Transitions

Posting has suffered here as of late. The posts are shorter and not so prolific. The reason for that is that I finally have grown tired of my diversity hire of a boss and have been taking steps to transfer to a different department. I have been working for both departments lately: 3 twelve hour shifts for my home department, and 2 twelve hour shifts per week in my soon to be new department. I hope that I will be released from the old department in the next several weeks, which will give me some more time off.

The road to this has been long. I was hired to work from 7a to 7p for 3 twelve hour shifts per week. I was to supervise the unit, write the monthly work schedule, and generally make sure that screw ups weren’t being made. It was a new position created because mistakes were made in the unit that resulted in the death of a patient, and I would answer directly to the department head. They told me when they hired me that my qualifications greatly exceeded those required for the position, and I was hired at what they claimed was the top of the scale for the position.

The unit was falling apart. Of the 14 employees, 9 of them were gone in the first three months I was there, resulting in me working 5 and 6 twelve hour days per week for the three months it took to hire replacements. So I spent last summer working 60 to 80 hour weeks. I was told during that time that I would not be writing the monthly schedule.

In August, they tried to hire another supervisor to split duties with me. He didn’t meet the minimum requirements for the position, but they were hiring him for $12K more than I was making. I was livid and expressed my displeasure. I even did my own background check on him, and discovered that he had been arrested three months before for punching an Orlando cop. The wound up not hiring him.

Then in October, annual evaluation time came, and mine said that I had missed the quarterly staff meeting, and that I was not doing my job because I was not writing the schedule (that they had told me not to write). That quarterly meeting I missed? I missed it because it was being held on my only day off, sandwiched between a 6 day workweek and a five day workweek. Even 132 hours worked in 12 days wasn’t enough. They wanted more.

So November came and they hired another new supervisor to split duties with me, and she also wasn’t qualified for the position, so they had to rewrite the job description in order to accommodate her. Her pay was equal to mine.

Beginning the week of December, they changed my working hours to be 11a to 11p, while also cutting my hours an bonuses. Now my take home pay was lower by about $15k.

Then I was told that the new supervisor would be writing the schedules. Guess who is now getting her choice of what days she wants to work, and guess who is working the leftover days? So I began looking to see what I could do. I was prepared to quit and see if I would be eligible for unemployment, since they had cut my pay and changed my hours so drastically.

Instead, a department head that I had been working with all throughout the COVID outbreak in August asked me why I was wasting my talents where I was. She said that I could work some OT in her department, and once my original department head releases me, I could work for her.I could additionally set my own work days. For now, that means temporarily working 5 days a week, but I get all sorts of bonuses and OT for it.

So that’s where I am. Buried in work, and waiting for my original department to release me. Hopefully another couple of weeks, and I can take it easier. A little.

For now, I can bank away a few thousand a month extra. Today is my only day off this week.