On Call

I am on call. I get paid $3.50 an hour to be on call.

My co-workers at Bay Medical have been letting me take their on-call shifts.

It will only last for a few more weeks or so. Before I am officially unemployed.

If I had to make the choice to fire someone, I would probably pick me as well.

I haven’t worked at the hospital for 15 years like a lot of my other co-workers.

I am a military spouse and we will move again in a year and a half.

I started 2018 with two jobs so I bought a new car. I started 2019 without any jobs and bills I can’t pay.

After the storm I got a call from a co-worker at Bay Medical who had been at the hospital for several days and needed to be relieved. I went in and worked 62 hours non-stop. We did just about anything that needed to be done. Set up cots. Answered phones. So many people called looking for missing family members hoping they were at the hospital, safe.

We had 3 hot meals and even church service on Sunday.

A couple of weeks after the storm everyone who worked at the hospital got a text message, with a link to a letter. Mine letter said I was being let go.

I love what I do. I don’t want to do anything else.

I am in school and graduate in May but I can’t afford not to work.

I can go to my parent’s house and find a job there but then our family has to be a part.  My step-daughter has high-functioning autism and is in a great school in Panama City. I don’t want to take her away from that. My husband’s schedule isn’t compatible with single parenting.

It’s just an impossible situation.