Page 64 of Under Southern Stars
Three minutes. I’ll give myself three minutes to educate this woman.
I calmly take Nate’s vacated chair and deliberately drag it closer to Karen—just this side of professionally acceptable, but close enough that she has to resist the urge to lean back.
“Let meelucidatesomething for you, Miss Scharenbroch,” I say, not bothering to disguise the contempt in my voice, leaning slightly forward for emphasis. “This isn’t Home Depot, where if you don’t have enough people working in plumbing, someone doesn’t get a faucet. Okay?” I jab a finger in the direction of the ER. “This isn’t Applebee’s, where the worst thing that happens is your food gets cold. If we screw up here, peopledie. Do you get that? Is there something inherently confusing about that?”
“Miss Mitchell—” she starts, her corporate smile finally faltering as she shifts uncomfortably in her chair. I cut her off immediately with a dismissive wave.
“Do you want to know about our staffing problems?” I flatten my palms on the table, invading her space even more.Karen inches her chair back slightly. “Corporate says we have to run understaffed for six months consecutively before they’ll even consider hiring more people. Six months, understaffed, every. Single.Day.” I punctuate each word with a tap on the table.
“But here’s thebrilliantcatch-22: If we have two nurses quit without notice, and I—as charge nurse—manage to cobble together coverage by begging people to work doubles, shuffling assignments, and pulling staff from other areas, then guess what? According to your metrics, we weren’t technically ‘understaffed’ that day.” I throw my hands up. “So our six-month clock starts over! Because I did my job and kept patients safe despite the shortage. It’s like congratulating a drunk driver for making it home without killing anyone!”
Karen starts to reply, but I hold up a hand so close to her face she actually flinches. “Wait, wait—it gets better!” I step forward, voice rising. “Your precious metrics? They don’t even count the ‘hold’ patients. So when the upstairs units are full or short-staffed—don’t worry, I know, silly me bringing up ‘staffing’ again”—I roll my eyes theatrically—“guess where those overflow patients go? They don’t go anywhere! They stayright herein the ER.”
I sweep my hand toward the department beyond the conference room. “So now my team’s stuck boarding admitted patients for days. Cardiac patients. ICU-level patients. Psych patients. All of them. And we’re still expected to handle the new ER patients coming through the door—trauma alerts, strokes, overdoses—because technically our census only reflects ‘active’ emergency cases. Not the ten or fifteen admitted patients we’re babysitting because there’s no room upstairs.”
Karen’s clipboard twitches in her hands like she wants to disappear behind it. I’m just getting started.
“That means an ER nurse might be caring for a suicidal teen, a septic dialysis patient, and someone in acute heart failure—all at the same time. But does that show up on your precious dashboard? Nope. According to you, we’re not busy. According to your spreadsheet, we’re not understaffed.” I smile sweetly, venom in every syllable. “So when patients wait hours in triage, the blame falls on us. Not the broken system. Not the bottlenecks. Just the frontline staff. But hey, no problem! Just like you said, it’s not a staffing issue, right?”
“I don’t think—” Karen begins, finally frowning in earnest, her body language completely transformed from her initial confident pose; but before she can get anything else out, I swoop in, kneeling down to her eye level.
“Oh, I’msureyou don’t, honey,” I say, clapping my hands around hers congenially, my voice thick and sweet with sarcastic empathy. “I’m sure you don’t. Listen, I’d love to sit here and talk to you about all of it, but I’m probably boring you to tears! Clearly, you already know all this, and I have to get out to triage and make sure our numbers don’t keep making us look bad. Mmmkay? Mmmkay.”
I straighten up, smoothing my scrubs, and head for the door without a backward glance. My heart is pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I haven’t laid into someone like that in far too long.
When I return to the charge desk, Maria gives me a knowing look. “Feel better?”
“Much.” I grab the nearest chart, needing to focus on actual medicine now. That’s when I spot it—a cup of coffee and a small paper bag from my favorite bakery sitting at my station. A stickynote in familiar handwriting: “For after your shift. Hope your day gets better. -J”
My stomach sinks. Jack must have stopped by while I was educating Ms. Workflow Management. He left this sweet gesture and I wasn’t even here to see him.
“When did this get here?” I ask Maria, trying to keep my voice casual.
“About ten minutes ago. Your Kiwi dropped it off. Said he tried texting but figured you were busy.” She raises an eyebrow. “I told him you were educating corporate on the realities of healthcare.”
“And?”
“He laughed and said he’ll call you later.” She lowers her voice. “Left those flowers too.”
I hadn’t even noticed the small bouquet of daisies next to the coffee. Simple, cheerful, and thoughtful—just like him.
For a moment, I’m irrationally angry that Karen Scharenbroch’s corporate bullshit made me miss seeing Jack. Then I’m just sad that I missed a bright spot in an otherwise frustrating day.
I sigh and begin typing an email to my manager, certain I’m going to have to explain this more in detail later, when Nate appears at my elbow. His expression is a mixture of gratitude and awe.
“Thank you,” he says quietly. “For rescuing me back there.”
“Just doing my job.” I pause my typing and look up. “How bad was it before I arrived?”
“She had spreadsheets comparing my triage times with everyone else’s.” He shakes his head. “No consideration for acuity or patient complexity. Just raw numbers.”
“Corporate,” I mutter.
“I’ve never seen anyone shut someone down that thoroughly.” There’s a hint of admiration in his voice. “Everyone in the department’s talking about it.”
I narrow my eyes. “You were back in triage. How wouldyouknow?”
He winces, caught. “Okay, so…apparently a few folks were, uh, charting nearby and kind of…stayed to listen.”
