Work frustration poll

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. Biggest source of workplace frustration

    • 51
      Patients/families
    • 56
      Direct co-workers
    • 158
      Administration/workplace politics
    • 27
      Other (please specify)

292 members have participated

Who is the biggest source of stress and frustration at your workplace?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Who is the biggest source of stress and frustration at your workplace?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, nutrition.

Most days, my biggest source of frustration at work is the admin/managers. Not because I actually SEE them (I work nights) but because I usually check my work e-mail and see all the damn memos about the new policy of the week. And they come up with some assinine things. Such as:

"In the past six months, we've had one complaint from a family member about a nurse. We need to make sure we check our attitudes at the door and be good patient advocates."

Surely they jest. I even called my manager to make sure she didn't mean 111 complaints (typo since it was in numbers not words). Now, granted, for every complaint they get, there are probably 10 disgruntled people who didn't complain. But I've taken care of over fifty patients in the last six months (I figure) and we have probably 25 or 30 full-time nurses (not to mention part-timers and PRNs) so one complaint out of that many nurses and patients seems a miracle, really. (I think I even know which patient complained, and about which nurse, but I digress...)

Or how about this:

TPTB decided since they just can't seem to fill those nearly 100 vacant nursing positions in the hospital, they will force everyone to work 40 hours a week to be full-time (which used to be 32 according to hospital policy and 36 according to ICU policy since we work 12 hour shifts). Guess what happened? Shocking, I know, but a lot of people quit. Seems they LIKED working 32-36 hours a week and didn't want to work 40. But this new policy only applied to areas with a shortage. ER nurses don't have to schedule more hours because they have too many people on the schedule to give anyone more hours. Probably other demand areas don't have to either (I'm thinking Cath Lab and GI lab, maybe OP surgery).

However, if I've been working for several days and the same three or four stupid family members call about the same patient several times a shift but can't manage to get to the hospital to see him because it's raining (HELLO, I DROVE HERE IN THE RAIN TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR #@#$$% FAMILY MEMBER AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW HIM!), I get a little frustrated. How can I be taking good care of Mama if I'm on the phone with you and your three crazy sisters who all ask me the same questions but won't call each other and give a %^&*&* update!

But usually it's management.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Mostly LTC, some acute and some ER,.

I voted for patients.

The whole reason I am in this is for the patients, but on some days (not all) in my faclility, I keep giving and giving, then I get yelled at, cussed at, spit on, and sometimes hit. Only while I am working one particular hall (the one I get tomorrow :()

Also, when They know that I am SO busy, such as when I explain that I am the only aide on the floor for a while or for the whole shift, they ring relentlessly for reasons like "Oh, there you are, your so beautiful, can I look at you" and GOD I am not even attractive. 5'9" muscular build 'how manly' and I have shoulder length blue, red, and purple hair.)

I don't find myself attractive, exept my hair, and i cant see how old people find me attractive either. Anyways, they like to look at me.

They also ring for outragious things like "is there going to be T-Bone steak tonight" they right to ask me these silly things that the answer is obviously going to be "no" to, while I could be doing something more valuble with my time! Also when families come in and chew me out because "there is a speck of food on Ma's fingernail!!!"

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Working in L/D my biggest frustration in the families. Last night I had this grandpa who thought he was funny going around telling everyone he was a doctor. He was just a general smart a$$. I was so glad to go home and not have to deal with him any more. In general the patient wasn't so bad.

I have found that more often for me it is the family that gives me more problems than the patient herself.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

For me it's the politics....explaining the obvious to the obtuse and waiting for logic to sink in........

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I voted co-workers.

I have one other nurse I work with that won't show me anything (and I'm brand new---haven't even been nursing a whole month yet!). She stays on her side of the building and I stay on mine and try to muddle through. I'm doing ok, cause my DON says I am, but still, it would be nice to have someone explain some things to me if I'm lost.

People with attitudes like that irritate the crap out of me!

Everyone else I work with is wonderful and I love my job...just not her...

But I'll get through it...just wanted to vote! :)

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I have to go with administration!

The patients I can deal with... they don't feel good (and most of them are half-dead, since their HMOs won't let them even be there if they aren't).

The family I can deal with... they are concerned (and...really... some of them can't drive, can't see, can't get a ride, don't have the money for a cab...)

It has GOT to be... administration! This actually happened:

I was working rehab (3-11). As I was passing a patient's room, a CNA was yelling for help. Her patient was on the floor in cardiac arrest! I called a code, and began the resuscitation steps. When the code team arrived, I went back to my patients, one of whom (I had 6) had turned bluish-purple, and had spiked a temp of 104 in less than an hour! The patient said she was having no trouble breathing (lungs clear to auscultation), but she felt "funny". Called the M.D., waited...waited...waited... Went back to the patient. Ten minutes had passed. Still blue... temp now 104.4. This went on, with temp increasing by the minute, and the doctor finally called about an hour after his 3rd page. I stayed with the patient most of that time, praying...

At 10:15 we moved her to ICU, with a temp of 105.8 and an Infectious Disease consult.

In the meantime, my other 5 patients (who were stable, and whom I had briefly checked on a couple of quick rounds) were waiting for their 9:00pm meds. I gave them at 10:30.

Went home feeling pretty good about the whole thing. We had saved and stabilized the patient with the cardiac arrest, the patient with the strange symptoms and high temp was taken care of, and all my patients got their meds (although a little late).

The next day my nurse manager called me into her office. She had written me up because one of my patients was supposed to have had her B/P taken at 9pm, and it was not taken until 11pm. AND it was 130/80. I thought maybe she was kidding. NOPE.

ADMINISTRATION definitely gets my vote!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Hemodialysis, Home Health.

TiddlDwink..:eek: surely you JEST !!!

OMG, how sad that IS !!!

For me it's not anyone who works directly in our facility, and our DON is the absolute BEST ...but the management geeks who come around once a month for CQI (and never bother to say hello to the floor staff) to bestow on us more "new and improved" methods of saving the company money. All of which result in less time for/with the patients.

Some of what they come up with is so assinine, we just laugh our butts off... our latest:

we're allowed one apron per shift (!) I'm talking about a dialysis clinic, now...blood flies, spatters, and spills. Right...:rolleyes:

Maybe they'll ask us to start washing our gloves next and reuse them.....

If it weren't for the nurses and DON and our great patients, I wouldn't be there !

Up Vote Up Vote ×

No, Jnette... Not one word of exaggeration, either!

I managed to "keep my cool" and asked my manager, "Just for the record, if you had been in my position last night, what would YOU have done?"

Interestingly, she really didn't have an answer. She hemmed & hawed & talked a little about how we have to set priorities... which angered me a little... I thought I HAD set priorities!!

In the end, though, I had to agree that the order read to take the patient's B/P at hs (9pm), and I had not done that. "Mrs. Branson, what does the order read? Did you follow that order?"

Oh well... and they ask if nursing is a profession... don't make me laugh!!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

jnette, I hope that whoever had the "one apron" idea has had infection control duly drop on them from a great height!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

very diffucult to narrow this one down. families give us fits in the area Iwork, but administration and short staffing in also. and then there is the lack of team work:(

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment