"Thanks For Caring!!!"

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

Just a minor and trivial rant here. My interim unit manager must have gone to management seminars that teach them to use canned phrases to encourage us lowly and gullible bedside nurses. I wish she could just address us as adults for a change, and could drop the patronizing sounding catch phrases.

I sent her a pertinent article, and she responded that she planned to read it, then concluded her email with "Thanks for caring!". All the emails that management sends us is full of this canned enthusiasism, complete with exclamation marks, that essentially talks down to us as if we are pre-schoolers. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start handing out happy face stickers.

"Thanks for caring!" "Thanks for being part of a great team!" "You guys are a caring team!"

[bANANA]

Thanks for listening, YOU GUYS ARE GREAT!!!!!!

[/bANANA]

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I agree. A compliment if sincere, is taken in good humor. However, false or effusive compliments are degrading.

Specializes in Nursing Home ,Dementia Care,Neurology..

I think this must be part of a "Management speak" course.Are they all at it ,all over the World?!

They've drank the kool-aide :uhoh3:

I always want to puke when our management starts talking like that. We are adults, not a child. Speak to us like one!! If you genuinely mean we are great good. If not then don't try to force it.

The management must really be out of touch to think nurses will just embrace this nonsence.How about the catch phrase, "More nurses, Better outcome" or "Better Staffing, Less med Errors", etc.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

You all might enjoy this webiste. It is a company that sells items that are sarcastic "spoofs" of that management drivel. They even have the "inspirational" pictures that go with the catch phrases. I printed out a bunch of stuff and keep it around for a smile.

The site is called "Despair.com"

Some of my favorites include:

1. Discovery: A company that will go to the ends of the Earth for its people will find it can hire them for about 10% of the cost of Americans.

2. Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.

3. Problems: No matter how great and destructive your problems my seem now, rembmeber, you've probably only seen the tip of them.

4. Defeat: for every winer, there are dozens of losers. Odds are you're one of them.

5. Idiocy: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

6. Leaders are like eagles. We don't have either of them here.

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

LOL!

Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid.... at my first hospital, which was an HCA hospital that was attempting to get Magnet status... we had a lot of upper and middle management folks who liked to use stupid phrases, and we ALSO had a lot of butt kissing RN's.

We had this one RN who only worked PRN and had only been employed there for a couple of years, yet for some reason she was a management favorite. I remember we had this program in which an employee on the unit, every month got named employee of the month. There would be a piece of paper posted around the unit at various places, with that employees name on it, and then little things that the other employees who had nominated them had said. This particular RN said about one employee "She really exemplifies "Quality care, every patient, every time!!"", the dang HOSPITAL'S SLOGAN! There were a couple of other annoying little phrases thrown in there "She really knows the Patient is #1!" or something like that.

She also used to be House Supervisor from time to time, and would put annoying little quotes from like, Florence Nightingale and Helen Steiner Rice and the like, on the assignment sheets. She was annoyingly bubbly. She was my preceptor one night when I first started as a nurse, and it was the night from hell. She was SO condescending and had to stand over me every minute.

Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg, Peds, ICU, Tele.

"Condecending" is just how I view being communicated to in this manner. It's grating to my nerves. I'm there for the patients, not for trite and artificial compliments from management.

Specializes in ob; nicu.

Would Be Much More Sincere If They Didn't Ask Us For Something Right After.."thanks So Much For All You Do, And, By The Way, There Are 80 Chart Reviews On My Desk, Could You Be A Doll And Just Scan Them Over ?"

Specializes in orthopedics, ED observation.
"Condecending" is just how I view being communicated to in this manner. It's grating to my nerves. I'm there for the patients, not for trite and artificial compliments from management.

While I can see/ read your frustration, I am left wondering what you want management to say or do differently so that you feel that their communications are genuine. (Obviously, this can be hard to do in written form - and in fact, am feeling frustrated with my attempts here...) Are you frustrated w/ that words (phrases) they tend to use, or do you feel that their actions don't back up their words? After all, trite phrases become trite phrases because they were meaningful and pertinent, but have become overused. :trout:So, perhaps your manager just needs to find a thesaurus and further work on "effective communication".:devil:

W/out the context that you have - from working in that facility on a daily basis - the phrase "thanks for caring" seems like a good thing. I guess I just haven't seen that particular phrase used in a "blow it out your ear" context, or even really as canned response. (I have been blown off before - just not in that way...) Or, are you relating this as a part of a sequence of events that show a pattern of disregard for your input with little demeaning pats on the head thrown in for good measure. (I know the whole Rah, Team! thing gets real old, real fast...)

(Or perhaps I have once again let my "Mary Sunshine" perspective respond to your post, and your manager does have a pat list of a few pithy reponses that she uses to end e-mails, memos and other forms of communications...)

Either way, I'm sorry you are feeling disrespected and that your input was undervalued. We as a profession have enough to juggle w/out being undermined by stickers, pats on the head and canned reponses!

Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

MNmom3boys,

If I may be so presumptious, I think I can answer part of your question. In my opinion, actions speak much louder than words (spoken or written, with or without exclamation marks).

When managers listen to nurses' concerns, and address them in a meaningful way (or at least explain why they can't), staff members feel that their input is valued. When managers truly listen to nurses' suggestions, and try to incorporate them into practice, staff members feel valued. When managers push up their sleeves and help out with patient care, staff members feel valued. When managers/administration cater in food during busy periods when nurses can't get breaks, staff members feel valued. When staff nurses consistently receive trite answers and catch phrases in response to their concerns, they get (rightfully) irritated because they know that they are not valued for anything other than their warm bodies.

If the OP's manager had replied that she appreciated the article and would like to discuss it once she had read it, I doubt that jlsRN would have been annoyed at all.

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