"Fired for NO Reason"

Loyalty to companies and organizations came from the fact that employees could count on being part and feeling like they were part of the success of a business. This also included the fact that business in some respects was paternalistic with the thought of the business"family" from cradle to grave.

Today's business which has evolved over the past 40 years provides top executives ridiculous amounts of money to get the most work out of the employees with the least amount of investment. No one is developed. No one is assured of their job. The harder you work, the more you are expected to do. If you give an inch they want a foot and so on.....

Loyalty to me, mean that while I am at any company I do my best and remain professional. What is professional? Being on time, speaking to my fellows in a professional manner, keeping up to date with trends, educating MYSELF, and performing customer service with respect to being polite but firm in what needs to be done.

Work ethic is learned and copied from the time you are young, until you take your first "real" job.

One of my children began working in a pharmacy as a teen....I was scared to death of whether he understood the grand magnitude of HIPAA and patient's rights. Would a teenager be able to keep silent in the midst of potentially juicy information? That message from me was repeated over and over, my concern was also expressed to the owner who in my opinion was very blase' about it. HOWEVER, my son as a young adult now tells me he always thought about what I'd said every time he was tempted to blurt some information about who may have been treated for genital herpies, hiv and whatever else. THAT CAME FROM HOME, however the other things like being late (and being docked), calling out (and causing staffing problems) and all others occurred when he was aging, the worker and felt the fall out, or experienced the problem when someone else did it.

Just because we think someone should know something doesn't mean they do. Experience is the best teacher and hindsight is 20/20.

M

thanks maisy. maybe using "loyalty to the company" wasnt the best words i could have used to convey my thoughts. like i said, i feel no loyalty to the company that i work for. they would throw me or any nurse under the bus in a second, all for the sake of "customer service".

i suppose i meant loyalty to myself. no matter how much i disagree with the company policies, i feel that i am getting paid to do a job to their standards and that i will do. but for me, that means working hard for those 12-16 hours i am there, being punctual, being professional and being accountable for my own actions.

i am NOT saying i fault any nurse, be it a new nurse or a seasoned vet, for doing what needs to be done to further their career.

those arent the people that i'm speaking of when i say "no work ethic". i'm sure we've all worked with these people that expect to be paid for just showing up. those are the people i'm talking about. those are the people i dont understand. no matter how hard i try, i cant understand them. i cant understand not wanting to do a job to be proud of. i dont understand "barely getting by" on the job.

i dont understand the people that want to talk/text/whatever on their darned cell phones the whole shift. when i pull in the parking lot, i turn my cell phone off. my whole family has my work number if their is an emergency. i dont understand some women i work with that receive phone calls from every single family member they have 2-3 times a day. if my family called me like that at work, they'd sure hear about it when i got home. and dont even get me started talking about the boyfriends calling people all the time. and i sure dont understand how a staff member feels so entitled that they get angry at me when i refuse to call them from a patient's room while they are performing patient care to answer the darn phone so they can argue with said boyfriend.

i dont understand the people that read a book half the shift or play on the internet and then complain that staffing levels are so bad they cant get their work done. i dont understand the mentality that it is even ok to read a book at work unless i'm at lunch.

these are some of the examples i mean when i say 'no work ethic'. i dont mean to offend anyone when i say "these young people" but in my experience, 99% of the time...it IS the younger employees that act this way.

and i sure dont mean to sound like i am perfect. i like to goof off with the best of them. but when there is work to be done, i get it done and THEN i can goof off.

i'm talking about the people that will enter a room and say "what do you want NOW?".

Good post southernbeegirl.

I am an unemployed nurse who got fired from her first job as nurse . When I was working, I focused on providing patient care and doing all the things that i needed to get done during my shift. My manager even told me when asked about my patients I always knew what was going on with them. I guess what I was bringing to the table wasn't enough, because I got terminated. I have to wonder to myself would I have gotten fired if I just loft around and did the bare minuium, because based on my experience and the post, those types of nurses seem to be able to keep a nursing job.

Thanks Ruby for you story...I am a nursing student pursuing my BSN. I am taking a year off from obtaining my gen eds before starting the actually nursing program.

At the school I am studying I have no idea what to expect in the actual nursing program.

I am a little scared though by your story. I understood immediately about the Coumadin, though. I guess I don't know what a registered nurse is authorized to do. Could this decision not to give the Coumadin be made by her without getting a Dr approval??

I guess what scares me the most is this nurse passed the NCLEX, and graduated from the program with so little knowledge??

