The SO came in from her morning class and said, ‘Well… I don’t have to worry about signing up for my 401k anymore.’ She was hoping to sign up, since she had been teaching Medical Assistant classes at a for-profit college for a year and a half, and she missed the last enrolment period. She was informed that she was 55 hours short to sign up this period. :rolleyes: (If they counted all of her hours instead of however they do it, she would have been eligible.) Instead, she’s losing her job after this term. Her last class is tomorrow. Several people have been laid off, and several more will be laid off. The college closed a campus in Southern California, and the SO thinks they’re going to close the one up here too.
The good news is that she’s an RN with a BSN (four-year degree). (She also has a two-year degree as a paralegal.) Apparently she’s qualified to teach a couple of classes at a local community college. She’ll apply, and I hope she gets in! She hasn’t looked into the technical college yet. She can do actual nursing if there are any jobs she finds acceptable. She says she doesn’t want to take any more ‘crap’ jobs. In the meantime, she can collect unemployment benefits. There’s a two-week waiting period, and she was already going to be on unpaid leave over the holidays.
Well, as I said, the SO was taking two weeks off anyway. She had an interview on the 4th. She started this past Monday. I haven’t seen any unemployment benefits come in the mail, and she doesn’t know if she’ll get any. She stopped looking for work once her new employer said they were going to make her an offer.
This week she’s doing orientation. She’ll be a home health care nurse, going to patients’ homes in this part of the county. This company is one of the first she applied to when she moved up after nursing school about four years ago. She’d really hoped to work for them. She apparently was very enthusiastic at her interview, telling them that she’d applied before. They checked later and found her original application. I guess that BSN she earned once she move up here helped.
Now instead of working one or two half days, two or three times a week, she’s going to have to learn to get up early and work long hours five days a week. But it will help pay her student loans, and allow her to go on her medical missions. She has paid vacation – coincidentally, which will be available right when she wants to go on her next mission – medical insurance, which she hasn’t had (other than her VA benefits) for about ten years, dental insurance, which she needs and can’t remember the last time she had it, and she’ll be making almost 50% more than I make.
I really, really, really hope the position works out. It’s the kind of nursing she wants to do, and it’s been very hard to find suitable positions in this area. (Nursing homes are hell-holes with very unreasonable patient loads – she knows someone with 75 patients – and where any nurse working at them is in danger of losing his or her license because of the nursing homes’ practices and focus on money instead of patient care. She wants to change the laws, but doesn’t know how.)
Perhaps home health care is a growing field of practice, with our aging population.
I’m glad she got the job too. She worked very hard to become an RN. It’s sad that it’s so difficult to get a position here. Of course, there are fewer than 83,000 people in the city. Even in Seattle, a friend with (at the time) 13 years of experience had trouble finding a nursing position. Nursing homes will hire a new grad with a two-year degree, but I’ve mentioned the conditions. There’s a reason they can’t retain nurses. Some health care places up here prefer to hire LPNs instead of RNs because they’re cheaper. Now it looks like CMAs are starting to do things LPNs were doing. The SO worked at one place where she enjoyed the work and the hours, but the supervisor was a piece of work. When introducing her, she’d always add on ‘She’s per diem.’ The implication being, ‘Don’t pay her any attention. She’s not full-time.’ And other stuff. The SO eventually gave notice and quit. Her supervisor forgot. Though it wasn’t actual nursing, she loved teaching CMA students. Though not full-time, she was happy with the pay. She liked having free time. (She did do a lot of work she didn’t get paid for, of course.) And she loved the people she worked with.
Here’s hoping that the new position will be the payoff for all of her hard work and ‘dues paying’.
But it will help pay her student loans, and allow her to go on her medical missions. She has paid vacation – coincidentally, which will be available right when she wants to go on her next mission – medical insurance, which she hasn’t had (other than her VA benefits) for about ten years, dental insurance, which she needs and can’t remember the last time she had it, and she’ll be making almost 50% more than I make.