Went out to dinner last night with two friends, Carol and Kim. We went to this little pub on the south side - near the airport called “Jetsetters”. This place has all you can eat crab legs on Wednesday night - and let me tell you, we took advantage. Today, I’m still feeling stuffed and probably won’t eat for the entire day! The three of us went through 4 pounds of crab legs, believe it or not. By the time I left the place - I felt like I just couldn’t move!

I used to work with Carol and Kim - at the job that I left to take my current position. Things aren’t good at the hospital. Carol is frustrated and Kim is looking way too stressed. It almost pained me to tell them how much I loved my new job and how stress free it all is. But - I told them anyways, cuz they asked. When I finished telling them why I liked my new job, the things that I felt I was learning, and how the decreased stress load and chaos were very positive things for me and my family - Kim looked at Carol and said “How can we compete with that?” That’s when I looked at Kim and said “You can’t compete with it - not for all the money and corporate perks in the world, Kim - I’m very happy where I’m at and don’t plan on making any changes.”

I used to be the Director of Nursing of that hospital. Kim is the corporate consultant and worked pretty closely with me on policy within the building. We had a pretty good working relationship - and the reasons why I left the job really didn’t have to do with her, except that she sometimes lacked the backbone to see through the bullshit politics and just get the job done for the patients. She was never willing to stick her nose out - - always too concerned about political correctness - doing the ‘right thing’ always came second. That always bothered me. But that’s not why I left - and I won’t go into it here, because it’s an old story that’s not worth telling. Suffice to say, Kim’s life right now is pretty tense. They have a new Director of Nursing in there who, according to Kim, just isn’t cutting it. The kind that is scared of her own shadow.

So Kim wants to get things back to what they were before - when things were actually working well. It’s kind of flattering. She looked at me and said “You know, I miss you, a lot - I can’t begin to tell you the problems we’re having at the hospital, and I miss the way you just dug in and did whatever needed doing to fix it. We don’t have that right now - and everyday, I wish you were back.”

I told her it was very flattering for her to say those things. Aside from the obvious bullshit - I do miss the hospital, sometimes. But then I look at what i have now - - I love the job, I love the hours, the pay and benefits aren’t so bad either - - I’m able to be home for my kids. I’m local (the hospital is an hour south of where I live), I’m not on-call 24/7 and the nature of the job allows me to work in a pretty independent environment - plus I don’t have to baby-sit a staff of 200 who really don’t want to work anyways. It’s a no-brainer . . . I’m not making any moves at all.

Once we got past that part of the dinner - we were all able to relax and have a good time as friends. And that was nice. 1 1/2 pounds of crab legs and two bloody mary’s later - I’m glad I went. It was good to see Kim - - it’s always good to see Carol…and the conversation about my job really reaffirmed to me that I’m where I want to be right now. I left the pub with a smile on my face feeling pretty damn good about things