Yes, we just had Halloween. For some it’s a splurge of treats and dressing up, and for some they enjoy all the frights the holiday has to offer. Me, I prefer a good old harvest festival with lots of apple cider and autumn yummies.
But this year, I discovered something very frightening. Yes, I discovered a rip in the time space continuum. I kid you not; I am very serious. You see, most of you think that time is time. But, no, it is not!
You see, the last two weeks I have been conducting some regional training. And I realized, to my horror, that there is time and there is nurse time. Nurse time lives in its own time and space. While I, in my innocence, thought an 8 a.m. start time meant, we are there, settled and ready to begin at 8 a.m. I was apparently incorrect.
In the nurse time-space continuum, it means somewhere between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. the class would start. This is a mystery to me yet to be solved. And no one could explain why they assumed it was OK to meander in within this odd time. But yet, day after day, week after week it occurred.
There was even absenteeism time; where nurses just didn’t show up without letting anyone know. I can only assume they were swallowed up by a black hole in space.
And this phenomenon is not unique to my experience. Meeting and class leaders all over the nation report this. So just heed my warning and be careful out there. You don’t know when or if this rip in the fabric of time will get you. Just saying.
Just keeping it real,
Nurse Jackie
The Real Nurse Jackie is written by Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC, Senior Director of Clinical Innovation and Education for Mission Health Communities, LLC and an APEX Award of Excellence winner for Blog Writing. Vance is a real-life long-term care nurse. A nationally respected nurse educator and past national LTC Nurse Administrator of the Year, she also is an accomplished stand-up comedienne. The opinions supplied here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer or her professional affiliates.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
