Oh well...

(Austin knows how to cheer me up when I have a rough day...we pretty much ate the whole thing.)

Well, I guess things don't work out the way you expect them to. Oh wait, things never work out the way I vision them to so why do I bother to have those expectations?? Oh well. I had my second interview with ICS and I was one of six who interviewed this time around. Only one other girl was at the first interview, and they informed us that they would only be taking 1-2 people. Perfect, I thought, it SHOULD be me and the other girl. But another one of my friends whined to the Nursing Recruiter about not getting any interviews, so she was eventually invited well. I really like this girl/my friend and was hoping that she would be the other person to join me in the new job position. My interview went really well, and I felt pretty confident.

Time passed, and I found out via Facebook that my friend got the job. Weird. They haven't called me. I began feeling pretty depressed at this point. Crying over it in my bed, but trying to hold it together by encouraging myself that my dreams of working in Pediatrics wasn't over yet. Then, I get the impersonal, auto-generated rejection email. Seriously??? You are going to give me two interviews, the second one being during a class that I was supposed to be teaching that day, and tell me how much you enjoy talking to me and then just send me an automated email after I've sent two Thank you notes?? In any other job field, this wouldn't be that crazy. But nursing is kind of different. I emailed the nurse recruiter saying I was very disappointed and asked for feedback to do better in interviews. She emailed back:

Hi Rebecca,

I am sorry the interviews didn’t work out as you had hoped. You interviewed extremely well and were in the final 3. It was a very difficult decision for the team, as we had a lot of very strong candidates. We have starting interviewing for the medical unit and you should be receiving an invitation shortly regarding that position. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

It seems like I am in the 'final group' a lot. I was in the final 5 for the U's dance team, then was cut. I was in the "alternate list" for nursing school, but luckily ended up getting in 2 weeks before class started. Why can't I just be a shoe in for some things?? Oh well. The Children's Medical Unit is supposedly taking 15 new grads, so hopefully they will call soon and I will get to work there. If I do get that job, it may prove to be better because my schedule won't be all weekend graveyard shifts and it's not as sad of a unit.

That day, I got my hair done and my hairdresser told me that one of her clients worked on ICS for ten years and said it has totally made her mentally ill because she is always taking her kids in to get checked for fear they have cancer or some other disease. She also said the nurse is planning on leaving the profession soon because the unit has torn her apart. This is certainly not the case with most of the nurses there I believe, but maybe I was supposed to hear that and maybe I just wasn't meant to be there.

In other news, I began my job part time job at LifeTree Research. Oh my gosh I love it. It is my first 'real' job. After training, I scurried home with stacks of clinical protocols for all the studies I am going to be working on. These protocols make me giddy, it is so sad. It is full of control variables that need to be maintained, the dosing schedules, the surveys for the 'subjects', etc. Best of all, it is a smaller company (smaller than a hospital at least) and so they really act like they value each of us and it is a laid back/fun but professional environment.