Starting Monday, April 3rd, I am no longer unemployed! It will be almost exactly 1 year to the day that I had my last day at Stanford and worked as a nurse. It took much longer than we expected but hey, that's life abroad.
Quick sidenote, I will be working but not getting paid. (so much for the 2nd income we were looking forward to) Its technically an internship. Those aren't paid. But its OK because I won't be sitting on my butt all day with nothing to do. The process of getting this internship was quite difficult and that's what I'm going to explain in this blog today.
So I got that letter from the Red Cross at the very end of January telling me I did not meet all the requirements to have my diploma recognized and that I needed to do a 6 month internship in med/surg to make up for it. For 2 straight weeks I called countless hospitals with no luck. Finally, mid February, a hospital said they'd hire me and brought me in for an interview. This was a public hospital. They explained that by law, any internship over 3 weeks long had to be paid. But they couldn't afford to pay me for 6 months so they said I needed to apply for unemployment so that I could be paid in some way, shape or form. I took all the steps with the unemployment office only to get to my interview and they tell me I don't qualify for unemployment because you need to have worked for 12 months in Switzerland to qualify. I knew this but I said this wasn't because I was technically unemployed, its because this hospital required me to have unemployment benefits so that somebody could pay me for my internship. Even with this special case, I still didn't qualify, so the hospital said they could not give me an internship.
Back to the drawing board. I reached out to 2 private hospitals (I'll refer to them as #1 and #2). These are the 2 hospitals I had interviews with last summer. Private institutions are not regulated by the government so they can get away with not paying me. I've mentioned before that the private hospitals are for people who pay big bucks for the highest tier insurance and its like a luxury hotel hospital and you treat the patients like royalty. Not my cup of tea but whatever.
Hospital #1 replied immediately with an offer for an internship, its a hospital 1 hour away by train. Hospital #2 is a 10 minute walk from my apartment, my american nurse friend works there and they have a maternity unit for me to make potential connections with. Obviously the better choice. But #2 took forever to get back to me, and even when they did, took forever to get the ball rolling on an offer. So I accepted #1 and was set to start 2 weeks later. Right before I was supposed to start, hospital #2 finally got their act together and gave me an offer (after I emailed them saying I had to accept at another hospital because they were taking too long). I struggled with what to do. I was told it might not be the best idea to cancel an offer I've already accepted. I didn't really want to burn any bridges but #2 is just obviously better for me, so I accepted it. I felt really shitty about having to cancel the internship with hospital #1, my french teacher helped me write a very professional email to them.
So, nurse friends, get ready for all my future posts about what its like to be a med/surg nurse in Switzerland.
Also, this is why I love Europe and where America needs to take notes and learn. Seriously. At my meeting with the nurse manager of hospital #2 she asked me if I needed any days off. I said I needed a week in May for my wedding. The response I got: "oh, you're wedding! pff! take off 2 weeks if you need it!" Then I said there were 2 weekends in September I probably would need off. Her response: "well you should think about taking a week or 2 during the summer. May to September is a long time without a vacation" Boy, do I love that European mentality. That would never happen in the US.
In other news, I have 2 funny stories.
- Adam and I seem to have not the smartest French teachers, or, it seems like they don't get out much. After going to Finland, Adam was telling his teacher about the northern lights. She had no idea what he was talking about. He explained what they were, still she didn't know what he was talking about. Thinking he was just speaking really terrible french, he showed her a picture of the northern lights, her response: "oh! you mean fog!" .... no! what fog is green?! Turns out, she has never ever heard of the phenomenon of the northern lights... seriously? I don't get it.
The only person I will pardon for not knowing this was a friend in Madagascar, she is Malagasy, it made perfect sense to me when she commented on my photo asking what that was.
-When I told my teacher about Finland, she had no idea what a snow mobile was. I had to explain that to her. She lives in a country full of mountains, even has a chalet in said mountains, and has no idea what a snowmobile is...smh
-Then, I was explaining to my teacher how Adam and I find all of our cheap flights to the US. I said that if you fly in the summer time though, it will always be expensive no matter what. She said, "well unless its winter in the US" I gave her a confused look. She said "like in June or July when its winter in part of the US" I stared back at her with the most confused look ever and she said "isn't the United States divided into both hemispheres?" I said "um... no... not at all. Its all quite far north of the equator. The equator is in South America" She didn't know this. Basic geography people!
Further in our conversation about air travel I also had to explain to her that you are actually allowed to bring food on a plane. And if you buy any food or drink after security then its allowed on. And that these days it usually costs to check a bag (that one she just did not believe) I think its been a loooong time since she's been outside of Switzerland. She is even shocked when I tell her how much cheaper things are in France.
-2nd funny story, its a little vulgar, I'll try to tone it down. But I have to tell it. One day I was listening to the Swiss morning radio on my computer. I clicked on a story they had done called "Fist F**king." I clicked on it because I figured it had to be a metaphor for something and I wondered what it was. Nope! Not a metaphor! Not at all! They actually had a sex therapist on discussing this particular sexual act. She said the idea came to her to talk about it on the radio when she saw her teenage son watching porn and they were doing this and he didn't think it was physically possible. She discusses why people like it, who likes it, how its done, the risks, the pleasures, the social connotation. All discussed in very professional, matter of fact way, as if they were talking about the weather report. I couldn't believe my ears. But I forget, this is Europe. Sex is not a taboo subject. Americans are prudes.
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