On Failiure

It is true. I have failed.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines failure as the “lack of success.” Thus, based on this definition that identifies failure as the antonym of success, I recently failed as it relates to my now former job.

Those of you who know me or who have read this blog from the beginning know that I live with fairly significant visual challenges. Still, I have managed to meet pretty much every goal I have set forth in my life.

Until about two days ago, there has only been one major thing that my visual challenges have prevented me from accomplishing, and that is driving. It’s a significant thing that I was not able to accomplish, and that failure has affected every part of my life.

Graciously or otherwise, and most days it’s otherwise, I have learned to make adaptations to deal with that situation.

I have held jobs for long periods of time, the longest being the job I got with the Ypsilanti Courier newspaper after finishing my first bachelor’s degree in commercial writing. I was with the newspaper for over eight years until the paper sold, and I took another job. I worked at that job, as a purchasing agent for an organic ingredients distributor, for almost two years until, as luck would have it, they sold the company too, and I was laid off that time.

So, when, for the second time, I was offered a job at one of the local hospitals working as a telemetry tech in “central monitoring,” watching patients who are on telemetry equipment in the hospital units, I did accept. I accepted because I had been able to adapt and to succeed in every other attempt at employment from the newspaper, where nearly everything I did involved being on the computer, to the job as a buyer in an industry about which I knew nothing coming in, to a temporary financial assistant position at Catholic Charities in which I had to balance and record payments and make deposits – and if I would say any job would have been out of my comfort zone, that would have been it with all of it’s numbers and balancing. Yet I was asked to return and take a temporary position again so it appears I did succeed there as well.

In taking the telemetry tech position, I knew I may encounter some challenges, but I made the decision that I was more likely to find a way to adapt, just as I had in the past.

I hadn’t actually applied for this position. I went to the hospital’s HR department in person during the winter because I wanted to be considered for a physical therapy tech position and was tired of feeling lost in the electronic application jungle. I told the HR person, who tried to direct me toward telemetry tech positions, that I hadn’t done a cardiac rehab internship – or anything related to that field, and that I had experience working with post-PT patients and had actually spent time observing in acute rehab at the hospital. Still, she sent my information to the manager in charge of the department who did call me in March for a night shift job, which I promptly turned down.

When he called me again for a day/evening shift, I decided that I had to try, that maybe this was meant to be for some odd reason. Still before I even interviewed, I told him I about my internship experience and what I determined to be my areas of strength. But I interviewed and passed the initial EKG assessment. I had, after all, had one EKG class at university.

But after completing the month of training, it has become apparent that I, well, I failed. When I met with my manager on Friday, he said that he had some concerns; I answered that I too had concerns. For the most part, our concerns matched point for point. He expressed disappointment that it hadn’t worked out, even paying me some professional compliments, and I did the same.

While my intuition told me that this end we have reached was more than likely, I had to try, for me and for my husband who supported me returning to college to pursue an exercise science degree for which I have yet to be able to pay after nearly a year post completion of the degree. I have done a lot of work since that time, but I have been paid little. I had to at least attempt to earn a decent wage for several months until the debt was paid, and this was the first viable full time offer I had received and what we had hoped might be a step into a PT career with the hospital.

But it was not to be.

My now former manager called me yesterday to confirm that HR had no suggestions for him other than to complete the termination paperwork, and although this is voluntary termination, which means I can apply for other positions at the hospital immediately should I so choose, this kind of ending is never what one really wants when one begins a new challenge.

My basic chemistry professor at WCC once told my class not to fear failure because it means one is trying something new. I liked that statement a great deal, but I didn’t fail chemistry: I got an A actually; she was an ideal teacher for that subject. But now that I have experienced failure again, I have to say I still like that statement.

Had I made it a practice to predetermine my fate based on my physical limitations and walked away, in many cases I would have missed out on success. Even though the outcome was not success this time, I learned some valuable lessons.

So, to borrow a line from a song in A Chorus Line, “Kiss today goodbye and point me toward tomorrow….”