In November of 2003, I moved to San Luis Obispo, knowing only one person (my roommate), I had no job, had only been to the city once before, and only a few month's worth of savings. Immediately, I began filling out applications. I applied for real jobs where I could wear a pencil skirt and possibly some sensible black heels, pretend jobs where I would wear a name tag, restaurant jobs where I would wear a tie, and even some jobs where I would wear rubber gloves. SLO is not a big city and all the jobs were taken. I got all my classes on MWF so I could work TR, but no luck. Application after application, interview after interview, I was shut down. November finished up. December came and went. I had no idea what a grind it is to have people tell you over and over again that you're not good enough to make sandwiches or file papers. "I know the alphabet, I promise," I would say. "It doesn't matter," came the answer.
January came. My rations became meager. I started eating a lot of oatmeal and oranges. I started thinking about the possibility of moving back home.
Finally, near the end of the month, my luck turned and I got a job at San Luis Trust Bank as a teller, which job carried me through the next few years: nursing school, meeting and marrying Tyler, having Lillian.
The funny thing is now, I have a license. I'm qualified to do something that people need me to do, that I could get paid real money for doing, but no one is hiring new nurses. The nurse recruiter I spoke to yesterday said it happened like this: there was a nursing shortage so everyone went to nursing school. All those people got hired. Now there are a lot of novices working in the hospitals and Arizona has state mandated ratios of how many novices vs experiences nurses that can be on the floor at any given time. Ergo, the hospitals can only hire experienced nurses to keep up with the ratios. Q.E.D.
You need to have at least 1 year's experience to be hired, but you cannot get 1 year's experience unless someone hires you. I hate trying to get a job.
2 comments:
looking for a job is definitely one of my least favorite things in life.
UMC should be posting openings in September for new nurses. I'm doing a flu shot clinic once a week just to get some experience and make few dollars. I think they are still hiring if you are interested. Obviously you don't get to do many skills except shots, but I figured it's better than nothing.
Maybe you didn't even know that I read your blog, but now I have exposed myself and transitioned from a blog stalker to an official reader:)
Post a Comment