Ethical dilemmas

When I was leaving work today, feeling pretty vulnerable and close to having a good cry in the car on the way home I was thinking that I hadn't felt this way since I was engaged in clinical nursing and something really bad had happened. I was speaking to a 'mature' staff member who had recently been pushed by management in a meeting to the decision of "what are you going to do?" answering "I'm going to retire" . Today's discussion with me included "I've had enough of this crap, I'm not happy here, life is too short and I'm moving on" Those sentiments are difficult to argue with and as I stated "like lightening striking all around me" in relevance por moi. Somehow I felt guilty for the dysfunctional situation within which we work. But mostly I was saddened that a system which supposedly cares for vulnerable people doesn't care for it's own. I provided what support I could but was left shaken with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe I'm not as resilient as I used to be, maybe it' s hitting too close to home or maybe I just need to have a good look at where I am in the workplace.

Speaking of ethical dilemmas....One of the social workers today was telling me that in her first ethics class they had been given a case study of a mentally challenged, married couple who were having a child and wanted to keep the baby. She was telling me that the decision was straight forward to the younger members of the class "no way, take the baby it's not fair to it" but the more mature class members were saying "wait a minute, why take a baby out of a loving home, lets put supports in, if they can't read have someone come and read to all of them" She said "lots of things which seem very black and white become more grey as you get older - not just your hair"

Since the man of the house had headed in to camp to check things out and stay overnight I was able to feel sorry for myself with only companion animals watching. I whipped up an apple supreme cheesecake (yum) and am grateful that it has to cool or I'd eat the whole thing. Ate what I wanted for supper while catching up in a phone call on the news with my travel mate of cruise fame. I certainly don't want to be single but her spontaneity is to be envied. She was described by a friend as "a person who always has a good time no matter where she goes" so she was therapeutic for me in my fragile state.

Lest my Eyore posting brings you down...I leave you with a smile a colleague forwarded:



Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of ?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My Mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms & dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's
who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween. With apologies for the visual images this conjures up I offer the following Halloween quote:

I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween. ~Author Unknown

It’s one of those spooky, cool evenings with crispy leaves scattering and blowing in the wind that would’ve been the highlight of my year about 40 years ago as we collected treats which would’ve provided a sugar high for the weeks to come. Now it’s become a time to see how much the neighbour’s kids have grown over the past year and catch up on the news with their chauffeurs. We sure remember those days when our kids were twisted tight as springs and now it’s only the cats that are wound up. Here is Stanley checking out the jack o’lantern I carved before supper. You can see he’s Mister Cranky Pants as he’s just woken up from a nap. There are fewer little ones each trick or treating each season so I have to be sure not to buy too much candy as the big kid here doesn’t need it. He keeps making foraging runs out to the dish in the front entry and I continue to threaten him there may be one more little one yet to arrive. So far we’ve had about a dozen goblins.

Today at work the costume theme was 50s and 60s so there were lots of poodle skirts and sweaters in evidence. Wearing my 1974 themed jean outfit of bell-bottoms, embroidered jean jacket, sandals, t-shirt, jean bag and tie around my head sure made me nostalgic for those simpler days. Especially with all the insanity at work today – 2007 style. This leads me to share some profound thoughts forwarded by one of my retired summer neighbours “retirement is still great. I keep reading your Blog so I know you are ready to retire and will have plenty to do when you do. I don't understand people who wonder what they will do when they have all that free time--I can tell them they will wonder when they ever had time to work. You sound like you are extremely busy, you already sound like you don't really have time to work. You better retire.” I most sincerely wish this were the case in the short-term. Sigh. And I can assure you that I was not the only person in my workgroup harboring these feelings by the end of the day.

Off to get ready for another day tomorrow. Just two more before the weekend. Yeehaw.

Monday Monday

Well not a live blog but not a dead one either. Today as I was making my way to the district facility for the day I was listening to CBC radio and they had a piece on about blogging and one of the types was a ‘live blog’ whereby a blogger was documenting an event (in this case some sort of techie conference) as it was happening, linking to the presenters, summarizing the goings on and the readers just had to keep hitting the refresh button on their browser to ‘be there’ in real-time. In my view this would move the blog from the realm of a hobby into an addiction. Although there was talk about earning money by linking ads to the blog and being paid according to the number of people who clicked on the ads, that sounded like it would take all the fun out of keeping friends and family up to date.

