In the past week I have met a beekeeper, a recovering iv
drug user, a hermaphrodite and a window washer. I enjoyed my interactions with
all of them and, hopefully, came away with a greater understanding of people
than I had before I met any of them. I am constantly amazed at the diversity of
people that cross my path working on my unit at the hospital and it is just one
of the aspects that I love about my job. I meet people that I imagine I might
never meet if I weren’t working in the hospital. I have also realized that, as
an introvert, the magnitude of all of these experiences comes at a price.
I knew I was an introvert long before Myers Briggs
confirmed it. I prefer doing things with a couple of people at a time, am not a
big fan of large crowds, cringe when told I need to work on a team project, prefer
coffee dates to parties and plan my spontaneity. It is very rare that I act
before I think and have been known to turn an unattractive shade of red when
unexpectedly speaking in front of a crowd. All this to say, I have come to
learn that the constant people interaction of my job wears me out.
My job works for me because most of the interaction is
one on one with the patient – which I love. That part is totally my style. The
night shift is probably good for me in this respect. It is generally mellower
with fewer people milling about. Even so, I still leave feeling absolutely
talked out and drained. I have learned that I usually need a day of recovery
after multiple shifts that involves coffee and very little people interaction. Unfortunately
for my family, this is bad news if my need for recovery falls on a weekend and
we are all home together. If you have met my kids, you know they aren’t quiet.
They are enthusiastic, energetic and creative. Quiet really isn’t in their vocabulary.
If I have just worked and we are all together I become known as the unpopular
seventh dwarf, “Grumpy.” I am working on keeping my mouth shut until I feel
recharged so I can at least move to one of the more favorable ones like Bashful
or Dopey.
This need of a day to recover has taken me six months and
some frustration to figure out. I expected the job to be physically tiring and
involve some serious schedule coordinating but I didn’t expect the emotional
exhaustion. Sometimes the exhaustion is compounded by the sadness of seeing
people who will not get better. I am still new at leaving work at work and I
think about these people once I go home. I am reminded that starting anything
new is hard – whether it is second grade or a new job later in life. Just as I
need grace while recharging, I need to extend that same grace to those around
me. I think Mason has some introvert tendencies. I asked him to call a friend
the other day to arrange something and he wanted me to do it for him. I get
that. I don’t like talking much on the phone…especially when it is someone I
don’t know well. I also know that this is one of those skills you need to have
so, after practicing what he would say, I told him his mom wasn’t bailing him
out this time.
I imagine for extroverts they might thrive on all the
interaction that comes from my job. Maybe it is the downtime that would wear
them out. I am not sure. If you are one, maybe you could let me know. I am
always curious what makes others tick. The irony of all of this is that this is
a recovery day for me so I went to one of my favorite local coffee shops to get
caught up on a few things. I had only been here a few minutes when a large
group of women with their small children arrived and I now have 12 inch dump trucks
zooming all around me. At least I finished my coffee first. I look forward to a
few days of peace before seeing who I get to cross paths with next.
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