The Unlikely Heroine

Yesterday, I worked for nine hours to close out the month for my hospital’s emergency room. The numbers I calculated were far lower than they would have been had our nurses charted properly. I could go into how neglecting to document the stop time on an IV medication results in massive monetary losses for the hospital, but it only holds my own interest through the end of the work day (and even then, only barely). The omissions notwithstanding, we’re doing quite well for ourselves. Satisfied with my spreadsheet, I came home and worked for another two hours on my own month-end figures. While the ER now has enough room in its budget for several more nurses and EMTs, I don’t have enough room in my personal budget for such luxuries as a telephone, two-ply toilet paper, or meals that don’t come in cellophane wrappers.
 
My office is situated inside the Non-Acute Care suite, which is across from the main Emergency Department. On any given day, I am the unwitting participant in many conversations, with topics ranging from the mundane (“Dayyyy-nuh! I done boilt sixty pounds o’ crawfish this weekend… WITH ORANGES INSTEAD OF LEMONS!”)  to the grave and serious (“I don’t think I can afford the Dooney [and Bourke] purse I needed to go with my outfit for the party this Saturday, so I guess I’ll go with the Coach bag instead”). The conversations of the latter variety always intrigue me, because they’re almost always held between the only employees of the hospital who earn less than I do. I listen intently, positive I’ll be able to extract some piece of sage financial advice; after all, some of these purses are as much as my rent! I must be working in a den of budgetary wizards, judging by the number of Lexuses (Lexi?) and BMWs I see in the general associate lot! So how is it that I am making more money and driving a Taurus with a crack in the windshield?

The answer is simple: because I’m honest. I don’t have to elaborate any more than that. Fundamentally, that’s all there is to it. Those silly values my mother worked so hard to instill in my brothers and myself seem to have stuck. As a result, I pay for my own health insurance, my own food, my own utilities, my own vehicle, my own housing, my own everything. As I try to stretch my last $6 over the next four days, I must deal with the fact that my income level is too high for any sort of financial assistance beyond that which my mother can lend to get me from one paycheck to the next, not that I want it. What do I want? That’s simple, too: for people who are working their asses off to have something to show for their efforts besides grey hair, and stiff penalties for people who abuse the system. And maybe an iMac.

My mother has graciously offered to subsidize my telephone usage by adding me to her family plan (thanks again, Mom!), but I’m afraid there’s going to be plenty of chafing and Value Menu fare in my immediate future. The job market here sucks for anyone who isn’t a nurse or a truck driver, so it looks like I’m stuck for the time being. Of course, based on my research, I am strongly considering pregnancy as an occupation until something better comes through. 

Ba-da-BING!