Its a line from Moby Dick about a Captain Ahab in reference to Moby Dick but I have adapted it to our ability to be a sponge for emotional overload. They use to have this thing called a mood ring. I am not sure how well they worked. There seems to be this breaking point where a sponge can only hold so much water. I have tried to be more conscious of my own breaking point. I am mindful of the lines from Popeye where he says, "I have stands all I can stands and I can't stands no more." From my fellow coworkers and from my meetings I am learning that it is okay to be human and we can really only expect so much from ourselves.

I lost my mood ring....I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I always thought it would be cool to have one. I have read where the ring would change colors. I am not sure what the cloudy colors was supposed to represent.

Emotional stability is a big thing for me here lately. In a normal work day it is like it is okay but when working a 16 hour shift my ability to control it starts to emotional deterioration.

I still have my mood rings. They just tell me when my hands are warm or cold. LOL You are right that we can only expect so much from ourselves but I personally keep pushing myself to be better.

I think anyone would start to lose it when working 16 hours straight.

Yeah. I was working with one of my nurse friends and she was telling me of some of her strange relationships. During this time I was documenting some of the strange behavior of some of the residents. I had to ask her to define strange. We had an interesting conversation because she could define strange in medical terminology. Of course, most of it went right over my head because medical was never one of my fields of endeavor.

I always felt more comfortable working 7am - 4am six days a week, it kept me occupied and the three months off in winter were awesome too.....I enjoyed it that way.

I work the 10:30 to 7 AM and sometimes the whenever to whenever schedule. Have you met yourself coming to work when you were getting off work?

On occasion I couldn't find myself at all, LMAO.

My CNA supervisor thought it was hilarious when I would give myself report in the walking rounds papers. She told me that I was really dedicated. The usual way of greeting when I would come into the facility was, "Who called off work this time?" And coworkers still ask me the question of "Do you even have a life?"

That's horrible.......I lived in a resort area and earned my money during season..........so I worked my butt off for part of the year and had a lot of time off in the off season.

I missed working one 16 hour shift because my room mate couldn't wake me up to ask me whether I wanted to work an extra shift. One thing about it when you pass out you don't have wonder if you are getting enough sleep or not. She said she has tried to shake me just to see if I was alive or not.