Working girl

A novel new experience for MS. S...."A real job", in the real world. YIKES! Age 59, (what an age and time to be engaging in such a novel new experience!) Having been a self-employed, fiercely independant, ultra entrapaneural persona for my entire adult life, the challenges of this current new adventure have indeed been many, on all levels. Right from the get go...applying for a job...whereby all the spaces on the application to list previous employment information I had no option but to leave glaringly blank! I did however have a skillfully crafted letter to attach which highlighted my many talents, skills, and strengths detrived from my sucessful endeavors as a rental property owner/manager, owner of an art business that requires all of the management skills any business demands, my people and selling skills in my Real Estate career (limited as it sadly was), and having raised 3 successful children solo....speaks volumes to any asute future boss! I ended up getting the job, as an assistant activity director in a rather large nursing home. Parttime, but it did require two, 40 hour wks. of "training" (what they alledge is training), and almost quit a total of 9 times almost daily, from the second day of "training"! I knew going in that all the changes having a real job would be many, and knowing a great deal about myself, knew where the big pitfalls would be...I can't handle chaos, not anymore anyway! Being one very determined person, I toughed out the first week, but admitedly had to dig VERY DEEP to keep going in for more. YES...challenged on literally every level of my being...very busy, tightly scheduled work days, highly stressful daily work shifts (all of which had to be learned in the event I'd be asked to work a shift I'm not ordinarily scheduled for), a ton of meticulous, endless documentation duties that differs in proceedure from shift to shift and are ongoing countless times each day, with codes and charts, etc. All the office duties operating mind you out of our activity office which is quite literally no larger than an 8X8 tiny room, that has only 2 desks, a file cabinate, a huge wall closit jammed with crap, a book shelf, 4 chairs and 2 TV tables on wheels where the 6 adult sized persons have to do their office duties in this literal closit, ALONG WITH THE BOSS, who is micro managing your every move!...Where volenteers cram in at any given moment as well! YIKES, noise, constant talking, endless verbal changes to have to remember as your'e attempting to do the paperwork/documentation and coding! A manic director who is also new, into mega micro managing, and takes helpful suggestions to ease the aborant chaos, ease some of the more obvious screw ups and disfunction with the scheduling issues as "complaining" rather than seeing them for the merit and value they may have to help not just her, but everyone!....I could go on for pages, but suffice to say, for some reason they can't keep new hires. All such an eyeopener for moi, Learning that co-workers are not your friends, but for one if you're lucky! Yep, a real scheduled work week, with a real boss, with real scheduled duties packed into an 8 hour day that keeps you running and breathless for most of it. Many days I'd survive by the words given to me by a dear friend..."It's just an exploratory mission...a new adventure, a way to limit smoking"!! LOL I've learned many valuable things...I'm much stronger than I thought I was, I'm more determined than I thought I was, I'm fantastic with the actual dear residents of the nursing home, who really seem to love me, and the daily experience of working with these dear souls counters significantly all the grief, stress and BS of the other challenges I've been dealing with. The rewards of the interaction with 'the folks", the residents are profound and many. If at any time, (which could be next wk or next year!) I elect to move on and discontinue with this....I will have taken away many valuable lessons, and will pray for, think often with great fondness of the dear souls I've come to know and love, who sadly can't leave there ever, not just yet.