This "suit" has just lost it!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Normally I can express myself on this forum with humor, but not this time, at least not as usual. I just came out of a meeting (you know; one of those meetings where we sip cognac and eat bonbons and devise plans on how to abuse the staff). I sat down at my desk to get back to my grant proposal on back safety equipment. I'm doing a Capital Equipment Request Form. I'm sure brilliant financial minds created this form, but my gifts, to put it mildly, don't lie in this direction, so filling out this form is like having my nose hairs extracted without anesthesia. But nurses and transporters are getting hurt and hey, this is one of those cushy administrative jobs, better than slogging away at the bedside, right???

This is my fourth 10-12 hour day this week. I will be here tomorrow. I do not make overtime. I also do not make $36/hr, with shift differential, critical care differential, travel pay and housing, like the Winter staffing package I just saw at the meeting. I still remember how to work at the bedside and I loved it. I could be earning twice what I am earning now with substantially fewer hours. I am stupid.

I clicked on Allnurse to clear my brain before I went back to having my nosehairs removed. Instead, I found three consecutive threads on suit-bashing. On how working short is lousy and mandatory overtime sucks and management just doesn't care about the lousy quality of those crummy nurses who make those awful mistakes.

Get a freakin clue!!! So you're working short and you call your manager? Where in the heck is he supposed to get the nurses, if he's called everyone on the call list and all of your peers and every agency in town???? Out of his butt??? If he comes in to help you after working in his office all day (painting his toenails, of course), how useful do you think he's going to be? You'll just bi*** that he doesn't know what he's doing--and you'll probably be right (after all; he hasn't been at the bedside since 1492). And yes, you needed that mental health day and no, you sure as heck weren't going to work that unfair mandatory overtime. And I'm the first to say that a life-saving profession deserves every penny it gets, but unfortunately sometimes, when large sums of money are offered, the people attracted are people who are attracted only to money.

And that selfsame manager is dealing with your substance-diverting "peer" and your unsafe "peer", along with regulatory agencies that can put us all out of a job. I heard that manager behind closed doors wishing she'd caught things sooner, wondering if she was being too critical, questioning and doubting and hurting and wishing she could do a better job and feeling nothing she does can ever be right. I felt her pain, just like I feel yours in this forum.

And I'm dead tired, and I'm crying right now, and I'm wondering why in the hell I don't just forget what I'm doing and go back to the bedside because I was happy there and bedside nurses don't know or understand or appreciate or value what I'm trying to do or their managers are trying to do or their administrators are trying to do. Somewhere, there is a factory that manufacturers us, kind of like the battery-operated All-nurse one, but this is an Ice-water Suit one (maybe that will be a humorous thread when I'm in a better mood). And when I hit this submit button, I'll probably regret doing it, especially when the slingshots and cannons and loogy-spewing machines are aimed at me. Well---let it rip. I may regret this tomorrow, but tonight I'm too fed up myself to care. :p

Specializes in Med-Surg.

It was mentioned that you "chose" the job you are in. I've been there too, and when I chose the job, I thought I could make a difference, make things better. The frustration of getting nowhere no matter how I tried was not what I imagined when I "chose" the job.

I understand the stress on the floors, but got so tired of the complaining-blaming attitude that was always in my face, instead of problem solving attitudes.

I think the stress that both staff and management experiences comprimises your ability to problem solve and to see beyond your immediate problem. And some people just complain-blame habitually.

So I left that position and am living happily ever after at the bedside. Some days are awful, but I can go home leaving the problems behind.

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

JeannieM, middle management is a terrible place to be--for anyone... Don't be too hard on yourself. You get it from the top and the bottom. And you're "caught" right there in the middle, like a pair of pincers, squeezing you from every direction. No real authority to change anything. Stress, stress, stress; unappreciation, unrelenting impossible demands. I certainly would not want to be in that position. Try to get away and do something fun just for you this week. Take time to sit back and reflect--maybe there is something else out there that you could do that you would really enjoy; that wouldn't consume and take all the joy out of your life, like this job has.

Originally posted by stevierae

Jeannie, with all due respect, it was your choice to go into management.

Everything you have described comes with the territory. That's why most of us DON'T want to go into management.............

AND........and why nurses don't stay at the bed side......l like my NM...don't really consider her a ''suit'' per-say.

