So this past Christmas break, I spent a lot of the time
being angry about certain situations. The job hunt was making me feel down and I was getting really discouraged.
Let me back up. Since attending UMass School has been pretty
busy, so busy that having a job was kind of out of the question. So I lived off
my savings (and those gracious school loans). But now that I’m a nurse, I am
required to work. Which is a good thing, I hate not working. In order to sit
for the Nurse Practitioner exam I need 1000 hours of experience working as a
RN. So from now, Jan 2016 to June 2017 I need to get in at least 1000 hours.
It’s really not that much if you think about it. I will be practicing as an NP
in a short 17 months; I think I need all the experience I can get! So like many
of my classmates after passing boards I headed straight into the job search. I
applied at every hospital within 50 miles from my house – Boston has some
amazing hospitals. It would be my dream to work at Mass Gen, but unfortunately
the only new grads they hire are their own students. And I turned down my offer
for MGH! I know, sounds like a stupid move. But really, it wasn’t. The tuition
for one year at MGH was about equal to half of my entire program. So in
retrospect, it was smart to turn them down. Also, the new grads working for MGH
are making 12$ an hour and aren’t even guaranteed a full time position after
orientation. The people who work there are doing it for the experience, not the
paycheck. Lets be honest, it’s the experience of a lifetime. A level 1-trauma
hospital in the heart of Boston - To me that sounds like what I dream Heaven is
like. Gunshot wounds, multiple car pileups, stabbings, and all those other
bloody things that get my heart pumping. So if I wanted to continue living off
student loans, the savings is drained by now, I would have went to MGH and take
that job in a heartbeat. However, I don’t want to live off student loans
forever. That sounds like a lifetime of debt to me - for now I will dream of
someday working at Mass Gen.
So back to real life- UMass is also a level 1-Trauma hospital,
but here’s the kicker – they won’t hire me. Only a select few people from my specific
NP track were chosen, 4 out of 6. My good friend and I were not offered this
job. We were placed at a different clinical site, in the Intensive Care Unit.
So it was a great clinical site, but the down side was there was no job for us.
My friend was okay, she lived in the area and had worked at a hospital for
seven years – she was going to find a job at here hospital no problem. So
theres me, the girl with no connections, jobless. I was mad, I was mad that my
peers were given these great jobs. So all of Christmas vacation, I couldn’t
stop thinking how unfair it was. Fairness is really a funny thing; do we ever
really deserve anything? No we don’t, we didn’t deserve it when Jesus died for
our sins on the cross. And we surely don’t deserve any of the grace that comes
from God.
In the midst of all this my old work, Tacoma General
Hospital, said they had a RN position for me. Cool, I don’t live here. School
isn’t over and I have to go back to MA. I was so mad that I spent my time
looking into my options. Looking into the schools that I originally turned down
because I wanted more of an adventure. Seattle University said they would take
me, after the application and all that jazz. However, I would need to retake
some of the masters courses. Doing the math it was going to end up being costly
and more time consuming. So there goes that plan. I had no choice but to go
back to MA.
Last week I learned a lot about the experiences my
classmates are having with their current job at UMass hospital. Yikes, lets
just say I truly believe God was looking out for my best interests. Any
out-of-state student working at UMass hospital has to pay almost $3,000 for
this class that is required. Umm, what? Plus they actually have to work a
certain about of days, and NOT GET PAID. What in the world! I did the math; it
would take the middle of summer to make up for the cost of the class. So
essentially it’s like paying for a job. No thank you, I’d rather not. So I
realized that I was mad for nothing. I was mad that some students had this
great opportunity, but they had to sell their soul to the devil for that
opportunity.
So the moral of the story is that I shouldn't be jealous of others. God had a better idea in store for me, he always has a better plan for us than we could have for ourselves. Trusting in his process is the key to a fulfilling relationship with him.
