Ten-Finger Exercises

missing

Friday afternoon when I stopped by hospice to chart on a patient, I saw the office staff sitting at a social worker's desk. They appeared to be dismantling the cubicle, or at least removing everything from the desk and itemizing it. The regular occupant had been back East for two weeks to be with her brother during a serious surgery. When I asked about their task, they looked at me sternly and told me to ask the administrator.

First, I hate that kind of superior secrecy, but I went on about my own business. After all, it was Friday afternoon.

When I passed the administrator in the hallway on my way out, I made a comment about the activity. I'd decided by then that the MSW (social worker) had probably decided to move back there where her family was. I knew she wasn't happy in her job, or the rest of her life either. The administrator is always quite friendly, but Friday she was, well not curt exactly, but short. "I sent out an email," was all she said. I had already logged out of my computer, so figured the message would last till Monday.

This morning I arrived just in time for the team meeting, which was followed by a group session directed by a local counselor. He came last month shortly after the husband of one of our nurses was killed in a tractor accident. It's been decided that he would come regularly for a while to help with grief issues among the staff of caregivers. It is a heavy load they carry sometimes, and it is very sensitive of the administrator to provide that for us.

Hal, the counselor, began by asking what had happened since he'd last been with us. Someone offered that the nurse who had been widowed in the accident had since left hospice and gone to another job, working as a nurse at the university. And, she went on, we had also lost another staff member.

Hal picked up on the nurse leaving, since that possibility had been on people's minds when we last met, and they were already beginning to grieve the loss of her from our midst. Nothing was said about the other staff member, although I'm certain that not everyone there knew about her departure.

After that session, we chaplains and MSWs got together informally in our cubicle area. They were talking when I walked in, maybe about the grief group that will be starting this week. There was not much energy in the conversation, and long spaces between topics, so I mentioned our missing co-worker. They all assumed she'd been fired. She'd made no secret of the fact that she thought it was going to happen, but she'd been saying that for nearly a year. Actually, I hadn't heard it recently, but the others had.

So I brought up the topic of boundaries, a topic dear to the heart of the MSW who went to Albuquerque with me. (She feels that many of the staff, including the MSW who was now gone, had loose professional boundaries.) She said she knew from experience how hard it is to be fired, as I know also. I said I intended to call the ex-co-worker, and I hoped that none of them thought that I shouldn't. I said I would not be drawn in to take sides, or to place blame; but I wanted to offer some compassion at least. The other chaplain said she would call also.

We all talked about the strange atmosphere around this kind of incident. Maybe it can't be helped. Maybe it's the only professional way to handle it. Still, it felt impersonal and cold, toward us, that is, to not tell us to our faces. About then the head nurse came by and said all staff were to be out of the office by 4;30, with no explanation. We immediately figured that our co-worker would be coming in at that time to pick up her belongings.

Our jobs will all have to be shifted around to accommodate the extra load. That will be okay. But, tell me, isn't there a better way to handle letting someone go? Probably not.

I'm going to call her now before it gets too late.