When in uniform?!?!?!?!?

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm going into my second year of my BSN program in the fall, and have been working as a manager at a coffee shop. And here is my rant, My store is close to a hopital and many nurses (I can see it on their I.D.) come into my store. Very few of them are even slightly friendly, they are rude, impatient:angryfire , and look down their noses at me and my staff.

Alot of my staff is still in high school, or secondary education, their are a few that this is their job for a couple years until they can get their lives under control and move on to better jobs. But I feel this gives no one the righ to look at us or treat us like we are sh!t.

Why is it that in a proffession of understanding can nurses at least not seem to be friendly. And if we don't want to have to act like professionals in public when not working then it would only take the small step of changing or at least removing the ID badge. because it doesn't help public relations.

And you would think that nurses who often have to deal, and care for all kinds of poeple whould but a bigger effort into being nice to others to make the lives of others run a little smoother, the idea of a smile can have a snow ball effect.

This is my rant for the day, so please be nice to the person serving your coffee and unhealthy food, because the person behind the counter might be a patient to someone one day and it may help if they have a possitive view on nurses, or even just to be nice,

SR

I too take issue with the fact being effecient, organized, etc. isn't enough make sure you smile. Nurses are not robots, were people. Some days after dealing with a pediatric code that didn't make it, an elderly abuse case you spent the morning cleaning up, and cheering up..........I don't feel like smiling.

If you didn't want to rant on just nurses.............why did ya?

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
I have been shaking my head at the irony of this development in society for quite some time now. Hospital personnel are the ONLY people expected to deliver customer service anymore. Your typical supermarket chain, movie theater, department store, hotel, restaurant, whatever, it seems COULD NOT CARE LESS where people do business or if they take it elsewhere and this is made glaringly obvious by the employees of these places. They figure, if their place of business carries what you want to buy and is convenient for you, that you will come back. If you throw a fit in their place of business, they have you escorted to the door.

Health care professionals, on the other hand, who used to be concerned primarily with saving lives and helping people rehabilitate have taken over the customer service market. Does this make sense to anyone? I mean people are going to keep getting sick, just like they are going to keep eating and buying sneakers. For the most part, they will go where their insurance companies tell them they can go or, in an emergency, to the closest facility available. So why did we become the customer service gurus when everyone else gets to tell rude people to take a hike???

Boy truer words never spoken. Hell, we are not even allowed a reasonable measure of SAFETY? how many nurses are lost due to disability on the job, but no one cares? Even nurses KILLED by violent patients/family members? anyone? Yet we have to kiss butts in our day to day work, because "everyone" including the doctors to lab people are our "customers". UGH I hear ya sister.

oh i completely understand that sometimes my staff might not smile enough or be as nice as they should (or i expect them to be) but this often happens to me as i'm serving saying all my pleases and what not. (i'm on the floor with my staff as much as i can be to show a proper example.

don't get me wrong i'm not trying to put down nursing or trying to break the bong with nurses that i might someday work with. and i don't want mindless smiling, but on the other hand it is also unnessisary to shake your had and look down your nose at me, i don't even expect a smile just please don't glare. and it is not just nurses who do this it is poeple from all walks of life, i just notice the nurses more because it is a career i hope to soon be starting (one year down 3 to go)

this is my rant for the day, thanx for letting my have it. i feel better.

sr

well you certainly seemed to hit a nerve, i guess people do think about cutomer service and or lack of it everywhere we go.

ps you better break the bong before you start nursing lol

just kidding i know it is a typo for bond i assume

Hospital ban for abusive patients search for this thread... in fact i'll go bump it so it will be new for today... it will give you all hope that a wave of standing against nurse abuse is coming.

:)

Specializes in critical care; community health; psych.

I used to work as a barista at a big name coffee chain. You know the one. I saw so many different personality types and moods. It used to piss me off to have someone come to my counter to order while they were chatting on a cell phone. How are you supposed to communicate friendly customer service with that?

I guess my point is that all customer service jobs require a thick skin. It's no excuse for rudeness, please don't misunderstand. The bar on rude seems to be getting lower and lower. Is it possible that these nurses are so dead tired after working their shift that they were barely able to drive much less carry on a conversation? I have walked into Starbucks in uniform after a 12 hour night shift with the best of intentions but totally unable to crack a smile or utter a friendly greeting because my body is aching with pain and exhaustion from working as a PCT.

Hang in there.

Hospital ban for abusive patients search for this thread... in fact i'll go bump it so it will be new for today... it will give you all hope that a wave of standing against nurse abuse is coming.

