Well, not a bad week all in all. Running near 100% in all of my classes but one, and that's still an A, high school reunion coming up tonight, and I finally picked up a job. The pay is horrible but it's the ideal educational situation, PRN so I can work around school, and float pool which means I'll bounce around a lot and get to see how everything works in about every department. One question in the interview caught me off guard, it's one I've heard before, but never expected in this setting. "What makes a person like you want to become a nurse?" This goes hand in hand with the more common statement when someone I've just met asks what I do and I tell them I'm in school to be a nurse, "you don't look like a nurse."
I usually kind of laugh when I hear a question like this, or use it as a chance to mess with the person and respond "what do you mean a person like me?...what kind of person am I?" Which is usually followed with an uncomfortable silence and me chuckling to myself. I do understand what most people mean though. I'm big, ugly, and hell, I look like a bricklayer. I also say just about anything that ever comes to mind, and being raised on a construction site that's not always pretty. They are also all wrong when they think it's not a good fit. I've always taken the harder part of the job, always stay after so someone isn't stuck working alone, or stayed to help with a flat tire, dead battery, whatever it is. Most of the people that question my ability to help others call me at the drop of a hat when they need something. They all know that I'm honest, trustworthy, and willing to help people, they just can't seem to fit it in the right context.
Now the people that have doubts based on the things that they've heard me say...yeah ok I get it. I say some horrific things. It's all in jest though, and it's almost never used to actually attack someone. If it is used against someone, they have it coming.
Most of my friends and family fall into 3 broad groups. First is the "you're doing what?" group. They are the ones that just can't imagine it. They are also the group that doesn't know me very well as a whole. This group is shrinking as time goes by and they see Denise and I cope with some of her problems. They might have been there when I told her if she didn't stop mouthing me I was going to chase her down with a strobe light, but more and more they're also seeing me when she isn't feeling at her best and how quickly I change from joker to protector.
The next group is, "That's smart. You'll make so much money". Coming from a construction family that was really hammered by this recession this view makes sense. It's wrong, but it makes sense. Without a doubt it will be a more stable income. After a few years of experience it will be slightly more money per year as well. By the time I'm done with school though, the recession will likely be over or at least no where near what it is now. Sure I'll be somewhat protected against future recessions if they happen, but it would be pretty damn silly to change to a profession you don't like just in case we had a few more bad years sometime in the next couple decades. It seems to me that most of the people in this group tend to project themselves into my situation, and relate to the part that would benefit them the most.
The last group includes everyone I talked about in my last post, plus a handful of others. They tend to look past all of the peripheral bonuses like the stability and extra pay, and see that I'm doing it because I will enjoy it and have the potential to be successful at it. Granted, this group knows me mostly by being around Denise and I together. They aren't my float trip group, or my gamer group, or my construction group. With those other groups about the most devastating problem we've ever faced together is deciding who has to go refill the cooler. The people that back me 100% in this have seen me when something is really going wrong.
One funny thing I find among all the groups is how departmentalized our lives become. I'm about as open of a person as you can ever find. I don't embarrass easily, I don't get worked up about little things, and if you ask me a question be careful, because I'll probably tell you more than you really want to know. Even so, groups that I hang out with in different settings all have very different perceptions of who I am. I guess it's no wonder that I can divide their responses so neatly between those groups as well.
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