A fiery afternoon
Good morning … this is me a couple of days later and still without much time to be writing. It’s about 6:20 am … I am for the record showered and dressed, plus the medicine and bag packing is taken care of. I’m a little bit warm so not sure of that … but it’s about to be expected. It’s very muggy outside. I don’t want to turn on the AC for such a short time. I’d like to think I could handle it. Hmm, Can’t? well that’s ok too … go ahead dear.Hmm, there is no point in arguing with ourselves so early in the morning. We’ve got a few more things to pack … basically our electronics stuff, plus we got the videos for our project this afternoon.
I don’t want to get into it because it’s a big consumer of my time, but there were problems yesterday during the staff training. Sr. was there for the first 15 minutes and then she left. I started to talk about CARF which was on my schedule, but then Sr Florine interrupted again and wanted to tell everyone that if they had something to say about her to tell her personally … it wasn’t said directly, but she meant don’t tell Sr. Theresa bad things about me tell me and I’ll fix it. We got through that one, but then she said that we should do something as staff to build up camaraderie. She went on to say that we should get together for meals and serve stuff that we bring in special and matched to themes. I let the group try to figure that out, but in the end it didn’t work out because people needed to commit to times.
And, then I tried to go back to CARF, but then Stephanie started talking about people not sitting together during lunch and such … and within a few moments she got emotional and said that she had to leave – I looked at the clock and there was five minutes left and I also saw that by the time she stood up she was next to tears. She was saying she didn’t have to take this and she said she might quit. All along I’d been telling her that she had to talk to Sr. about it … it was a personnel issue and that was sister’s territory, she said that if she went to sister it would be the first time. When Sr. Florine started up again I told her the same thing … she would have to talk to Sr. I told the group that we were on Sr.’s time.
Both women have problems talking to Sr. and neither brought up their agenda while Sister was in the room. I had thought when the first conversation on a get-together came up that we would just talk about it for a few minutes and get back on track. But, I also felt sympathy for Sr. Florine, because she needed desperately to talk to someone in a humane fashion. I was and am still torn. Staff training should include things that are important to the staff, but then the agenda is important too.
BUT, they had their own private agenda going on.
I waited a few minutes after the meeting to call Sr. because I knew too much had gone on for her not to know, especially with Stephanie so emotional. Theresa had also aggravated the situation. She tried to explain there was some rift in the staff about Spanish and English. Mostly there are Spanish speaking people who talk among themselves in Spanish and it excludes the others. I hadn’t been aware that all that was going on again. But, again I said this was something that if they couldn’t handle themselves that it was a personnel issue and had to go to Sr.
Sr. was very upset when I called because a couple of people at least 2 maybe 3 had already been in to talk to her about the meeting. I had tried to call at 10 after two when the meeting ended, but she didn’t pick up, so I called again at 2:15. She stated how upset people were and then went on to my part of it … She was saying that she had thought I could handle the meeting, but obviously not and then she was asking angrily does she have to be at all the meetings. I had said I would hope not, but by then it was already a lost cause. She finished up the yelling at me by saying that I could go out and find another staff to replace Stephanie if she didn’t come back.
It was all meant I believe to dump it all on me, but then I thought through the next span of time that I deserved some of it. I should have cut sister Florine off from the start, that would be sister Theresa’s logic, but then there is a humanizing part because I know how desperately Sr. Florine needed to talk … Sr. Theresa has already cut me off from the time we used to be able to talk to her with the beads. But, the meeting wasn’t a good place. It’s just that on the one side the meeting is Sister Theresa’s which means following a set agenda and on the other hand it belongs to the staff that has their needs too.
One way or another we talked to both Dr. Marvin about it and to Rich when he called last night. Both were coming from the same direction … that it wasn’t on me as much as Sister. Dr. Marvin’s thought was that if she would have taken care of these staff problems herself then it wouldn’t have been dragged into my meeting. And, that by dumping the responsibility on me she was avoiding that she had problems with her staff. She doesn’t give us the capacity … like free reign during the meetings to talk about things, but then she’s causing this huge problem with Sr. Florine by staying so angry with her. She told me yesterday on the phone that I didn’t know the half of it and that Sr. Florine had caused so many problems at St. Mary’s. I didn’t see how things at St. Mary’s should be affecting us, but I know when sister Theresa builds up a grudge there’s no holding back on her swinging temper.
Rich thought the same line as Dr. Marvin that Sr. Theresa is causing her own problem and that I should tell her basically that I wasn’t going to let her dump everything on me. Rich is still feeling the pinch for her passing on that he could be let go …
Instead of talking to him she’s talking to Sr. Florine about it who talked to me, and then I of course talked to Rich. I don’t know what Sr.’s plan was with that on her agenda.
I had left the TV on last night and instead of turning it off, I woke up at intervals throughout the night. Finally at 4 am when Rich’s alarm went off, I got up turned it off and then turned off the TV and set the alarm on my clock in the living room to wake us up at 6 am. I didn’t want to be late again for work. I was having negative thoughts throughout the night about the problem being so big that I had to go to the hospital. I’m thinking it was the tiredness playing on me, but that feeling resides in that … If sister kept pushing me that I do something drastic to stop it. Or, at least avoid it. I don’t really want to do that though. I’m thinking if I can just get through the day with the staffing and the group presentation and past sister’s ire – that then I’ll be rewarded a nice peaceful weekend with just writing and the gym. That be a worthwhile goal, right?
I have to remember too that Dr. Marvin is not going to be there on Thursday … so we are meeting at the same 4:30 pm time on Friday. We had problems leaving his office … we had a very close time as we were trying to tell him how important the time with him was and how we were feeling about having to leave. I was trying to clarify where my heart was at … he suggested that it was because we could talk, but it was more than that. I don’t have the time to think through it now, but there’s a lot of some kind of intimacy I feel with him. It’s not sexual, though Freud might say everything is between sexuality and death.
*sigh*
Maybe more on all that later. I have to go face the music for whichever dance tune is played.
posted by Ann Marie @ 9/12/2008 06:56:00 AM
Comments: 1
