday weekend, where I make time and a half plus bonus money. All of it together has me making more than $100 per hour. So I am busy, and when you work multiple shifts, there isn’t time for much else.

• 0700 Wake up, cook eat and clean up from breakfast, shower, get dressed
• 0900 Out the door
• 1000-2200 work
• 2300 home
• 2330 in bed

Do it all over again. Note that there is no time for blogging. Will resume on Monday.

In the ED where I work, I am one of only 18 nurses who work there. Two of those 18 nurses are PRN (I am one of them). Of those 18, two of them just got transferred to a different location, one just took a job in another department, and two quit. Doing the math, we just lost a quarter of our nursing staff. That tends to happen with nursing- it’s difficult to find good nurses, and competitors try to hire them away.

They are trying to hire more and have had a few interviews, but no one who has been offered the job has accepted. I’m guessing it’s because nursing pay in the area has climbed again and my employer is offering less than the candidates are being offered elsewhere. They will be forced to raise starting pay again, which is the only way to get a raise- about every two years, change jobs for more money.

At any rate, we still need to staff the place, and to do that, management has declared a critical need. When they do that, the bonuses come out. For the months of July and August, any shift you pick up in addition to your contract gets you a bonus: $33.33 per hour ($400 for a shift) on weekdays, $41.67 per hour ($500 for a shift) on weekends. Since I am PRN, I am only contracted to work one day per week, meaning that I get that bonus for every day that I work in a week beyond that first one. Even if I only work full time hours, I get $800-$1000 per week in bonuses.

The best part is that it is the slow season for emergency departments around the state, so our workload is low. High pay and low work? Of course I jumped on it. I am working a bunch this July, but I am going to make about $20,000 this month alone. When the August schedule gets done, I will try to do the same.

That just adds to the retirement fund. I will be busy, but still working less and making more than I would if I were full time.