:)

That is very interesting but to me always begs the question of training/upbringing realted to the cause of such behavior.

example: I had a 50y M Pt with cardiac problems, Hx DM, Seizures, CHF.

The problem is he only had a 4th grade education. He was completely rude, loud, complaning continually about any intrusion when providing care, rated all pain @10/10 and was very difficult to care for.

Thinking about the situation during my shift it finally occurred to me that he actually acted like a 10y old which is basically what he was because his education had stopped at that age. It appeared his emotional age matched what you would expect from a 10 y old.

It makes me wonder about the past 50 years of child rearing and raising and how many people D/T hardships or familial obligation never recieved education and thus have a somewhat stunted emotional as well as social and psychosocial temperament. Perhaps some of the people we take care of have no training beyond simple I want, I need, Me etc.

I also find it a bit demeaning to characterize what we do as customer service. I like to make patients happy and I like for them to feel taken care of yet this is not customer service it's the nursing process and a holistic approach to healing. Making people happy and meeting their needs is part of caring for the whole person not a corporate customer service statement aimed at getting repeat and referral business ie "can I do anything for you, I have the time". To describe caring for patients as customer service is demeaning nursing as a profession.

It is definately next level, but it would have to be in the big picture considered Customer Service. I mean as nurses we are trained and educated and do make important decisions that affect lives, but we are serving our Pt's. Our facitlities also must scrape to customer services and advertising. Unfortunately it is becoming more and more a customer service industry. However we can not relent to the old addage "The Customer is Always Right"

http://www.okcnursingtimes.com/specials/newsletter_view.asp?newsid=351&catid=88&active=0&mode=current&count=0

I'm not asking for a smile but just not nasty comments, I think my mood was mainly arose from 2 nurses that came in and I personally served them and they were rude, impolite and just out nasty. But on the other hand I am in a better mood today, and there are many nice poeple that come in, with several nurses that are regulars that are the nicest poeple ever.

However we can not relent to the old addage "The Customer is Always Right"

I hate that saying, because most often they are not, they are jsut comfused, and pushy.

just my thought on that saying.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

I don't buy that poorly educated people are the problem. Some of the WORST most RUDE offenders in my line of work (ob) are the MOST educated and some of the most grateful are actually "lower class" e.g. poorly educated and low on socioeconomic scales. 50 years ago, people dropped out of school right and left to help in family businesses and farming, or some similiar necessity. A modern-day example of so-called school dropouts who are never rude are the Amish. They quit formally educating their children at 8th grade, yet never seem "emotionally stunted" , rude or have that horrible sense of entitlement that so many others today do. They usually make quiet, cooperative and good neighbors and take from the planet only what they need to live a simple life. They are never rude, the ones I have met in my times in Wisconsin and Indiana.

All the folks I talk to in older generations tell me, the rudeness we see today was not a main characteristic of people just a generation or two ago. The sense of entitlement and out and out rudeness on the parts of so many Americans is sickening, despite the fact that as a nation, we are better-educated, better fed and have more conveniences at our fingertips than any time in our history. Maybe, that is the PROBLEM. :angryfire

Specializes in Trauma,ER,CCU/OHU/Nsg Ed/Nsg Research.

I used to be a Barista, too. I just figured when any of my customers were rude, it was because they needed their coffee (or it was because my old-world, kinda racist boss ticked them off- that was always fun).

I can relate to the person who mentioned rude, uppity people in bookstores, too- what's up with that?

So it's not enough that they are professional, hard-working, and organized but they have to run around with a stupid grin on their faces too? I don't mean to pick on you but that strikes me as quite funny.

Its not running around with a grin on your face here Sharon, but at least smile once in a shift while talking to your nurses or when order them around or share the workload together.

It seems that the more senior nurses your the more grumpy your are and that really shows in the clinical setting. No wonder nurses eating their youngs.

Specializes in Hemodialysis, Home Health.
I agree with Vicky. Everyone is rude and impatient. Wait until your a nurse and have to deal with those "customers".

People behind the counter around her are rude too. You can go through a checkout line and not have the checkout person not even look you in the eyes much less speak a word.

And that's exactly why I'm not leaving these mountains and GENUINELY friendly folk !!!

Here we still get smiled at, and not a cheshire cat grin, either. The smiles come from the heart, as does the small talk at the coffeeshop counter or the grocerie store or the gas station.

I notice the lack of HEART in other places, too. How ppl have become totally self focused.

When family comes to visit us, they can't get over how genuinely friendly ppl are here. And I choose to reside in the Land of Smiles ! :D:D:D

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