How I was Fired-Part IV

Preface: As this story draws near an end I'm starting to struggle more. I'm starting to be depressed, and to feel more frustrated. I think partly that's because tomorrow should have been back to work from vacation. Instead it's anxiously-awaiting-a-phone-call about the job I interviewed for.

This is where the story starts to hurt a whole lot more. I am not going to be able to explain a great deal of what happened, but in summary the thing I am generally best at is relating to my patients, and so that was turned around and used to hurt me as badly as possible.

I need to ask that at this point, even if you feel I have done something blatantly, hugely wrong, that you not share this with me. I have so much self-doubt which I'm not handling all that well, and debating what I chose to do based on my needs and personal experiences just doesn't help much. It's all I can think about myself sometimes.

Later, once I'm working again and feel confident again, we'll maybe talk about what could be different. For now, please hold that thought. I hope this doesn't offend; normally I like openness and debate, but right now I can't afford depression. I need to be strong enough to handle my new job.

The next week I actually didn't get a final warning all week. I was considering this a banner week. It was not an extremely smooth week, but in comparison it was miraculous. You take what you can get, and all that.

This is where I can't be very specific. Let's say it this way: in healthcare certain patient characteristics make one more or less believable and trustworthy. I posted about this in a way here, talking about how it helps that my doctor actually trusts me instead of calling me automatically a drug-seeker because I am bipolar. I've had that happen a few times before, most notably at a hospital when my blood pressure was 200/100 and my head was bursting. I can't take ibuproferon because it interacts with lithium, and I'm allergic to codeine. So rather than treat my headache effectively they decided I was just trying to get narcotics and gave me only regular strength tylenol.

So anyway, we had several patients at that point who there were reasons to take what they said with a grain of salt. Two of them came forth with comments about me which were not true. Normally nobody would have thought anything of it. This time it was turned into a big deal.

I wasn't there, so the details are sketchy, but somehow EM talked to my other patients, none of whom were totally reliable reporters. The one who was most reliable later was very, very upset about it and said her words were turned around and her husband verified. But however, I was told she too was unhappy with me, although she pulled me aside to tell me this wasn't true, several times and nearly cried because she'd thought the change she did agree to was only while I was on vacation.

On Friday I was called and told that these 3 people had complained, but "this happens sometimes" and I still would supervise. I was also told by the manager that she'd talked to EM's boss and told her EM was picking on me.

On Monday I worked on vacation preparation. On Tuesday, a full week after all this started, I came in and was sent home. I finally decided that I needed to speak up, and I emailed a complaint about my boss to her boss as encouraged through company policy. I stated she was not the right person to investigate as even the one patient felt she was trying to get bad things said about me. Further, 2 of the people in question were highly unreliable witnesses. And it had been a full weeek. And for that matter the person I was writing to herself had told me just days ago that it was "something that happened" and now it was a huge deal. It made no sense, aside from I knew they were going to fire me (which I did not say).

So I spent all day Wednesday waiting for them to call me in. Finally at 4 pm they called and fired me.

And that's about the end of that story.