Dear HoneyBlossom:

Last week you worked two 12 hours shifts, and Friday night was your 3rd sleepover in 7 days. Saturday morning, around 6 am, while working on your own and while two clients crowding around you, one obsessively touching your hair, you gave patients their evening meds instead of their morning meds. You found out about the mistake when the co-workers (a workplace bully, rude and smug) who took over the Saturday morning shift, called to let you know about the medication error.

At close to 63, you are not eligible for a pension for another five years, you have a mortgage to pay, and you can’t therefore retire. You see many people your age retired but you are working harder than you ever did. You are very tired and very anxious about the possibility that you might lose your job over the medication error, which in your line of work is considered a serious error.

You wrote about the workplace bully and how he affected you: “(he) has upset people with the way he speaks and behaves… For me though, this is a pattern, I become very upset by bullies and conflict, and certain this is because of my childhood and later years in a home of mental illness, alcoholism, violence and verbal abuse. I had been feeling good, and now feel flat on my back – not just the burn out, the humiliation and shame of the error, but by dealing with a really unpleasant person who has pressed my buttons of childhood abuse” –

– this is making me think about how very important it is for every person to be a decent human being and to not be rude to anyone. One never knows people’s backgrounds and being rude can press the buttons of a person’s childhood abuse, activating the hurt, fear, shame and humiliation of a traumatic childhood. These distressing feelings being activated naturally lead to inattentiveness. So, when person X is rude to person Y, and that rudeness adds to person’s Y existing stress, lack of sleep etc., and person Y, because of inattentiveness gets into a traffic accident, causing injury or death to oneself and others… person X is partly responsible for the injuries and deaths. I don’t want anything like that on my conscience, so… it is very important to not be rude to others and be kind instead!

In your case, the co-worker’s rudeness added to your overall distress due to long working hours, misbehaving clients, and it led to your inattentiveness when handing medications to patients. The workplace bully is partly responsible for the medication error. Also, the management who decided on 12 hours constituting a shift and that you should work on your own with misbehaving clients, are also partly responsible for this medication error. Oh, not to mention Putin and his distressing effect on you and on millions of others outside the Ukraine, not to mention inside the Ukraine!

None of us is an island, we affect each other. And so, the responsibility for the medication error is not all your own. I have no doubt that the co-worker (and Putin) will not be held responsible for the error, but they are partly responsible for it!

The humiliation and shame do not belong to you. Please have compassion for yourself. The error is of no consequence to the patients, no harm done.

It is Sunday, 2 am, your time. I hope that you are peacefully sleeping. Monday, you will be confronted with the medication error. May you handle it with courage, not with shame!

I wonder if the company you work for has been disregarding a few Australian labor laws and regulation in regard to the number of hours per shift and in regard to a female employee working on her own with harassing male clients?  And if so, I wonder if you can use this for your advantage.

Following a very quick internet search, I read in bizlatin hub. com/ labour laws when hiring employees, australia: “The Fair Work Act of 2009 (FW Act) is the general basis for all Australia’s established employment law, as well as work, health and safety, and non-discriminatory regulations. The act creates a council, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), which oversees employment regulations, awards, and enterprise agreements… The basics of employment law in Australia are based on the National Employment Standards (NES). This document outlines ten minimum employee entitlements in the workforce which employers must comply with. These minimum requirements are as follows: maximum 38-hour work week for full-time employees, employees who have worked for a company for 12 months or more may request flexible working hours if they meet one of the six categories”, and more.

* It is an interesting coincidence that that Shane Warne died (at 52) from a heart attack on the same day as Rod March died (at 74) from a heart attack that took place 8 days earlier, both Australian Cricket Icons, from what I read in the updated Wikipedia entries.

anita