The Final Shift, & An Awkward Moment
Jess and I are both here tonight at the Y, working our last shift. It's a strange feeling. It's a little sad, but also a very satisfying feeling, as we have completed our first contract.
It has been quite difficult to really be motivated about doing too much tonight. After all, how are they going to tell me that they didn't like how I charted tonight or that they didn't like the fact that I didn't bath my patients since I won't be coming back after tonight (don't have a tiffy, I'm charting and bathing)? The act of actually coming to work tonight was almost too much for me.
People seem genuinely sad to see me leave. I've talked about my plans for the rest of the year with several people, and as the day crew headed out the door, they all wished me the best. I feel like they saw me as one of the staff here, as a part of their group. I have been given plenty of warm farewells this evening. On the other hand, I had a rather uncomfortable conversation with my bosses prior to leaving yesterday morning.
I stopped into their office to tell them that I've had a great experience here, that I was treated very well, and that I'm grateful. The dumbstruck look on their faces told me something was not right. There apparently had been no communication between my unit's management and the HR department here at the Y, which is technically the department that hired me. Back a month or so ago, when one of my bosses told me in another awkward setting that I had been re-signed, she took it that the arrangements would be made, and that I'd be staying. I wrote a entry about that.
Yet, we never received any sort of contract offer from the HR department. There was never any discussion or negotiations about trying to get us to stay. Of course, we were considering leaving anyhow; being renewed with the Y was a backup plan all along. Taking the job in Wisconsin was just another part of the process, and we assumed that the HR department would communicate back to our managers in our units that we wouldn't be staying.
At least Jess's manager heard that she was leaving, and had a conversation about it with her that mostly involved a half-hearted effort to get her to stay. My managers went as far as putting me up on the next schedule, which starts this approaching Sunday. They had no reasons to believe that I wouldn't be returning. I guess I could have been more forthright about my plans, but then I worked all nights here at the Y and never really spoke with them much except a nod in the mornings in passing.
Needless to say, it was a rather awkward moment. I could see that they were picturing the scrambling that they were doing in their heads about the new schedule issue. However, we moved on past it; I was a little excessive in my praise that I gave the unit, trying to erase the unease in the room with a little brown-nosing. They told me that they were very sorry to see me go, and that they wished that they would have been involved in the hiring process.
I didn't tell them, naturally, that they really, really would have had made it worth our whiles (i.e. a very big bonus) to convince us to stay. And they would have had to have done it a month ago, before we signed our names on contracts.
Other than that, my last moments here at the Y have been good. I have an easy patient load tonight, obvious from the fact that I am writing a long entry here. They didn't even give me a crazy patient or an alcoholic, which there are plenty of both on the unit right now. I guess they want me to go out of here with a last good memory.
It wasn't needed, though, as I have had a good experience here. It has been a very nice three months. So long, my friends at the Y.
Until next time, be safe.