Actually the CBC was the most fun I had during my workday (defined as working when you’re paid mileage to travel for your job) as the remainder of it kind of sucked. I arrived to do the orientation sessions and …this may sound like déjà vu to some loyal blog readers because I’ve described the scenario I’m about to relate and it is not the first, not the second not even the third or fourth but more like the fifth or sixth time the events have unfolded as I am about to recount. The presenter ahead of me is supposed to finish by 10:10 a.m. and I come in to set up. I made my presence known at 10:10, again at 10:15 and finally stood in the doorway glaring like Snoopy on the top of his doghouse at 10:20. By 10:30 he concludes and sends the group off for a much needed break. I attempt to set up and am told by several of the new employees that the first HR presenter this a.m. couldn’t get the projector/laptop to work. I try to call HR at the urging of the tardy presenter just leaving although I did inform him that if they answered my call for help it would be the first time in 18 months they had ever answered the phone when I’ve been in difficulty. He smilingly comments on my negativity and heads off. As I am unfortunately correct about the lack of help from HR the ICP I’m doing the presentation for arrives with her laptop and we move to the room next door as there is a projector set up. By now it is 10:45 (remember I am to start at 10:15) and I have less than two hours to cover more than two hours of material. I am NOT impressed as you can imagine. The ICP heads off to HR to complain about the poor setup and threaten the HR Director that I am on my way up. When she was told the first HR presenter had GONE HOME after his presentation, she was livid. She tells me that as her huff arrived and she left in it the Director was frantically dialing technology folks and asking how much a projector cost. My nerves. I was unable to force myself to go up and deal with the situation as I was not feeling that strong and we have a large mortgage on this new house. And this just takes us up until noon but I’m too discouraged to continue on with the afternoon’s antics. To think that I’m headed back there tomorrow – different venue so hopefully things will go smoother.

On a more pleasant note we received an email from the baby daughter saying she had an 80 on her biology exam for muscles. And if anyone has experienced the torture of trying to commit all those Latin names to memory you will have to admit that is not a shabby mark. She is now slogging through a nursing paper. What fun. I am certainly pleased that I am not doing a term paper on any topic myself just now. If I was thinking of taxing unused areas of my brain I should be studying my Spanish for this winters getaway.

Tomorrow evening is scrapbooking and it looks like two of the shift workers in my circle are available to attend so that is a pleasant end to the day. I’ve got Swiss steak in the slow cooker for supper and have firmly instructed (none of that hinting stuff required here - this is heavy duty) the life partner that I expect an accompaniment such as rice or noodles to be waiting for me when I get home – or else! In my empty nest state I’ve gone from idle parental threats to idle partner ones.

Three day weekend details

Time to fill you in on the three day weekend now that it’s over and thinking about going back to work in the morning. It seemed to slip by even faster than some two-day weekends, but then again it was a busy time.

After work on Thursday I rushed home to get into camp before darkness caught us. This resulted in me just jumping into the clothes I had laid out and against my better judgment allowing the great white hunter to be in charge of packing the perishable provisions. This resulted in us spending the weekend without the brown bread I had stayed up late on Wednesday to bake as well as the milk. A caffeine deficiency headache from tea withdrawal was the outcome as after one encounter with canned milk (which had apparently been frozen) that separated in the tea into chunks I decided to wait for a decent cup of tea in the civilized world.