I have to admit I have an advantage given I was a medic in the Army. I have done clinicals in an ICU. My scope of practice was not limited to a title. My scope of practice was whatever I felt comfortable with and as long as I had done it before supervised.

We all were authorized to start IV's without question (just usually a bag of lactated ringers (burn pts), or NS)
We all were able to work as a Phlebotomist in the lab.
We knew how to use tourniqets, and quick clot (no longer use).
We were allowed to "prescribe OTC's" to our soldiers
We were allowed to "prescribe Prescription drugs if our Dr or PA approved"
(didn't need to get permission everytime just a one time "I trust your knowledge of this prescription drug"

Anything after that we learned we were forever authorized to do.
Small surgeries (cyst removal), suturing, and more.

I guess my biggest issue is do they really send out nurses that uneducated. I understand she is an extreme example??

I mean that is stuff you learn before nursing school I thought. Knowing normal levels No but see a PT bleeding out of orifices and your not going to question giving them a blood thinner.

Seeing lab results with abnormal K+ level, and then observe the pt cramping??

Hear a pt gurgling, are they not going to listen to their lungs, order a chest x-ray, suction???

Wow, I don't think you'll have trouble understanding or becoming a nurse based on your experience! The biggest problem you will have is with the limitations of the nursing scope of practice. Unless you pursue advance practice you will never do some of things you did in the Army, on the other your experiences in time management and patient care will bring you to the head of the class!

When you graduate from school you are qualified to be a novice, your license may say nurse but until you can practice on your own you really aren't more than a degree and license. No one is prepared for the real world.

Good luck to you, and know your conscientious nature is obvious. You will never be Fired for NO Reason!
M

i got fired from my first nursing job too. my best advice is to look deep inside yourself and take an honest inventory and consider the reasons they gave you. and then learn from that experience and move on. dont stay in it and "waller" around in it as my papaw would say.

when i was fired, the administrator told me that when i "grew up" as a nurse that he would gladly hire me back. i had no idea what he meant and it took me years to figure it out.

just remember...everything that happens, good or bad, is a learning experience for us. it's just up to us what we do with it

Case in point: Many of you may be aware of the recent illnesses of my sister and BIL. My sister was hospitalized in early April with a life-threatening flesh-eating bacterial infection. I asked for (and received) permission to take off two days to be with her. While she was hospitalized, my BIL, who has been undergoing treatment for kidney and bladder cancer during the past year, was told by his Urologist that the tumors in his bladder had returned with a vengeance, invading the wall and he was going to require radical cancer surgery.....ASAP. Knowing this and how sick my sister was, I immediately went to my supervisor and told her I would need to take off two more days (May 1st and 4th), to be with her the day of his surgery and those first two critical days afterwards. This request was also approved by my supervisor....and without question.

Fast forward to today. My BIL is home from the hospital and is having a slow and difficult recovery. My sister, who still has not completely recovered from her own illness is exhausted and overwhelmed with the demands of his care. I am at work,
and get summoned to my supervisor's office. It is there that I am told by her boss that if I continue on FT status and have to be out one more day to take care of my family (or whatever the reason), "I (and I am quoting her verbatim):
am going to lose my job".

I could not believe what I was hearing.

She then demanded that I guarantee that I would not miss one more day of work "to be out with my family" during the next six months. I told her that I could not. I knew I was being set up like a lamb for the slaughter, and that's when she told me I was going on PRN status effective next Monday.

My son was incredulous, when I told him what had happened. "I don't understand that, Mom", he said, upset. "That was like making you promise that a meteor is not going to hit the earth tomorrow".

My BIL (God bless him...and I am crying, now), said: "Sis, you got your hours cut on account of me". My sister was equally devastated: "This is all my fault".

Loyalty? HA! (ugly laugh). That is Corporate America's war cry for total and unquestioned obedience. They want to
control and own you....in return for a measly paycheck.

Looks like I am going to be job hunting....again.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

thats almost unbelievable! especially given that you have 39 years of experience. good God!

corporate doesnt care about what happens to us and your post is yet another example, huh?

to force you to go PRN because of 4 days during a family crisis? geez!

I would contact an Employment Attorney ASAP. There is NO reason for their conduct! JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington

i agree completely on this!

i was thinking after i posted that maybe it is BECAUSE of her 39 yrs of experience. corporate is always trying to find ways to weed out the veteran nurses with all the experience that make the most monies. i wonder if that couldnt be a factor as well?