My sister called me this morning very upset. She still doesn't get it that there are some things you can't tell our mother unless you want to get stomped on. I'm sure she was looking for support, what she got was of course a steel toed boot to the head.
She is a nurse who loves elderly people and works in a nursing home. The nursing home's cost cutting measures have been getting more and more draconian, creating many unsafe conditions for the nurses and the patients. I've told her a million times not to be the last rat off a sinking ship, but she has remained loyal as one employee after another left to take a job she could easily have had somewhere else.
She had lots of excuses, the main being they were paying her more than the others. I kept telling her that their behavior showed that would soon be a liability. She insisted it was in her best interest to stay because she needed the weekend work to be home during the week for her daughter. In truth there were many other places she could have gotten a weekend shift, as the others did who left.
Last week they gave her weekend shift to two new nurses right out of school and told her they'd call her WHEN they needed her. She was essentially fired for making too much money. I know they WILL call her when things fall apart because she is addicted to pleasing others at her own expense. I fear she will trot back under the worst of conditions. That is what my mother told her to do. She insisted that she run back to the nursing home and offer to work for less than the two women right out of school. She has 20 years of experinece in the field.
What did she HOPE to hear from my mother? Hope kept her at the nursing home and I fear she will never give up hoping when she should be acting in her best interest.