We did however, make it in to the camp before the light left us and were shortly joined by the #1 son and his girlfriend who walked in. A quick supper and then an early night as the journey was enough allow us to sleep like logs. The great white hunters were up before dawn and off to their tree stands until noon. This allowed the ladies the luxury of sleeping in before making a lumberjack breakfast. Being well fed, the wood fire stoked and the peacefulness of the wilderness led to an extended nap for the hunters before venturing out again. While they slept I assisted my guest in the fine art of cross-stitch, which she mastered quickly. Here is a photo of the boys heading out in the skiff down the lake through that blaze of autumn colors.Returning at dusk to a warm camp and stew for supper led to another fairly early night. Saturday morning saw the prodigal son return early as he lost his patience for sitting in the tree much to the chagrin of his father who had managed to bag a deer. This meant he had to return to the camp to find his assistant and retrace his steps – a rather rugged journey. While the gang headed out for the retrieval I cleaned the camp up for leaving. After their obstacle course/endurance test of returning with the deer, we stopped for some birthday cake as the # 1 son was 20 on Saturday and then headed out to register the deer at the station and hang it in the barn.

Of course two days in the woods leads to a day of cleaning up. So this meant five loads of laundry on the line, as it was a breezy, sunny fall day. A walk with the dog and then I headed over to the old house to scrub the walls in the kitchen and bathroom as the dampness has caused some mold spots. One of the hazards of leaving a place empty in the dampness we’ve had lately. I couldn’t interest any of the usual suspects in the movie so mister accompanied me to see Elizabeth. This meant he had to whine on the way home about how too much time was spent on that foolishness with Sir Walter Raleigh and all that talking about it. I had no energy to explain that if he only wanted to see the Spanish Armada and some of the other footage that would be called a documentary not a movie with dialogue. Such is the hazard of trying to insert a story of some type, especially (egad) should it be regarded as a chick flick not just a war yarn. He did drive at least.

So tomorrow is back to the usual grind again with two days in a row to head out to the district facility. All the sales in the Canadian Tire and Superstore flyer combined aren't enough to make me like it.

Pre weekend smiles

Well since I'm in high speed land I've taken a few moments of my lunch break to cheer you up before I head off for the weekend. This article is from the news of the day and it really makes you want to think of avoiding the hotel lobby at night when you travel on business especially if you've had a cheese pizza or a cup of coffee:

LONDON (Reuters) - A surge in naked sleepwalking among guests has led one of Britain's largest budget hotel groups to re-train staff to handle late-night nudity.

Travelodge, which runs more than 300 business hotels in Britain, says sleepwalking rose seven-fold in the past year, and 95 percent of the somnambulants are scantily clad men. "We have seen an increased number of cases over the years so it is important that our staff know how to help sleepwalking when it arises," Leigh McCarron, the chain's sleep director, said in a statement.

One tip in the company's newly released "sleepwalkers guide" tells staff to keep towels handy at the front desk in case a customer's dignity needs preserving. The company said naked wanderers often ask receptionists such questions as "Where's the bathroom?," "Do you have a newspaper?" or "Can I check out, I'm late for work?"

Studies have found that sleepwalking can be brought on by stress, alcohol, eating cheese or consuming too much caffeine. It generally takes effect an hour or two after going to bed, when people are first slipping into a deep sleep.

Asked Thursday why she thought 95 percent of its sleepwalkers were naked men, a Travelodge spokeswoman said: "We have more men staying with us than women, so that could be a factor."

Now that would cause some workplace trauma I'd say. Ugh. Have a good weekend.

Surplus of social life

Am still recovering from all the social life of late, enjoyable as it is you still have to get up and go to work in the a.m. Last evening we headed down the shore after work to visit with my former work group of safety officers. It was so good to see them all, especially as two of the guys are going to be retiring this year. We had a great supper and some laughs, too bad we had to leave early as it was a 2 hr drive each way. The Salty Rose cottages are unbelievable - a fireplace in the corner of the whirlpool tub - a featherbed topper and duvet on the queen sized bed in the loft of the larger cottage. All sorts of dishes, pots & pans and it even had a stainless steel lined dishwasher. Nicer than most houses. As we were pulling out of the driveway there were three deer grazing and sauntering along by the playground, just like pets.

