Unofficial History of Drama in the Free State

[Bill Brasky]

RN is the mark of delineation where aptitude stalls.  It is a stepping stone upon which advanced degrees are built.  

I can understand why some graduates would pause there for a while, because the money is pretty good, and the schooling is tiring.  But to stay there permanently is the embodiment of sloth.  

My favorite boss ever, John, had a saying about Registered Nurses.  He said they come from a whole 'nother planet where they wrongly believe the universe rotates around them.  But he was an A-type personality, and Director of his department at age 25.  He was the kind of guy who walked at a pace that looked normal, but when you tried to walk with him, you discovered you had to actually run.  He got shit done, one way or another.

If you look in Wikipedia, about RN's, you'll see theres a sub-article about bullying within the workplace.  This is because nurses are typically mollycoddled bitches who start out awestruck and passionate, and then discover they have asses upon which it is comfortable to sit, while they direct their subordinates to perform duties which they were not trained to perform.  They then grow into gelatinous signature machines with exquisite manicures who wrongly believe their sole responsibility is to take temporary custody of medication carts, and watch a row of lights which will blink if a patient lapses into the realm of technical death as measured by scientific instrumentation.

Needless to say, despite my acceptance into the world of medical science, my Doctorate of Vaginal Medicine from the Universidad de Colombia (or Venezuela, I forget), my honorary title of "Pimp Daddy" by the Woman of the Year (four times) in my region, I am not asked to deliver the commencement speech at any of the local Universities who stamp these cunts out of sheet metal.  

But I know why.  It is because I don't blanch at the sight of RN after the flipped-askew name-tags (first name only), and bow and scrape like some English chimney-sweep granted audience with the Queen Mum's Royal Fish Pot, because some little honey with a gymnasts ass managed to fast-track weekend-degree herself into an RN, knows the generic term for Tylenol, and the approximate temperature my forehead should be.

It is this general laissez-faire atmosphere of incompetence and entitlement that mandatory C.E. and state regulatory requirements are born from, licensure, and the lower hierarchy they sneer down upon, revel in, yet are desirous to attain higher levels within.  

And its all about the paycheck, personal achievements, and patient care comes last.  I remember being through so many moments, injuries, illnesses, family situations, where the occasional REAL angel of mercy descended upon me, after numerous false deities...  and I just wanted to profess my undying love.  Which absolutely helps put the magnificent cunts into an interesting perspective.  

I would like to have the option to have morphine, or an exploding neck collar on an RN.  All the morphine you want, or blow the head off one nurse.  I guarantee, I'd endure a LOT of pain, to keep that option viable 'til my very last minute.  

Because I know, my care would get extremely professional and proficient if I was three days deep into a serious painful illness, and didn't hit the fucking morphine button yet.  And a lot of stupid twats would not vie for the position, but the same number of proficient women probably would.  And thus, the paycheck would be worthy, and the title bestowed would be respected.  

..And while I'm at it, fuck Unions.  

Fuck it, I guess that's all.  As you were, bitches..  I'll come in your nurses station and doesn't give a fuck.

[sillyperson]

Say what you want about RN's. The primary people they have to work with are:
a) Doctors (raging egotistical assholes), and
b) Hospital Administrators (officious Vogon bureaucrats)

For that alone, they get much slack

[Cognitive Dissident]

Extra points for the reference to Vogons, but I still enjoyed his rant.

[anarchir]

to fast-track weekend-degree herself i

You best be trollin. Fast track? It is nearly as tough to become a nurse as a doctor. When you go to the doctor, who do you spend more time with? A nurse.

[david]

Total, with post, and concrete bags - $400 minimum.

I'd probably opt for a post office box.  Just stop there once a week, pick up your shit.  Its not like anything good ever comes in the mail anyways.  Everything I care about comes UPS, or FedEx.

--

You see the new USPS commercials?  Direct Mail for companies.  No wonder they're about to go under.  

They're pushing junk mail.  Like, they never heard of Google.  Splatter a geographic area with the most un-green shit ever, no matter if they want it or not!  

Its like they never heard of eyeball views or clicks, or anything.  

We will personally send a living person to your house, with a paper card, which they will throw away, and the guy earns fifty grand a year, drives a carbon-burning truck, and gives an ecologically damaging piece of garbage to an unwanting recipient!  

