Let's face it. People are cannibals, and nurses are the worst. You would think that taking care of the sick would require a gentle disposition. You would be wrong. You have to be part sadist to want to learn how to start a foley catheter on a man.
I have long heard it said that Nurses eat their young, meaning that as new nurses come up through the academic system, they are placed in the care of more experienced nurses for training. Often, the abuse sets in right there, with the older nurses behaving spitefully towards the new ones. The book in this photo is a real book that Kathleen Bartholomew wrote about it. Nurses joke about it all the time.
What gives? Is it because nursing is a traditionally female profession, and women are just bitches? I have met a lot of nurses over the years who are absolute pit vipers. One of the nurses I work with is so damn mean, we have to warn all the new people about her. She also smokes like a coal factory. Gross.
When I think about this, it makes me a little ill. I have one of those personalities that seems to make me a magnet for hostility. I wonder how much of that crap I am going to have to swallow. I am notoriously snappish if I get picked on, and backing me into a corner makes me come out fighting like a rabid wolverine. I run with scissors, dammit. Don't mess. But that doesn't do wonders for my career. I'm trying to better myself here. Sometimes I think I was better off as a chef, where people just expected me to be tempestuous and cranky.
I mentioned a while back that I have a great interest in Anthropology, and that I was considering a degree in that if the Nursing program I have been killing myself to get into doesn't work out.
Then Minya told me that the UNR Anthropology has more snakes in it than the Well of the Souls. That the atmosphere is very catty, and that the professors gang up on students they don't like. Fucking great luck for me. Now I really don't know what to do. That bothers me. I thought that was a good Plan B. I may still look into it and try my luck with the Anthropology cannibals.
In either case, it appears that I should get out my recipes for "long pork".
Well, you may be less susceptible to this because a( you're not a young kid and b) you're not a pushover. I guess you have to consider why you're getting the degree. What job will you get with an Anthropology degree? Anthropologist? I know some people actually do that for a living, but they're usually professors and the lines for those positions is rather long, I think. Cultural Anthropology always fascinated me. It's interesting to think about why people do what they do!
ReplyDeleteI don't want you to dip your toe into the water only to find out it's seething with snakes. Now, it has been quite some time since I've taken classes there but I know almost all the teachers that ran off a guy I know are still there. And he's not the only one who was run off that I know. One of the professors died some years back. I mentioned it to a fellow student and she replied that it must have been from sheer meanness. I loooooove anthropology. I love digging in the dirt. I love cultural anthro. I have a friend who is an archeaologist for the state and if I were done with school he'd hire me. One stinking nasty year left. Grr
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