Thursday, December 12, 2013

Wash me tender. Appreciate if not I no dey do.



I've been at my job for about 2years now. It used to be so stressful and emotionally and physically draining but not anymore. I now have a grip on things and I can stand my ground and speak up for myself. It took me a while to get to this place though. I sha suffered well well. That is gist for later. I've got a lot of stories to tell. 

The healthcare professionals esp nurses, doctors, pharmacists, lab techs don't really get the holidays off. By holidays I mean Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Day, Independence, Labour Day etc etc. We are open for business 24/7,365 days a year. You know No day is guaranteed to us humans. You fit get accident Christmas Day (God forbid) and I'm sure you won't wanna rush to the hospital and see the doors closed.lol.
My dad is a doctor and I remember when i was younger I wondered why he had to work during Christmas holiday. That's when he explained it to me using my example above. I never questioned his movements during the holidays again. lol.

Ok so most hospitals here rotate the holiday schedule of their staff so no one feels cheated. My place of work at the beginning of the year assigns you the holiday you will work, and the ones you will have off. For instance if you work on thanksgiving day, you will be off on Christmas Day but you will work Christmas Eve. Then if you work Christmas Day, you have New Years Eve off but work New Years Day. Am I confusing you? lol. I swear it's real easy to keep track of cos it's in our Employee account. I work at a very big hospital so they keep track of all that on the computer. 

Now that is just formality. You can do whatever you like with your holiday days. By whatever I mean you can trade with a coworker or you can work for them(cover their shift) without trade. It's the holidays and the management is real flexible. 
Ok now on my floor (4th), you have people that don't just want to work any holidays. The ones that think say na onli them get family. This past thanksgiving I heard the flimsiest excuses...

"Nov 28th is my son's birthday...".
"Nov 28th is my wedding anniversary." This one no even try to lie sef. Her marriage wey don collapse since that she's still trying to milk. 
Another one was, Nov 28th my mother is coming into town from Switzerland. This one just like to name drop her country of origin. Every time na so so Swiss this, Swiss that... All of us don tire to dey hear the Tory. It's like hello your country celebrates Thieves. Errr we steal from our country then hide it in yours. My friend take a seat with that accent i love.lol. I love her accent, can't even pretend to hate. Different characters I work with. 


Our manager can like to listen to their useless excuses though. Then she takes them off the schedule and leaves the people working shorthanded. That can be very annoying,having to do extra work. When I become a clinical manager I'm so asking for proof. "It's your son's birthday? Where's the birth certificate hon? You don't have it? Request denied.! Git your behind to work liar liar pants on fire.". lol. 

I've never minded working the holidays though. Please...I get paid double. My village is in Naija so im good with that. I'm the go to girl for my coworkers to ask for a cover on their working holiday. I've done it for the past 2years. This year though, like 3days before thanksgiving, I overheard them talking about me in the break room. Becky the girl I was covering her shift for thanksgiving was saying something like, she wishes their was alot of me. Cos then her friend Ann wouldn't have to work on thanksgiving either. Thats she means Me and the "other" me will cover them both. Then another worker said she (I) never have nothing doing on Thanksgiving anyway. I might as well make ten of myself and cover all of them. My friend and I were standing right outside the door and we heard laughter! There was alot of them in the room including my manager! dang! That stung a lil but right there i hatched my plan. 

The schedule had me off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Why? That's because I worked Labor Day and 4th of July. I knew they were gonna rush to ask me to work for them. So i waited and got my head ready to turn left and right if asked the will you work for me question. And boy it's been so  sweet turning all of them down. Revenge is sweet. I feel great! Joyous even! That outta teach them. They've been coming day in day out trying to get me to change my mind. I'm still like "No"! 

My manager called me in this morning and washed me. I figured they've talked to her about me.lol. She came Talking about how I am a great team player and hard worker and blah blah blah. She then asked for my help on Christmas Day. I politely declined. She asked me what im doing that day and I said I want to sleep and eat.  Oh you should have seen her face. Their poor little "slave" girl turned them all down. I said thank you for the acknowledgement and walked out. This ain't the fifties yo! I can totally do that now. Appreciate what you've got. Forget the money...y'all gotta learn to respect someone. Sheesh ;)

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