Currently Watching Office Space - Special Edition with Flair (Widescreen Edition) By Jennifer Aniston, Diedrich Bader, Joe Bays, Josh Bond, Gary Cole see related

I've known that what went down in the office today would be coming for a long time now, but I didn't have the heart to go into it here.  Now that it's all said & done, I feel like a great weight has been lifted from me.  Gather 'round friends & I'll tell you a tale of sadness & woe.  & please note I'll use "&" whenever I damn & well feel like it.

Most of you will remember back of this I talked about one of the other nurses in the office who's work just wasn't up to par with the rest of us.  Being supervisor, I've tried to gently but firmly guide her into doing a better job.  Thing is, it just wasn't happening.  This electronic medical record (henceforth & forever will be known as the EMR, that damned computer thing, what drove me to drinking, or that-which-must-not-be-named) is stressing us all and is requiring each of us to really push ourselves to keep up.  She hasn't been keeping up.  And trust me, doctors tend to get vocal about that sort of thing.  So back of this, we (meaning me & my regional VP who is a God-send of a person!) had to write her up.  That seemed to shock her into a realization of "I need to improve my job performance".  That didn't last long.  So today me & VP decided she would be placed on probation, meaning the next step would be termination.  I called the nurse up to the conference room so we could talk to her.  We had already planned on advising her to start looking for another job.  She beat us to the punch.  She said, "Well I'll just go ahead & quit."  It's funny...I can't convey the emotion that was going on at the time.  Neither me nor my VP wanted to do this, and this particular nurse has worked with the company for over 10 years.  But it is a business, and sometimes you have to make a decision like this for what's best for the company.  Doesn't make it any easier though.  Well anyway, I could tell she was mad but I said, "Why don't you go ahead & turn in a two week notice.  That way you've got some time to look for another job & get at least one more paycheck from here."  But she wouldn't have that.  She cleaned out her desk, turned in her badge, and peeled rubber twice leaving the parking lot.  So now that leaves us with 3 nurses.  I doubt seriously that corporate will let us get another nurse even though we've been functioning with 4 nurses for 6 years now.  If they don't let us hire anyone else, I'll be sure to remind them of that fact next time they want me to travel somewhere to fill in.  But that's neither here nor there.  Meanwhile, I've had a headache most of the day from all this, felt nauseated and just all around like laying my head on my desk and not looking up.  I can't help but wonder...could I have done something different to change this?  Was I not firm enough with her when she made mistakes?  We're not talking about a mistake or two every couple of months...we're talking several consistant mistakes almost every day.  But a lot of them weren't life-threatening or major or what I consider to be very serious...yet what happens if something serious did happen?  I did try to take up for her when I could, when I felt that a particular mistake was not entirely her fault (which led to 3 barely civil "conversations" between me & my female doc.)  My head is starting to hurt again thinking about this. 

So like I said, there's just 3 of us now.  Our work load just increased significantly and while I think we can pull together & survive, I can't help but wonder about the future.  What happens when one of us is out sick, or on vacation, or (heaven forfend!) 2 of us are out for some reason!  I have a gut feeling that the events of today will have far-reaching consequences.   But maybe that's just indigestion.