It’s been another plate-spinning fortnight, but guess what? Some of those plates have now been spun into their rightful place and things are looking good. My first piece of news is that I got the job!! I am now a very proud Band 6 nurse! Steve called me (eventually) to give me the news. The rumours were right, there were two posts and I got one of them! Steve told me that the other successful candidate was pretty much the opposite of me in that she was quiet, steady and sensible. If I hadn’t been so ecstatic, I might have felt a bit insulted but as it was, all I felt was complete elation. I rang Carla as soon as I got off the phone to Steve and she couldn’t do anything but scream! I honestly couldn’t have done this without the encouragement, support and belief of both Steve and Carla. My second piece of news is that the wedding plans are almost complete; everything has been ordered or arranged. Ironically, the only thing to buy now is the Dragon Mother’s outfit. As you would...

This has been melt-down week for me, that’s for sure. In usual Florence style, I haven’t listened to any of the wise words of those around me; Steve, Matt, Carla – even my wise old Mum, and I’ve tried to keep all those plates spinning in the air. It was only a matter of time before one or two of them whizzed off into the ozone, never to be seen again. The first plate to fall was the one holding the wedding dress (it would be, wouldn’t it?). I thought I’d been clever, keeping in touch with the bridal shop via email so that I had a clear record of what we’d discussed. I’d kept them in the loop with my weight loss and we’d arranged for a fitting last weekend. My mother was beside herself with excitement and insisted on coming with me, so that she could give me an ‘honest opinion’. She hadn’t seen the dress that I’d chosen up to that point as I knew she would choose me a nice big meringue number if she had her way, so I was expecting a whole bagful of criticism for the simple, flowin...

I’ve had a right old week of it – in a good way of course!  I actually started the week trying to be sensible. It’s a bit weird really, I usually do things based on gut instinct but I thought I’d try to be a bit grown up and keep all my options open.  I’ve been seriously considering the future of my nursing career (like a grown-up) and had already arranged a lengthy call with Recruitment Panda who, to be honest, have been my rock while I’ve been going through my mid- career crisis.  Trying to be sensible and not wanting to have all my eggs in one basket, I also arranged another call with a different recruitment agency that we met at the job fair as well, mainly to convince my mother that the blisters on her feet weren’t for nothing! I won’t lie. The call with the other agency was a bit scary. The woman with the deep raspy voice fired questions at me so quickly that I almost expected a buzzer to go off and for her to announce how many questions I’d got ri...

I’ve been thinking long and hard recently about where I’m going with my nursing career.  Working with the students over the past couple of weeks has made me feel that I can’t afford to let time pass me by – at this rate one of those students will fly past me on the career ladder and end up telling me what to do!  At the moment, I don’t even have a mentorship certificate to my name, never mind anything else, so it’s time I grew some stones and got a grip.  I need direction. Training and development isn’t going to happen if I stay as a bank and agency nurse with temporary gigs, and I’m fast outgrowing the feeling of being a newly qualified nurse. At this rate, I will be a stale nurse with stale skills – a wannabe turning in to a has-been.  But the more I think about it, the less confident I become. I need someone to convince me that I can actually do this, that there is a role out there for me that isn’t just filling gaps when permanent staff can’t be...

After my disastrous introduction to the swarm of Nursing recruitment agencies out there, the lady at Recruitment Panda is my new best friend.   Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t suddenly gone soft in the head and I’m not going to be pushed into doing something I don’t feel comfortable with, but her regular calls to update me on different opportunities or simply to explain what avenues she’s exploring on my behalf are like a breath of fresh air.  She’s come up with a couple of possible matches for full time nursing roles for me but explained that the homes were recently out of embargoes after getting in a pickle. She said she wanted me to know as much about the homes as possible so that there were no surprises and I was able to make fully informed choices.  I told her I didn’t think I was confident enough to go into those sorts of homes and she understood – told me she wanted to let me know what was out there, but was glad that I would wait for something that w...

Warning! Posting your CV online will cause Neuralgia.  After my torturous night out with the super nurses I trained with, I’ve been determined to find myself a permanent post with a future. So, I took the plunge and quickly updated my CV. When I pressed ‘upload’ on the job site I felt more nervous than when I signed up with the dodgy dating site – hopefully I would get a few more hits and less abuse.  3 days in and I’m thinking ‘how wrong am I?’. More hits than Rihanna and more abuse than Donald Trump deserves. People are actually insulted when I tell them I’m not interested in a Consultant Gynaecologist’s post, I’m all for transferring my skills but that might be a step too far. I’ve had a load of health care recruitment agencies ring me too and some of  them are just plain rude. One woman told me I couldn’t afford to be fussy and another one said she had the perfect nursing associate role for me. I tried to explain that I was a fully qualified nurse but she wa...

I should have known it was going to be one of those weeks. It started when I walked into the office to submit my timesheets and there was Charisma having a meltdown. Sitting at her desk head down and chanting ‘no nurses, no nurses, no nurses’ over and over again. I won’t lie, a little bit of wee came out when she lifted her head to look at me – she was physically frothing at the mouth. I rushed over thinking that she needed some medical attention, only to find that she had popped her daily dose of Berocca directly into her mouth instead of dispersing it in water. We cleaned her up and sat down with a cuppa while she offloaded about the shortage of nurses. Me being me (aka idiot), said that I was happy to do a few more shifts if it would help her out. She soon brightened up at that and gave me a fortnight rota for a place I’d never been to before…Knutton Mansions. When I arrived, I was greeted at the door with ‘Hi! My name’s Charlie – I’m your knickers for the day...