Second in Command (SIC) has some issues. She has no authority over anyone except by virtue of being the boss's best friend. Lisa, Mikki and I can't stand her. Lisa has a tendency to make snide comments about the number of "love notes" SIC leaves for everyone. WTF? There are 10 nurses who work here. There is absolutely no need for most of these idiot notes.

I don't mind an occasional reminder if I've forgotten something, but you can usually count on SIC to leave a mountain of notices; they are never about clinical issues, but about the myriad busy work/ non-clinical/ secretarial-type tasks that have been simply forgotten. Believe me, none of these things are terribly important, at least when you compare them to taking good care of the patients and getting that part right.

My typical I-don't-give-a-shit attitude occasionally gets me into trouble. After finding about 1/2 dozen notices one day, I started leaving little notices of my own; I pretty much went postal with Post-It Notes.

On a memo: "who writes this shit?"

On a notice reminding people not to clock in before 5 minutes prior to the start of shift (we have two, day shift and evening shift mind you): "if the day shift insists on clocking out at ten minutes of 3, I will be clocking in to take report. Thanks again for withholding raises this year".

On a sign up sheet for a hospital sponsored community health day (thank you, marketing) on a Saturday: "do we get paid for this fiesta? and will that include weekend differential?". The response was an exasperated "YES!" by my boss.

On a reminder for a UAC (Unit Advisory Meeting, more Magnet bullshit):
"boycotting UAC's until raises are reinstated".

On a note reminding nurses to keep the blanket warmer filled: "sorry, we ran out of blankets so we just filled it with paper towels; hope it helped!"

On the Wall of Death (there have been a number of deaths of staff and relatives in the last couple of years; some of which I have written about in previous posts. All the death notices and pictures of the deceased are on a bulletin board in the kitchen, which is macabre and depressing. I made Dan promise me that if anything happened to me that he would prevent any posting on the Wall of Death, but the bastard quit): "please, this place is depressing enough. It is time to remove this memorial"

Note: the Wall of Death was dismantled. In its place is now the "Circle of Life", which has graduation pictures of some of our staff and kids. Much better.

One Saturday when SIC was off, Sherry and Mikki surprised me with a GINORMOUS sign, decorated with stickers and art work "EDnurseasauras, please sign the narcotic sheet! Thank You! Love, Mikki and Sherry. This was clearly a case of ragging on SIC.

I laughed for 10 minutes, I thought it was hysterical. Mikki and Sherry were a little nervous that I would be offended. Me?, Nah. In fact, i told them that we should leave it up except for the fact that it was covering the opening to two cabinets. Too bad!