Un-fucking-believable.

Every other company on earth is pushing green and paperless.  These dill-holes are trying to get people to buy a carbon footprint the size of Jupiter, to keep their jackass slackers employed so they can sleep half the day in Burger King parking lots.  

You buy that post..  I won't say any negative shit, but I'll surely think some negative shit.

As a business owner who ships out products to people all across the country, I would rather use USPS more than FedEx and UPS.

I have had problems with both UPS and FedEx demanding to know the contents of my shipments. I don't need the businesses that I work with to be my government. I want them to ship my package and shut up. The USPS never questions what I send. Furthermore, if you use USPS, the State governments need a federal warrant to open a package. Since USPS is Federal, it gives a person more freedom if the product they are selling is less than legal in their state.

Interstate mail is one of the areas that is best to leave in Federal control rather than State control. For business owners working in fringe areas, it is safer. I have experienced this for over 8 years of business. The USPS is more private and costs less. As a business owner, that's what I need.

The USPS is the only government service in the US that is required to pay for itself. Therefore, it has always operated in the black (until 2006). In 2006, it was required by Congress that the USPS pay for 75 years of future retirement benefits in a 10 year period. The law that requires the USPS to pay for the retirement benefits of employees that have not yet been born is the cause of 100% of the US postal service's $20 billion in losses over the last four years.

Basically, the USPS was working fine for over 200 years. Then private companies got their paid politicians representatives to write a law to bankrupt the agency, so that they can privatize it. With the loss of the USPS, State governments can then go through the privately mailed packages without a Federal warrant.

There's a nice interview with the director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union at DemocracyNow.org that describes the issue:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/27/shock_doctrine_at_us_postal_service

The main difference between the USPS and other agencies is that the USPS has to pay for itself. I know that I already said this, but it is an important point. The USPS pays for itself. If the DMV had to pay for itself and there were competitors to the DMV, that office would function much more smoothly. Letting the politicians destroy the USPS through laws requiring them to pay for 75 years worth of retirement benefits in a 10 year period would put just about any business in the red. It is bad politics and bad policy to let the corporations determine which services that we have.

I say, stop destroying the USPS with corporate sponsored regulations and let the free market decide if the USPS should exist. The USPS has done well with its business model for over 200 years. Small business owners like me prefer the low-cost service. Businesses need as much competition as possible in this area. When it is time for the USPS to fade, the free market will let it happen.

We don't need fake regulations to wipe the USPS out for us.

Let the free market decide if the agency should exist.

[SeanD]

Fine as long as that includes removing the monopoly they have on 1st class (or is it mail under an ounce?).  Make them truly compete.

[Bill Brasky]

The USPS is poorly managed, and destroying itself.  The in-the-red statistic that they've been operating under since 2006 is nearly identical to the GM too-big-to-fail fiasco.  Except, in this case, the only thing they're protecting is themselves.  GM was lambasted for that, so, too should be the USPS. 

When I was a kid, I remember reading an article where it was cheaper for a guy to mail bricks to Alaska than to have the most-local source deliver them.  He built a house with the materials.  Bricks, by fucking airplane??  Rather than one truck from Anchorage? 

And for the record, they don't need a warrant to open mail.  It happens all the time at customs, when mail is being placed into the custody of the USPS.  Similarly, it can be opened domestically if a number of criteria are (or are not) met.  It is also subject to x-ray scanning, sniffing by dogs, sniffing by detector, a "flag" on the shipper or recipient, a visible leak, "accidental damage", the absence of a return address, improper tape, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Operating under the incorrect presumption is fine if you have "nothing to hide", and you're mailing legitimate stuff. 

The fact is proven by some very old-school methods.  Simply pick up an old copy of Hustler, and flip through the back pages.  Discretely packaged smut, which doesn't leak, rattle or stink, is commonly refused to be sent to certain states.  How would the USPS know if locally prohibited materials are contained within the package, from strange and common-sounding return addresses? 

Famously, Tommy Chong was jailed for mailing new, clean glassware to certain states, an entrapment sting which used postal regulations and law enforcement to slam-dunk him into prison.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pipe_Dreams

They've been a lot more on-point than you think, for a really long time. 

