Work got weird

Cookiesmum1986 said:

Anyway I kind of knew I'd struggle with the upheaval of going back and asked occupational health for help and they said fill out this giant stress management form (50+ pages), I said I'm not stressed I'm autistic and they said you sound stressed to us, because apparently you can diagnose over the phone with your kids in the background.

You appear to be VERY VERY stressed - a classic trait of autism is not being able to deal with stress/anxiety so it will cause you to appear 'odd'.

I think you need to have a long look at yourself and read through questions in the 50 page form to maybe see that you are refusing to acknowledge the insane stress in your life.    It sounds like the form could be your way to maybe get some support in the environment.

Well I'm stressed now!

The form is all about stuff that isn't relevant like "how much control do you have over the tasks you carry out" and at the time when I was told to fill in the form that's what I was wanting to know, what tasks I was going back to (our services haven't returned to normal) so how could I answer the question?

I told my manager that this had happened when I came back from deployment and everything had settled a bit and she said it's fine and I didn't need to fill the form in (the last half of the form is how can the department style questions and I can't ever answer this sort of thing, I have almost no ability to answer open questions like that).

I mean I'd happily sit down and fill the form in but it's not in a format that I can work with, lots of "in what way can the department...." questions and I don't do well with those, I can't imagine measures that will help. I just know it's distracting as hell being told I'm working in one clinic and then 2 minutes before my shift being told actually it's a different one but I've just got on with it. 

I used to work in an environment that was totally chaotic and I got to the stage where I was so overloaded that I couldn't see the wood for the trees.       

Why not ask to sit down with HR to fill in the form - that will enable you to talk about the questions with another person as you go through it - you might find that extremely enlightening - things that you are just accepting are probably seen as unacceptable to everyone else - we tend to go into bunker mentality to just get the job done - but anyone else would have given up or just refused to do it - we don't have the ability to measure 'is this normal' because we cannot see what's in other people's minds.

You might find the way everyone else interprets stress to be very different to you - and you may be hurting yourself for no reason.

I'm over qualified, I have a science degree and have always worked in this particular specialism in various roles so I have a lot of knowledge I can tap into and I can think around a lot of situations so if I am doing a scan and I'm not getting the image i know the doctor will need I'll play with the cameras settings until I get it but others who have just worked in the department just use the cameras standard settings. 

My husband works in a job in health, he's got long service and has had jobs where he's written things like national hand hygiene policies, National dress code policies, and now he's in public health/health surveillance. My house at the moment, despite our best efforts, has unfortunately turned into a covid hub because his team are working remotely and his work is steering Scottish policies and strategies so Home isn't great just now. 

So I've been in positions where I've been told in front of everyone "your shoes aren't uniform compliant, all health worker shoes must be leather" and I've been like no, that's not true and I know my shoes are fine. And the issue has went all the way up the chain (good boss on maternity leave), and when it's reached the lead nurse I've had a phone call and at that point I've had to describe my shoes on the phone and then remind the LN that my husband literally wrote the guidelines and that I know my shoes are fine. Then with no apology the subject is dropped after weeks of stress.

that's just one of many examples but this woman has never been told to wind her neck in. 

I am more worried that, having finally found a sustainable way to get through my nurse training, the work are referring me to occupational health on the basis of a bunch of "what ifs" for when I'm on placement when it's nothing to do with work. Surely that would be the university's job if they had concerns? I have been cleared by the universities occupational health team who have actually taken an interest and read my educational psychology reports, work have never bothered asking for those. 

There is some blurred lines, my training is being funded by the Scottish executive (not the health board), I'm studying distance learning through the OU so my work had to sign an agreement that they would support me during the course and have been given a grant to do this (to get people in to cover my hours while I'm on placement and to give me study leave), but the placements are being arranged by the university and most of them are in my own department which is throwing up more weird dynamics because the manager who I don't get on with is making me my academic mentors issue even when I'm not on placement. They're not manager nurses, they're just regular nurses who have a tutoring qualification and agree to help out with the student nurses when they're in the department so it's a bit awkward. 

I'm over qualified, I have a science degree and have always worked in this particular specialism in various roles so I have a lot of knowledge I can tap into and I can think around a lot of situations so if I am doing a scan and I'm not getting the image i know the doctor will need I'll play with the cameras settings until I get it but others who have just worked in the department just use the cameras standard settings. 

My husband works in a job in health, he's got long service and has had jobs where he's written things like national hand hygiene policies, National dress code policies, and now he's in public health/health surveillance. My house at the moment, despite our best efforts, has unfortunately turned into a covid hub because his team are working remotely and his work is steering Scottish policies and strategies so Home isn't great just now. 

So I've been in positions where I've been told in front of everyone "your shoes aren't uniform compliant, all health worker shoes must be leather" and I've been like no, that's not true and I know my shoes are fine. And the issue has went all the way up the chain (good boss on maternity leave), and when it's reached the lead nurse I've had a phone call and at that point I've had to describe my shoes on the phone and then remind the LN that my husband literally wrote the guidelines and that I know my shoes are fine. Then with no apology the subject is dropped after weeks of stress.

that's just one of many examples but this woman has never been told to wind her neck in. 

I am more worried that, having finally found a sustainable way to get through my nurse training, the work are referring me to occupational health on the basis of a bunch of "what ifs" for when I'm on placement when it's nothing to do with work. Surely that would be the university's job if they had concerns? I have been cleared by the universities occupational health team who have actually taken an interest and read my educational psychology reports, work have never bothered asking for those. 

There is some blurred lines, my training is being funded by the Scottish executive (not the health board), I'm studying distance learning through the OU so my work had to sign an agreement that they would support me during the course and have been given a grant to do this (to get people in to cover my hours while I'm on placement and to give me study leave), but the placements are being arranged by the university and most of them are in my own department which is throwing up more weird dynamics because the manager who I don't get on with is making me my academic mentors issue even when I'm not on placement. They're not manager nurses, they're just regular nurses who have a tutoring qualification and agree to help out with the student nurses when they're in the department so it's a bit awkward.