when the day shift arrives

[nightengalegoddess]

Just a quirky question. I worked the day shift for years. It made me precise, great at time management, almost a Supernurse....but also almost a total #$%&!.......now I work nights. When the day shift comes in; no matter how STAT the night has been......the emotional voltage goes up 150%. It is easy to get "waterfalled" into that hard-nosed, frantic energy. QUESTION: Why is it that after a long night of even very eventful negatives...the night shift folks are calm and supportive.....while the day shift folks are ready to cannabilize anything?;...It is an interesting study in human nature....what do you all think? Besides the constant drain of stress with the outer social chaos? Is it really just about "too many rats in the cage".....or what???Blessings!!!!!!

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

No we go to bed at 8 or 9 am in the morning and try our best to sleep past 3pm, which is sometimes hard to do with neighborhood lawn mowing, trash pick up, and of course the sun shining. If you think it's hard to get up at 5am, go to bed earlier.

Hmm I dont follow. Im a night shifter. Just recently they started doing road construction by my house so I moved to the basement couch for a little while. I have black out curtains in my room for when Im in my original room.

I could never work days. I suffered 6 years of school and having classes early in the morning. The last thing I want to do is wake up in the morning for 12 hours of work.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Hmm I dont follow. Im a night shifter. Just recently they started doing road construction by my house so I moved to the basement couch for a little while. I have black out curtains in my room for when Im in my original room.

I could never work days. I suffered 6 years of school and having classes early in the morning. The last thing I want to do is wake up in the morning for 12 hours of work.

Same here. I loathe going to bed early and having to wake up early. I would be cranky too. LOL

[IdrilRN, BSN, RN]

I make sure my book and knitting are packed away so they don't think I haven't done anything all night. But seriously, please go to report, after getting here 10 min late, so I can go home and get my children to school so I can go to bed.

Our downtime is in epic proportions but when someone is awake and "busy" there are just the two of us and a tech (if our census is high enough) to deal with it. Granted, much help is just a code green away, but a lot can happen until they get here.

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

I find that it's not generally a question of "which shift" but a question of "which nurse."

Some nurses are just unprofessional petty little tyrants - days or nights.

I once had a martinet screw up her nose and say "God! Your workdesk is such a mess!"

It's not like there was pee and poop everywhere - just a clutter of papers, patient labels and order sheets. I thought it was cluttered. I suppose in the eyes of some, it was messy.

But, when I have an active GI bleeder with a Hgb of 4 and another ventilated pt. with a SBP of 70 on 2 pressors, with no urine output and a WBC of 32 and temp of 105... and I'd just got done shipping out a AMI to the cath lab --- desk top clutter isn't exactly a freakin' priority to me!

I calmly told her (while in the process of helping her ungreatful butt by staying over and calling report on my vent. pt to the ICU - I should've just hung up and gone home): "Sorry didn't know it bothered you so. Don't let me stop you from cleaning up".

"Pick your battles" is a completely alien concept to some people. I think they nitpick either because that's what they're proficient at doing or because that's their coping mechanism.

and the first thing dayshift said was, "you didn't take out the trash."

Dude, don't even get me started!

Never mind that I went the extra mile and did a couple of extra "nursing stuff" for you in getting the patients packaged and ready for the day - sure, chew me out for not making sure the rooms were "spick-n-span"

Sooo, next time? Baring patient safety and outcome - I won't lift a finger to help you out.

Oh but my rooms will all be clean and stocked with perfumed candles burning to ease your workday! :)

- a very tired Roy who thinks "prioritisation" applies to more than just patient care.

[AOx1]

This majority of this thread seems like "Woe is me, I work harder than that other lazy/incompetent/inferior shift." I have worked both shifts and take the attitude that the majority of my coworkers work hard and EARN their money. It seems if we can't pick on another discipline/shift/department/level of practice, we don't know what to do. I would rather have an attitude of "what can I do to make this better for the patient" and try to leave things great for the next shift. Sometimes this is possible, sometimes not. We aren't in "the other shift's shoes" and don't know what ther last few hours were like. If someone is lazy, that's their problem unless it impacts patient care.