I admit I'll use USPS when I feel like it.  Thats my choice.  But I don't have to.  I could easily avoid USPS in most cases, and if I really wanted, I could be more diligent and probably never use them again for packages. 

I will admit UPS and FedEx can be a little wonky sometimes.  But it always arrives.  And I don't feel like I'm sending up major red flags when I use UPS's tracking.  (personal preference)

Currently, the most recent ad campaign for USPS is bulk mail.  They're paying top-salaried employees big money to stop by every single house and drop a 2c item in their porch slot.  Thats just fucking ridiculous, especially when you consider that piece is probably handled by five different people before it arrives at its destination.

You don't see the competition doing that.  They'd never consider it.  They probably laugh themselves sick at the board meetings, its "life support", and as long as the USPS is subsidized to continue that, the so-called free market will never adjust.

..and yes, they are subsidized.  They don't exist in the same competitive realm.  As a government agency, they don't pay fuel tax, buildings aren't taxed, they have federal security protecting their infrastructure where others have to pay private security, they enjoy a collectors market for their postage (which is a scam unto itself, people buy the postage and never use it when they sell commemorative series).

There are very few modern jobs where a guy can get employed and retire from it, and the Post Office is one.  The others are cops and prison guards, feds, and the log-jam of clerks at the court house.  There are very few privatized jobs where a person can get hired and expect to retire from it, in our generation.  Especially now. 

Name one other pretty decent job where a guy could get hired in 1990 and expect to retire with 30 yrs in 2020, at age fifty.  I'll betcha can't name one.

[Bill Brasky]

to fast-track weekend-degree herself i

You best be trollin. Fast track? It is nearly as tough to become a nurse as a doctor. When you go to the doctor, who do you spend more time with? A nurse.

Registered Nurse is 2.5 years, fast track.  A lot of colleges have special courses of study.  

Doctor is eight.

Its not nearly the same.  Not even close.

--

For the record, my mom was a RN.  Almost 40 years.

However, times have changed.  In her early years, after graduating in '56 or whenever the fuck, they didn't have all sorts of specialist degrees.  So, she just stayed a nurse and liked it.

In the late 70's early 80's, they started doing all these advanced degrees, like CRNA.  Theres a reason the CRNA gets paid almost double of a regular RN.

Once an RN is achieved, I suggest the RN carries on with his or her studies, and doesn't rest on their laurels.  If they do sit back and become a lifer, I have very little respect for them.  The institution normally has tuition reimbursement, and they can become a Doctor of Nursing Practice, Certified RN of Anesthesia, or a whole 'nother multitude of advanced degrees.  Basically, for free.

I think RN's who basically opt out of that potential are lazy.  ..And it usually shows in their demeanor.  I've been on both sides of the window, countless times.

Go get a job where you have to rely on an RN to get off her ass, its pure torture.  

Are there exceptions to the rule?  Absolutely.  There are some very fine examples of nursing, in every healthcare establishment.  

Sadly, if you were able to sneak in and become an anonymous patient, like the show "Undercover Boss," you might be surprised to find a lack of compassion.  This is pretty common.  A lack of action, also common.  Pretty much, all the things you'd expect to be first-place on their list of actionable activities, take a second place to lunch.  Go be a patient somewhere, you'll see.

I had an elderly aunt, who just a few months ago was killed in a car crash.  I heard from a "friend" how her body was treated.

I have known numerous geriatric patients who were treated like garbage.

I have personally refused surgery because the nurse who was my liaison between myself and my surgeon was a stupid fucking cunt.

Just because you believe your own personal experience with your girlfriend is positive means the whole nursing profession is positive, you are wrong, my friend.

Denis partially credited Doctors, for the problem in nursing.  I agree, they are a part of the problem.  In other professions, they call that a lack of discipline.  Its totally common that a "superior" may be an asshole.  This is not uncommon in the work environment.

Where the situation breaks down is, sick people are not supposed to take the brunt of the anger in any other profession.

Sick people are supposed to be treated kindly regardless of the shit that comes from "above".

When shit becomes mechanical, and loses dignity to the patient, you can't arrive at a simple compensation.  Its psychological.  I personally believe the technical professional schooling is not really all that difficult, but it takes a certain kind of person.  

And the people who are not suited for it, they get protected by unions and legal boilerplate horseshit nonsense.  And thats not cool.



