i have no goals....

 had my job evaluation this week.  i did fine, i always do fine.  have to fill out the form they always ask you to fill out...what are your goals?

 my goals at work really are and always have been to come in to work and take care of the assignment of patients i have with kindness, dignity, respect and as much patience as i can find...some days that is harder than other days.  my other goal each time i arrive at work is to do no harm, to not screw up and kill someone or damage them in some unfixable way.  beyond that...i really have no ambition or goals when it comes to work.

 i am not a committee girl at work. i have zero interest in getting involved beyond my care of patients.  when it comes to the actual job of being a nurse i would have to say i excel and am way above average.  i have some mad skills and can pretty much be thrown in any situation and be able to manage it.  that was true this week with a patient that stressed a lot of folks out. i took that patient and calmly did what i do best...nursing at it's core.

 as  a nurse you can not be considered excelling at your job unless you do all those committees and attend meetings  or whatever is on those lists.  so i will always be seen as an average nurse in the eyes of those in the big offices who have never cared for a patient in their lives or met me beyond breezing through once a year on some "meet and greet" event. It often seems to me they forget that we have actual sick people, dying people in the rooms that are not anywhere near those offices.  to those people i am just some nameless drone of a nurse who is average in my annual review each year.

 i am not saying this in any way to disparage my manager...she is awesome and i congratulate her on her new role...she will excel.  there is not doubt in my mind....and i don't mean excel  because she is some sort of kiss up, i  mean excel because all the years i've known her she does just that...it's always amazing to me those people who can put up with the people in the offices (who seem to have forgotten why we are really all here).  she believes she can make a difference and make things better for the patients and she's a person who can actually do that.  so this is in not way about my actual eval this year and more about evaluations in general.

 for me...i always just feel like i'm bullshitting my way through the, "what are your goals" questions.  last year i thought my goal was brilliant.....i wrote that i wanted to focus on being more physically fit so i could better do my job and serve my patients.  in all honesty it's the first time i had a goal that i actually believed in.

 these are on the way to Denali and in Talkeetna.

 the thing that is hard to take is that you are never recognized as anything more than average when you don't do all the other things that deem you as "above average".  even more difficult to take over the years is seeing those who i would not want caring for myself or anyone i care for, get above average because they focus on doing the things on said lists to make themselves seem above average to the folks in the offices.

 in the end, i try and focus on what really matters at the end of a shift...my patients for the most part feel safe in my care and seem to really appreciate my knowledge, experience and kindness.  my patients and their families could care less whether i join committees or attend meetings that would really just frustrate the hell out of me anyway.

 i think i have been able to continue caring for patients at the bedside for as long as i have because i walk away from work when my shift is over and i focus on other things in my life and leave all the stress of work at work.  so each year at the annual review i guess i will have to face the question, "what are your goals?" and move past it.

 my manager had lovely things to say about me and i know she would love to have been able to check the box on my paper that says i excel at my job....i suspect she looked it over several times trying to figure out how she could possibly do that.  it's not her fault that i don't excel...i have choices. i could join committees and attend meetings and all that.  i choose not to, so since i choose not to i have to accept my fate as an underachiever and as a nurse that doesn't excel.

 an OB doc and OB nurse also gave me great feedback.  those are the compliments that mean the most in the end anyway.  the people who work with you, the patients...the families of the patients...when they let you know you excel they mean it from the heart.

 would i love more kudos at work from time to time...yes. it gave me a twinge of annoyance when i worked my butt off in the ER one night and i saw the unit clerk filling out like 20 something free coffee court cards to thank everyone who had worked hard that night...and then to discover that i apparently hadn't worked hard enough to be given one of these cards.

 another twinge of annoyance when i went above and beyond to care for the patient that everyone else seemed totally stressed about to only have our main peds doc snap at me all night because that is what she does when she's stressed...she's a bit of a bully and takes it out on her staff.  thankfully, like i said the other doc/nurse from OB took the time to thank me and let me know my work through the night was appreciated. even better was that the OB Doc made a point of thanking me in front of the snotty peds doc.

 that is work.  it's crazy...it's nothing like you can imagine it would be.  the tv shows they have about what a nurses day is like don't come near to covering it.

 life is life.  we probably all feel we are not appreciated or valued at times.

 i guess the annual evaluation just forces me to remember what i do and why i do it.  it also reminds you that the folks in the offices that i never see or interact with will never know me by anything other than what the checked boxes on the papers in my file will say to them.

 one more night to go.  not sure if i'll be in PICU again.  i am rarely in the same unit 3 nights in a row. should go pay a few bills and then maybe lay my head down again for a few minutes.

 half my lawn is mowed then the mower stopped.  hoping it will start up again tomorrow so i can finish the lawn.  not too many more weeks left of mowing.  it's already snowing up north in places.

 here is the big mountain...Denali, from South Viewpoint

 Blossom enjoying the ride

 termination dust in Denali National Park.

 gotta get that calendar made for WARIS .  much to learn still on running a non-profit...i have goals there....perhaps i should write myself a review there...not sure i'd excel there either but i have gotten a lot accomplished when i look back on this adventure of starting a non-profit to help raise awareness and help and protect Round Island and our walrus population.

 a few male moose in the dark...dueling for the female attention.  of course, in our society women have seemed to forget they are worth fighting for.  in my twenties i used to read "cosmo" and other mags like that thinking i was hip and cool and modern.  a friend that i always have admired for her strength and independence pointed out that really all the articles in those mags are directed at telling women how to or what to do to keep and man or make a man happy.  they tell you what all you need to do to be attractive to males...when i really looked at the magazines after that talk i knew she was right, they weren't really the healthiest magazines for women.  we are a prize worth fighting for. i'm not saying that men and women can't or shouldn't do things for each other but it just seemed so one sided and seems that women put so much more pressure on themselves to please men.

 we are all worthy of love and acceptance for who we are, not who we could be if only we followed all the rules laid out for us in the media.

grateful for:  A.  those who take the time to let you know they appreciate your work and skills B.  my manager for trying to find a way to check the excel boxes.  C.  that i just have one more night of work and then i have a few days off.  :-)