Today at work was the day we had chosen for humor so the dietician (you wouldn't normally think of them as funny eh?) and myself distributed some jokes. You would be surprised at how difficult it is to source clean, politically correct but still funny jokes. We also handed out popcorn (no movies as no one has time to watch them and it makes them cranky to remind them) in all the departments. We left the inpatient nursing wing until last as I told my sidekick that these were the toughest nuts. When we arrived with the goodies one of the staff asked what the treats were for and I replied "the workplace wellness committee" but was quickly ambushed by a long service staff member who said "oh they're just trying to raise morale or something by handing stuff out" to which I replied "the only one who can increase morale is yourself" She then turns to me and says "you should make it so I can take a week's vacation as there's no replacements" I told her I'd left my magic wand at home today. As I walked away I thought, now I took extra worktime I don't have to do some of these activities this week and why did I do that? Some people need to retire even before I do. This is going to cause even greater RN shortages as highlighted by an article in the media today:

TORONTO (CP) — While the number of nurses working in the country is climbing, the increase isn’t rapid enough to offset pending retirements, the Canadian Nursing Association warned Tuesday. Nursing schools are graduating just under 8,400 nurses a year but 12,000 a year are needed to replace those approaching retirement age, Lisa Little, the organization’s associate director of public policy and communications said from Ottawa.

Little was commenting on an annual report on the size and distribution of the Canadian nursing workforce released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. "Out of the CIHI report we learn that more than 50,000 or 20 per cent of the RNs are eligible to retire right now. They’re over the age of 55," she said. "And there are more RNs employed in the ages of 50 to 54 than any other age group. We have a very skewed distribution." The report suggested the percentage growth in the national nursing workforce has actually exceeded that of the Canadian population over the past five years, growing by five per cent compared to three per cent growth in the population as a whole. But it also noted the average age of working nurses continues to creep up, reaching nearly 45 years of age in 2006.

Little said increasing the intake in nursing schools is only part of the needed solution. Finding innovative ways to keep nurses healthy and working longer also has to be part of the approach.

A little later on one of the admin staff wandered by a group of us in the hall and asked "why is there a camisole on the railing in the stairwell?" One of the group there was a staff member has a rather diminished sense of humor and who remains at work but on most days has actually retired. I turned to her and mischieviously said "that's yours isn't it?" to which she replied "what's a camisole?" Some folks lead really sheltered lives.

Well this evening as I waited for the menfolk to make it out of the woods from taking the provisions in - I've been baking up a storm for the redneck weekend. A loaf of brown bread, chocolate chip cookies and a chocolate cake for the boy's birthday on Saturday. I've received word that the prodigal son (who stayed for supper) will be bringing the girlfriend along for the weekend so I must get some more social craft activities together (had planned to read) for tomorrow's trip in then time to crawl into the nest.

And there's more

I thought I had posted for the day but wait...there's more. I came home from work today to find the two 2L of milk and one 2L of orange juice still in the milk crate. Today was 22 c from about 10 a.m. on, just a beautiful fall day. The man without a memory had offered to retrieve the milk as I was leaving early and I reminded him of his promise as I was leaving and wrote a note on the whiteboard. I have to tell you that I didn't feel good about seeing it sitting there by the road when I left but...you have to trust. Let me assure you I had some kind of hissy fit when I returned home at 4:45 p.m. to find the milk cooking in the balmy afternoon temperatures. When I yelled in anger that he needed a brain transplant, the hired man who was painting lobster traps said "that's good I know what I can get him for Christmas" and I told him that he couldn't afford it on his wages as it would be like starting from scratch as there was nothing there to work with!

I pulled a stunt which was in the same league this evening. I got out the passport applications and started filling them in. This meant digging out supporting documents such as birth certificates etc. And trust me this part of the exercise was under protest from mister. When I have the things mostly completed the man looks at this passport and says "these don't expire until next year" so that's a savings of over $150 and all the angst we were getting into. Arrghh.

Definitely time to call it in for the day due to lack of sleep. We're off to visit tomorrow after work with friends (former coworkers) who are having a meeting in Rose Bay the next couple of days at Salty Rose Cottages: here's the link:

http://www.saltyrose.com/

Then we'll stop on the way home to pick up some groceries for the camp. Wednesday evening will be spent baking a birthday cake for the soon to be 20 yr old son and then Thursday we'll leave right after work for the redneck vacation as my team mate who's covering for me calls it. Yeehaw it'll make it a long weekend.