Well... keeping this updated went well, didn’t it?
Scribbles needs a rant though, there’s so so much going on right now and I need a space to vent. I don’t expect any replies or anything, but hey, I ain’t gonna say you can’t reply at all. Thoughts always welcome here.
Not many of my tumblr friends know about Scribbs’ real-life life.
I think there’s maybe about four of you? Definitely only two that know in depth detail.
Because there’s a f*ck tonne of sh*t that goes on when I’m not at the computer. Sometimes there’s a load of it when I am at the computer too, but hey, it’s the real-life stuff that’s getting heavy at the moment.
Work is hard, so so ridiculously hard at the moment. I know it’s the same for everyone since Covid, but that doesn’t make how hard I’m finding it invalid right now, ‘Kay? Nobody else gets to come in and say ‘yeah but the doctors have it harder’. We’re fully booked up to three weeks in advance, we get emergencies in every single day. Some weeks I do a solid 60 hours straight, which in an already high pressure job is a lot. I’m burned out, I’m tired, I don’t have the energy to do anything outside of work.
I want to write and knit and bake and go out (where I can at least). I spend my occasional days off and my evenings recovering though, trying to switch off from the patients I’ve seen that day and not think about how they’re doing later that evening.
I call it the nurses curse... caring too damn much about the patients and not enough about myself to turn off at the end of the day.
It’s a problem in all aspects of my life.
But I don’t think I’d change it.
The worst bit about work right now? Someone got tested positive for Covid.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be bothered about it. Perhaps if she hadn’t have gone travelling no only around the country but around EUROPE on her weekends I wouldn’t have minded so much.
If she’d have taken some sick leave instead of coming into work with a sore throat I might not have been as bothered. If she hadn’t have then flown to Europe for a long weekend and then come home having lost her sense of taste and smell I’d have perhaps been a bit more relaxed about it. I might have known then if she’d have picked it up somewhere local or whilst she was away.
Maybe if she hadn’t have gone off all over the place I wouldn’t be worrying that I’m carrying Covid asymptomatically and risking passing it on to my asthmatic brother.
Maybe I wouldn’t have had to cancel my staycation in Norfolk. Maybe I wouldn’t have missed out on that job interview I was looking forward to.
Instead I’m being forced to make use of a weeks holiday without being able to do anything. I’m stuck at home with my family for a week, feeling like I should be self isolating JUST IN CASE whilst all my colleagues are being forced to continue work regardless of the fact that one of our team could well have passed it on to us.
WHERE IS THE COMMON SENSE????
Close the practice for a damn week until we KNOW that none of the rest of us are showing symptoms. The patients and their owners can go to another branch if it’s an emergency and routines can just goddamn WAIT. Because I could not live with myself if I passed it on to the sweet old lady that brings her dog in for a weekly weigh in, or the pregnant member of staff caught it and got seriously sick.
See, there’s that curse again, I don’t care if I get sick... but what about literally EVERYONE around me??
I know there’s places that have it worse.
But that doesn’t make it any easier for me right now.
Why oh why can’t people just have common sense?
This is already flaming long. I’ll perhaps throw the other half of all the issues into another post. At least to just get it off my chest if nothing else.
Tired of lots of things. Work is still insanely busy and we haven’t the staff. I’m essentially doing three peoples jobs. Management don’t think I’m working hard enough.
There is light at the end of the tunnel. We have more staff starting next week and I start a new job in January.
Not that that makes it any easier in the immediate term. It doesn’t change that right now I don’t think I could possibly get any more drained. Right now I’m not even sure I can feel anything other than just exhausted.
I’m tired and numb.
But this isn’t a cry for help. I don’t expect or want everyone to come running. I just need to get it out in words because otherwise it sits and festers in my head and in my chest and it HURTS.
My family doesn’t get it... I tell them i’m tired and they just say go to bed and have a sleep. It’s not that sort of tired though.
I’m tired of the global pandemic.
I’m tired of my days off not being my own.
I’m tired of work and people changing who they are to fit with higher management.
And I’m tired of not being able to reach out to my closest friends and give them a real actual hug instead of a smile and a wave over skype.
I know I should be grateful, at least we have the internet and phones and everything, but you have to understand that it’s not the same right? It’s not the same as being able to go out and chat and have some fun. It’s not as personal.
The only people I see right now are my family, my colleagues, and clients at work. To say none of them are the most huggy type is an understatement. I’ve been touch starved for years, I’ve always been the most huggy of my peers and always been the one most short of physical company. So being back in lockdown and being a hundred odd miles from any of my close friends is like the biggest stab in the gut.
Nobody can do anything about it. I know that and I get that, and I’m not simply attention seeking saying all this. I just... I need to get it out there because it’s hurting so much and draining all my energy.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m moving away in New Year, even further from friends and family. It’ll be good, it’s a fresh start new job, and hopefully a chance to make new friends.
I still miss my old friends though. And i’m still sceptical about how easy it’s going to be to meet new people if there’s still this whole lockdown scenario.
