It turned out that the overnight shift was very desirable. Tim in Personnel explained.
Many women with families needed to work those hours. He was wide=faced and red-haired, reminding Linda of an oversized elf. He told her that most of the entry-level openings were for something called "flex-mod," which was a forty-hour period jammed into four days per week. At first the new employees could not request the days, although they assured her that every effort was made to provide a stable schedule. "But, rest assured, you will be working a lot of weekends," he added.
During the beginning, Linda worked from six am to four pm for both weekend days plus two days falling at random within the week. She called her mother every Sunday night.
At the beginning her mother said "You'll get your weekends, honey. Right now just concentrate on getting the experience."
Linda always reminded herself how lucky she was to have a good, high-paying job and the start of a rewarding career. Her friends Naomi and Marsha had graduated at the same time. Naomi had majored in Comparative Literature and Marsha had majored in Sociology. Both of them accepted low-pay, long-hours jobs in retail management. Last December, when Linda called her, Naomi said "I should have gone into nursing like, you. Now I hate this time of the year!"
That early January of 1983, it was still dark at five-thirty in the morning, when she would board the bus headed for University Circle. Luckily it was just a short jaunt down the hill and across the parkway until the bus reached the neighborhood. In cold weather like this, she always wore her pantsuits. During the first winter, when she was still living at Ruth Ann's house and trying to save money, she wore her nylon down parka with her nurse uniforms. When Greg saw it one day, he laughed and said "You look like the Michelin Man with a couple of lollipop sticks for legs." The very next chance she got, she bought a classy, full-length coat like some of the older nurses wore. Hers was taupe suede, with a fleece collar.
Every day, she also thanked God and everything holy for her experience at the Outpatient Oncology center at County Hospital. Inpatients at the Oncology ward at Jewish were in crisis and when many of them received treatment, they suffered bouts of emesis. Other young nurses who worked alongside her seemed slightly distraught at some of the more violent outbursts. They would stand, immobilized, their hands making flapping motions. Linda had seen it all.