It hits me hard when my faith and trust in someone is so horribly abused. I would never expect a nurse, of all people, to exhibit such amazing callousness, total cluelessness and spectacular lack of diplomatic ability as the one I spoke of yesterday. Yes, that person is a nurse and the 'geriatric care manager' for my folks.
God knows, I’ve known more than my fair share of nurses given the amount of time I spend at Mass General Hospital (AKA my home away from home) and I’ve never ever had an experience like this. For that matter, since losing my hearing, just 7 or 8 years ago at the dewy, blossoming even, age of 46, I’ve yet to run into ANYONE exhibiting such completely daft obtuseness. This includes one or two impatient, eye rolling clerks at CVS -- annoyed when I wasn’t able understand what they asked of me. It was something deep, trenchant even, such as ‘do you have a CVS card’ or ‘did you find everything you were looking for.’
How is it that someone can present so well on paper (resume), in interviews and then shit the bed (a lovely little phrase, doncha think?) so spectacularly just months after coming on board?
Back in my pressroom production management days, we always hired folks with a one to two month trial period built in -- on the assumption that precious few individuals can sustain best possible behavior over a two month stretch. If they were gonna crash and burn it’d happen in the second month. We started doing this after a few bad experiences -- folks with great paper and initial presentation skills but...yep, that’s where their beauty began and finished.
It’s always easier to hire than fire. I think the trial period is a winner.
I’ll be back to my regular tales of daring do, rants about cars and such and paeans to dear friends and other assorted loved ones tomorrow.
Monty Python -- Gumby Brain Specialist