However, these upper mngt. robots only care about the bottom line...nothing more....if they would bother to get off their inflated asses and pull the stick out...hey, they might find a nurse or 2 up there..............:devil: LR

Jeannie, when a JOB makes you cry, it's time to reassess the job and decide if it's worth that kind of misery. A job should be FUN. You should be able to drive home, still laughing over the funny things that happened at work that day. Life is too short to be doing something that you don't LOVE. You are in my thoughts and prayers. Middle management is a miserable place to be; you are in the proverbial "between a rock and a hard place." Let those that ARE really management, and who are PAID more, deal with the headaches.

When I was a CNA, I thought I had the worst job in the hospital. The LPNs, RNs, and especially management had it easy. When I became an LPN I realized that I had been wrong. LPNs actually have the hardest job in the hospital, and much more responsibility than the CNAs. By the time I became an RN, I finally learned that NO job is easy, including management. Each job has it's own responsibilities, stresses and rewards. Of course there are good managers, mediocre managers, and poor managers. But there are also aides, LPNs, and RNs that fit into these same categories. It often seems as if upper management in our hospital has little regard for the nursing staff, and only worries about the bottom line. But guess what, somebody has to worry about the bottom line, or hospitals would not be able to operate. The problem occurs when administration does not realize how important the nurses are in keeping that bottom line in the black. When their focus becomes so narrow that all they can see is the balance sheet, nurses feel de-valued and abused. I personally would not want to work in management, although I have been offered positions in the past. I want to keep doing my patient care, and let someone else worry about the bottom line.

having read your posts

and having gotten to know you from this bb

I think ur wonderful plain and simple

you do the best you can do in a sometimes crappy position and I can understand your position.

In my posts I have not tried to bash management generally speaking, just my encounters with the management where I work.

I would feel incredibly lucky to work with you in any aspect of nursing as I feel you have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share

keep your head up and know in your heart of hearts that you are doing what you can in a sometimes very impossible situation

I love you for coming here and generating the opportunity to understand something new. How could we learn unless you shed light on how things are; Thank you again.

Once I threw my hat (and time) into the ring, so to say, to "make my bones" working at a large corporation. They just chewed me up, and spit me out. Remember! Looking ahead 5 years from now, yule have super-power perspective and experience. Right? As folks have told me, you do right by bouncing it off this board.

So far, i observe health care much different than any other "corporation." If union went to strike, or a slow down, the company would suffer. But if we allowed something to go wrong because of over-worked people, then the PT's suffer.

When I started my job, I wanted to ask my manager if she wanted me to help keep up and organize all the paper in her office. And everytime I see her, people are dogging her with information and requests for information. You must get floged as well. I wish I could say more, but this is a learning thread for me. Im sorry :-(254885356

Specializes in Hospice, Critical Care.

Been There; Done That. Went into that limbo-land of administration for seven months. Not management, but not staff. Got a real good look a life "on the other side." Hated it! I'll take the stress of the ICU any time. And I went back to the ICU in May and I'm ever-so-happy to be there!!

I have a lot of respect for many nurse managers and a few of the upper management. I try to stress it when others are griping about management about the balancing act the NMs are attempting. I would NOT want their jobs!!!

OK. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, people smiled when they saw me walk in (a few even hugged me), and even the paperwork-from-hell didn't look quite as daunting on my desk. I didn't plan on logging on here this morning, but there were PMs from several of you (THANK YOU!), as well as numerous posts offering different perspectives and support that I very much needed to hear. Thank you all so much. This is why I come here.

Guys, I'm an idealist, and I will persist in being one in spite of what we see in healthcare. This BB is one of the reasons that I remain one. The place I work, for all of its warts, is another. There are so many great people trying so hard in that little hospital, and this profession, and it hurts when they just don't see that the other person is truly trying just as hard as they are, and may be fighting personal battles they know nothing about.:o Buried somewhere in the rubble, I've got a husband and two kids and four cats and a house that should be declared a disaster area.

"Lemons to lemonade?" I think nurses at all levels have made enough lemonade to fill up the Atlantic Ocean. And if I ever tell you to "do the best you can", I'd better be beside you doing the best I can myself, or collapsed in exhaustian at your feet because I couldn't do anymore! :(

There are also people at all levels in this field who are either burned out or unmotivated or simply don't have the aptitude for what they do, and these people endanger us, our patients and our morale. Unfortunately, executing them or impaling them on rectal tubes is not an alternative (except in my warped imagination). If you have the misfortune to work with any of these people, my heart goes out to you. I know that you AREN'T one of these people or you wouldn't be on this BB.

:kiss

Enough said!!! I shall now return to having my nasal hairs surgically removed. Please expect a humorous thread on grant writing next week. I need a healthier way to vent! Love you all. JeannieM

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