Confessions

One of my bigger peeves about working in Long Term Care is that my coworkers tend to be unreliable as far as showing up for shifts on time. Or at all. In general, I don't call in unless I absolutely have to, because I know how much it sucks to be the one that shows up when no one else does. The workload doesn't decrease just because the workforce has; the same number of residents still need the same amount of care that they do every day, no matter how many hands there are to give it to them.

Which is why, just yesterday, I was smugly thinking to myself how glad I was I'd made it in during the snow we recently had, and that I should pick out something fun to get for myself with my "perfect attendance" monthly bonus that I'm sure to get.

And then I fell down my damn stairs on the way out the door this morning at 5:45 am. And landed on wet, cold concrete. I dragged myself back into my apartment, intending to put on dry scrubs and head right back out the door, until the pain hit me and I realized that 8 hours of walking, lifting, and standing were probably not going to make my knee and hip feel any better.

So I sucked up the embarrassment and picked up the phone, and called, teling the charge nurse what had happened and that I wasn't going to make it today, but would do whatever I needed to in order to be there tomorrow. And me and my ice pack hit the couch and took a 4 hour nap.

And here's the confession part: It was awesome.

I'm only mildly sore and bruised-up now, which makes me think maybe I should have gone ahead and toughed it out.

But an unexpected day off like this is actually really, really nice. Oops. Guess I should remember this next time I'm cursing my "slacker" coworkers who don't show up. Turns out I've got a slacker side too, it just took a wet stairway and gravity to show it to me.