(Press On—Building 429)
I went to bed angry last night. Angry at myself and angry at my school.
In one of her books, Holley Gerth says anger is a gift from God that reminds us to look for the places we’ve been wounded to teach us to nurture ourselves.
I thought that sounded really pretty when I heard it, but once I thought about it I decided that is dumb…I know where I am hurting, and being angry and going back there doesn’t ever do anything good for me. It is better to try to forge and move on.
So anyway…
Sure, they did quickly go over this (stupid) requirement while we were still on campus and did send a reminder email…but every single example they showed us had things done differently than the way they wanted us to do it.
It wouldn’t have been a huge deal—I would have re-read everything and noticed prior to posting if it hadn’t been for a new rule that was only disseminated via facebook as far as I can tell.
See, the new rule is that there is a limit on the number of items we are allowed to upload during the last week of rotation. I had only uploaded my big assignments, so I was going to be way over the quota, so I started frantically uploading everything I could…which took hours that I didn’t have and really needed to use on my huge final project that isn’t fully written yet, because the system we upload things into is SO slow, and SO not user friendly.
So because I was going so fast, two files went online that shouldn’t have, because they broke the ridiculous new rules. Chances are, I wouldn’t have been caught, but I am way too honest so I can’t help but tattle on myself. I hate myself so much. Partly it is a system problem though. It is the dumbest thing ever that once a file is uploaded it can’t be edited or deleted except by deleting the entire folder—which is something that only the experiential office can do. I am mad because why is it okay for them to post examples of what TO do that are not what they actually want posted, and who even cares if I post something I’m not supposed to…umm, my preceptor already is going to know anything I post and see it before it goes online, and EVERY SINGLE OTHER SCHOOL WANTS THIS INFORMATION INCLUDED. I hate my school so much…and I totally get why so many people want to give back only to the students and NOT to the school itself.
And I am mad at myself because it was a preventable mistake, and because they have warned that they hold the right to decrease your grade and give you other penalties including fines and behavior points if they find out…and they didn’t really specify if that would happen even if they only found out because you told them. Does it make sense to punish people for an innocent mistake? No, not really, but does much of anything they do make sense? No way! I have so many stories of how people have been punished for things they did, or maybe even didn’t do and the punishment didn’t match the crime…and just my luck they are going to be so excited to test out their stupid new rules that they are just going to throw everything they can at me to make me an example for everyone else. I don’t even care if they want to fine me—my grades are worth more to me than my money—but I have worked way too hard on this rotation for them to take away my grade over one teeny tiny mistake.
I would understand if I had somehow uploaded like an entire patient file or something—that would be a huge problem…but I didn’t. All I did was phrase something the way we weren’t supposed to phrase it this year. Which is dumb because this is the first year for that rule and they didn’t edit their examples to reflect that, and supposedly it is a schoolwide rule that even teachers shouldn’t be posting things like that, so the examples they post that anybody can see (ie not just the experiential office and one student’s preceptor) shouldn’t be phrased that way if it is an in real life problem.
I appreciate that this school probably has the lowest tuition of any pharmacy school, but just like I’d rather be happy than skinny, I’d rather be broke if it meant this much less frustration. Life doesn’t come with do-overs and second tries, but if it did, I sure hope it would be one of those ones where you can decide how far back you start and not just have a specific time period you get to re-do, because I really would want to start over at least as far as twelfth grade rather than just this year…
…and back to my project, because I am not going to sabotage my project over this even if the experiential office does want to screw over my grade…
A journey through trauma & triumph 