Gleaming!

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 found. 

I made the mistake of sharing these concerns with my Mum. She’s one of those people who’ve always got a plan, no matter what. If she’s got a spare fiver, she’s investing it in something, so I should’ve known that she would have a wild and wacky plan for me. 

Before I knew it, she’d booked us onto a train into the city and off we trotted to the jobs fair. I hadn’t even known it was on, but apparently mummy had been looking for opportunities to "become more proactive in finding me a proper job" (her words, not mine) so has been scouring the internet for weeks now. 

Well, I must have been living in a little kebab-filled bubble all of my own to not have realised the extent of the nurse shortage! The exhibition centre was packed with row upon row of different companies displaying their freebies (why anyone would want a free sample of the latest conveen I do not know), luring people in before thrusting application forms in their hands and practically holding them down to complete them. There were private healthcare companies as well as an NHS stand. Every discipline of nursing you could imagine was represented with each inviting us to ‘have a chat’ as we walked by. 

And every one of them desperate to hire skilled and experienced qualified nurses. I knew we were in demand but was not prepared for this! 

The whole fair was inundated with stands from various recruitment agencies and to be honest, they looked the most scary. Their stalls were manned by fake people, reminiscent of predators stalking their prey, wearing Hollywood smiles and 6 inch talons for nails. As they flashed their shark-like smiles at us, I shuddered as I’d remembered my recent encounters with a couple of recruiters. I took a vice-like grip on Mother dearest’s hand as we passed by; they looked ready to abduct anyone with flat feet and cankles, and much as she’d irritated me, even I couldn’t let her be mistaken as a desperate, job-seeking nurse. 

Mum wasn’t having any of that and marched me off to a stall that was manned by a couple of stern folk dressed from head to toe in khaki. It took a couple of minutes for the penny to drop, by which time I was sitting in a chair (knees together, eyes to the front). I glared at Mum while my mind ran through a number of escape plans. At no time ever had she indicated that she wanted her only child to join the bloody Army! 

I opened my mouth to tell them we had made a mistake but was met with four eyes that basically instructed me to sit still unless I wanted to be shot. 

Mum just shrugged her shoulders and looked away, but not before I saw that smug little smile on her face that she saves for underhand victories. 

Our chat wasn’t as intimidating or as bad as I thought it would be with all their imposing uniforms and display stand filled with replica SA80’s and draped with camo netting. I sat mostly in silence and let them finish their spiel which involved waxing lyrical about adventure filled exotic locations and opportunities to go skiing and paragliding in my spare time! I was nervous enough getting on a plane for my regular two week holiday in Benidorm, there was no chance I’d be jumping out of one! 

But I had to admit the job itself did have more than a few merits, better wages than the NHS once I had gone up a rank or two, better promotion prospects, working alongside NHS nurses in various hospitals, but there was still no way I could see myself wearing that nasty shade of green or running a mile and a half every morning! I wasn’t brave enough to ask any of my questions so mumbled my thanks for their time before dragging Mummy dearest from her seat. 

She wasn’t best pleased at my abject refusal to be shipped off to the military, so I endured the rest of the afternoon to keep the peace. 

Aside from the Army, she had me already signed up and practically shipped off to Australia with an agency that pre-arranged all the visa and settlement logistics. There was theatre nursing in New Zealand and strange metal objects to wield in a private sexual health clinic on Harley Street. No thank you to any of those options! 

When I got home I was totally exhausted. I felt as though I had somehow escaped my mother’s ambitious clutches with my sanity intact. As I flopped into the sofa, my phone pinged letting me know that I had an email. Probably one of the crazy recruitment agencies that I had spoken to earlier offering me £100 cashback once I’d sold my soul to the devil. 

When I looked, I couldn’t help but smile. It was my fellow toffee crisp loving consultant from Recruitment Panda just touching base and asking how things were. 

As I morphed into the sofa, it suddenly dawned on me! What on earth was I doing wandering around job fairs with my deranged mother trying to sell me off to the highest bidder? Why the hell hadn’t I just picked the phone up to RecruitmentPanda? They had been so helpful when I’d approached them a couple of months ago; and had taken the time to find out about me, warts and all. They’d kept in touch, letting me know of companies who were recruiting who they felt had the same values as me and I feel a bit ashamed to say that I hadn’t ever responded. But they clearly weren’t holding it against me because here they were, asking me how I was! And there wasn’t a Hollywood smile to be seen! 

I could see that this day was just about to be saved, and without giving it a single thought I dialled the number for my Consultant at Recruitment Panda. When she answered, I felt like one of those addicts going to their first meeting – all nervous anticipation of changes and a new life. I settled in for a good old chat; no mammoth promises, just a good-old fashioned honest conversation about me and my own career goals!