 

[anarchir]

to fast-track weekend-degree herself i

You best be trollin. Fast track? It is nearly as tough to become a nurse as a doctor. When you go to the doctor, who do you spend more time with? A nurse.

Registered Nurse is 2.5 years, fast track.  A lot of colleges have special courses of study.  

Doctor is eight.

Its not nearly the same.  Not even close.

--

For the record, my mom was a RN.  Almost 40 years.

However, times have changed.  In her early years, after graduating in '56 or whenever the fuck, they didn't have all sorts of specialist degrees.  So, she just stayed a nurse and liked it.

In the late 70's early 80's, they started doing all these advanced degrees, like CRNA.  Theres a reason the CRNA gets paid almost double of a regular RN.

Once an RN is achieved, I suggest the RN carries on with his or her studies, and doesn't rest on their laurels.  If they do sit back and become a lifer, I have very little respect for them.  The institution normally has tuition reimbursement, and they can become a Doctor of Nursing Practice, Certified RN of Anesthesia, or a whole 'nother multitude of advanced degrees.  Basically, for free.

I think RN's who basically opt out of that potential are lazy.  ..And it usually shows in their demeanor.  I've been on both sides of the window, countless times.

Go get a job where you have to rely on an RN to get off her ass, its pure torture.  

Are there exceptions to the rule?  Absolutely.  There are some very fine examples of nursing, in every healthcare establishment.  

Sadly, if you were able to sneak in and become an anonymous patient, like the show "Undercover Boss," you might be surprised to find a lack of compassion.  This is pretty common.  A lack of action, also common.  Pretty much, all the things you'd expect to be first-place on their list of actionable activities, take a second place to lunch.  Go be a patient somewhere, you'll see.

I had an elderly aunt, who just a few months ago was killed in a car crash.  I heard from a "friend" how her body was treated.

I have known numerous geriatric patients who were treated like garbage.

I have personally refused surgery because the nurse who was my liaison between myself and my surgeon was a stupid fucking cunt.

Just because you believe your own personal experience with your girlfriend is positive means the whole nursing profession is positive, you are wrong, my friend.

Denis partially credited Doctors, for the problem in nursing.  I agree, they are a part of the problem.  In other professions, they call that a lack of discipline.  Its totally common that a "superior" may be an asshole.  This is not uncommon in the work environment.

Where the situation breaks down is, sick people are not supposed to take the brunt of the anger in any other profession.

Sick people are supposed to be treated kindly regardless of the shit that comes from "above".

When shit becomes mechanical, and loses dignity to the patient, you can't arrive at a simple compensation.  Its psychological.  I personally believe the technical professional schooling is not really all that difficult, but it takes a certain kind of person.  

And the people who are not suited for it, they get protected by unions and legal boilerplate horseshit nonsense.  And thats not cool.

2.5? That is not accurate at all. 2.5 of Nursing School maybe. But you have to have already done 2 years of a 4 year university doing all your generals & some health related classes, then APPLY and cross your fingers to be accepted. Most of my womans' friends failed to be accepted the first time, had to try again.

[anarchir]

Also for the record, my woman is currently finishing up nursing school. My mother has been a RN for many years. My Grandmother is a nurse. Several of my aunts are nurses.  Doesnt affect the validity of my statement.

And dude, CRNA is a nursing assistant job. Not nurse. RN is a nurse. People can be assistants and in high school. Your facts are way warped.

[alaric89]

You give information that every chick who ever had or will have any influence over you is evidently a nurse, and your calling Brasky's point of view warped?  

[Turd Ferguson]

All I know is that a doctor has to absorb a shit-ton more medical books into their skulls than a nurse does. Hence the extra 4 years of medical school that a nurse doesn't have to go through + 3-7 year residency, depending on the state you live in.

Both seem rough to me though. I dont think all that info would fit inside my head all at once in either case.

[Rebel]

drama has been derailed in recent times

[dalebert]

Okay, renewing drama: Jay (bonerjoe) is moving back to Keene. Discuss.

[Laetitia]

Okay, renewing drama: Jay (bonerjoe) is moving back to Keene. Discuss.

How is that drama, as opposed to just gossip? Is he going to walk into town and start bitchslapping people or something?