Speaking of dreary days...we finally caved in and turned on our furnace. We had originally set the goal of making it to November before we turned it on but lo and behold, we made it an entire week further before deciding that we had had enough of freezing fingers and toes and wearing hats to bed. Yes friends it is truly fall here in the pacific NW. I dare say it is even inching on towards winter.
In happiest of happy news I had a really great interview with a rural ambulance company yesterday. I walked in and the "boss lady" greeted me and took me to the classroom where there was another woman waiting for us. The BL then said "Ok, we're going to start of with a megacode. Just get things rolling from there." In paramedic speak megacode is the training drill where everything goes wrong and a patient is trying very hard to die on you and you are trying very hard, including using all of you drugs, electricity, breathing tubes and sphincter control, to keep them from staying dead. It is NOT my favorite thing. Anyway, she said that and I am reasonably certain I let out and audible "guhh". Very confidence inspiring, I know! The BL started laughing and said "No, No just kidding". I think I must have looked like I was about to throw up. You see, in "real life", and ACLS class, you usually have a little cheat sheet with the algorithms on it and you look at the patient, decided which of the three flavors of dead they are and you start down the appropriate pathway. I had NOTHING of the sort on my person and had gone a solid 3 months without much thinking about megacodes. I was a little unprepared to say the least. So, once my heart stopped beating so hard I was shaking and I calmed my gag reflex a bit, we started the interview.
The interview went well, there were only a few moments where I felt like my mouth was moving and I wasn't quite sure what I had already said and what I was about to say. There was some quick thinking going on. Not that I was being untruthful, but there were questions I had not anticipated and thus, I had to think quickly a few times to answer them in a thoughtful, put together manner. I was feeling like things were going pretty well when the question of "how would you get patient so and so to go to the hospital with you if he didn't want to go but was probably having a heart attack?" I stepped back and said "I would look around his environment and see what I could find. Does he have children?, a wife? a pack of buddies he goes fishing with? Does he seem to have anything he really cares about? Once I find that thing, I will lean on that emotional connection. "Sir, you seem to have a lot of folks who care about you. I don't think you want to worry them like this. Let's get you checked out so you can get back to your grand kids (or whatever)". It was that answer that caused the change in the BL's language. She stopped saying "If you come to work here" and started saying "when you start". It was very subtle and I am not sure if she even noticed she was saying it but it shifted. I was IN! The interview ended with her telling me that the process was going to take some time and not to freak out or become discouraged. Also, that I am coming on as several folks are leaving or dropping down to fewer hours to have babies so it will be a rather dynamic schedule. I don't even care! I have an in and that is all I needed. I drove home very happy.
Yay yay yay!! Nicely done :)
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