Taking away chairs from nursing station

Nurses LPN/LVN

Published

I work at a nursing home and is my night off and I just got word that administrator has taking away our chairs from the nurses station to get us to work harder. There has been lack of documentation in all units. People think he did this because a power trip. The administrator is only 24 and he is new and he's ****** a few people off. I think it gonna cause a lot of conflict but if people accept this change, it could be a positive change. I have charted standing and it's taken less time to chart. Less time charting means more time supervising and more time at patients bedside which overall will improve patient care. I totally get it but I will take some time adjusting.

Why don't they take away access to water while they're at it.

THEY HAVE!!! Our department manager used to come in on holidays to catch us with water bottles on our computer on wheels or the nurses station, oh excuse me, the CLINICAL station.

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To be fair, I tried this at work the other day. I didn't sit down unless I really had to, and never for more than 3 minutes at a time. I stayed on the move... partly because I felt silly just standing in place...but mostly because I was in plain sight of ALL patients, so naturally they gave me a laundry list of tasks.

I learned that if you make yourself readily available to patients, they will see just how much they can get you to do. One asked me to change the channel when he had the remote right next to him!! several requests for coffee with detailed instructions for cream and sugar...seconds for breakfast and lunch. help to get in bed and 10 minutes later to get back out again. requests to turn the a/c up while roomate requests to turn it down....which ended up in one needing a blanket, which she wanted heated.

and op owes my feet a spa day , they are absolutely killing me!! mostly the arches :eek:

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.
To be fair, I tried this at work the other day. I didn't sit down unless I really had to, and never for more than 3 minutes at a time. I stayed on the move... partly because I felt silly just standing in place...but mostly because I was in plain sight of ALL patients, so naturally they gave me a laundry list of tasks.

I learned that if you make yourself readily available to patients, they will see just how much they can get you to do. One asked me to change the channel when he had the remote right next to him!! several requests for coffee with detailed instructions for cream and sugar...seconds for breakfast and lunch. help to get in bed and 10 minutes later to get back out again. requests to turn the a/c up while roomate requests to turn it down....which ended up in one needing a blanket, which she wanted heated.

and op owes my feet a spa day , they are absolutely killing me!! mostly the arches :eek:

LOL you just described a day in the life of a CNA. A lot of it, anyways. I never sit for more than 3 minutes. That's why when I have 3 minutes to sit, I'm freaking sitting!!! LOL

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LOL you just described a day in the life of a CNA. A lot of it, anyways. I never sit for more than 3 minutes. That's why when I have 3 minutes to sit, I'm freaking sitting!!! LOL

A good CNA is worth their weight in gold !

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Specializes in retired LTC.
You are missing the point. How disrespectful this is to an entire profession!!! If you have RN after your name, (in addition to degrees and certifications) you are being treated as an imbecile. WHY?
Saw the answer here a couple times the past few days.

DISPOSABLE!!!. Nurses are disposable.

Just like any other commodity. If you don't like the changes, manglement will tell you to just leave. You are replaceable.

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This sounds like the administrator where I was working and I'm surprised she hasn't implemented a "no chairs" rule yet!!

For us it started with "no food" in the nurses station (we actually have a back charting area within the nurses station that's not easily visible from the halls.). I could understand the "no food" rule if we were given an actual opportunity to take a meal break. But we weren't allowed anything, not even a granola bar or something! Leaving the floor to get some food in your system is not always possible!

Next came the "no drinks" rule!! In the middle of summer I might add!! We were not allowed to have any kind of drinks at the nurses station, including water!! We were told that if we wanted/needed a drink than we had to leave the floor and go to the breakroom to get a drink!! Even our practitioners were appalled by this new rule!! The kicker is, these rules did not apply to administration, they continued to eat at their desks and always had their coffee cups with them or made multiple trips to the vending machines for soda. On the first day of the no drinks rule the administrator went and dumped out everybody's coffees, sodas, waters, ect without so much as a warning! A few days later she was looking for her cup of coffee which she had left at the desk, she asked the unit clerk if she had seen her coffee cup, and the clerk tells her "Oh I dumped it out and left the cup by the sink because you said that's what we were supposed to do if we saw someone's drink up here at the desk" all of us nurses laughed about that one for days!!!

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Specializes in Lvn to RN, new grad med/surg.

Yes, the lack of professionalism is appalling. They expect us to act like professionals, I expect to be treated as such ie) regulating how much time is needed to sit at a desk and chart and how much is needed at the bedside. And to one of the previous posts whose answer to the pregnant nurse who didn't get any breaks was to "just quit then". What world do you live in without bills to pay? I want to go there. ;) Over here, I have kids to feed and bills to pay, so "just quitting isn't always an option, especially if I were 8 months pregnant and about to have a baby.

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Professionals treated like misbehaving children. Starts for some in nursing school, where I have to say I have never been spoken to about the most crazy stuff ie: "I am not sure you should be working and going to school, Jade, you look sleepy, your grades are good, but wellllll" ...at the time I was in my 30's, and had never been spoken to in such a tone by my OWN parents, nevermind the director of a school that I was paying large $$ to.

Then it goes on to the managers, who speak to people like they are incredibly low intelligence. All wrapped up in the general theme of "you are replaceable".

I bet that if nurses banded together and took a $5 an hour pay cut, management would roll out the most comfortable chairs imaginable. For a $10 an hour pay cut, they would PROVIDE cold bottled water. And just think for $15.00, they would come out of their office themselves and break people for meals.....:sarcastic:

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To the original poster, I commend your positive outlook and you sound like someone who is excellent at their job. If it were me I would be furious. I really do wonder if it is against labor laws how can you be expected to not sit down for 8 or 12 hours?

Recently the temperature at my work has been really cold. I am sadly cynical enough to have thought its probably because my manager wants us to be more active and sit less to avoid freezing. Someone told me it probably happened because they were doing some work with the ventilation system....

Best post ever~

I never thought there would come a time where I was at such a level of cynical thinking regarding my job. But so much has some ulterior motive attached to it one can't help it.

It is a power trip that has absolutely not one thing to do with why we are there--to take care of patients.

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
This sounds like the administrator where I was working and I'm surprised she hasn't implemented a "no chairs" rule yet!!

For us it started with "no food" in the nurses station (we actually have a back charting area within the nurses station that's not easily visible from the halls.). I could understand the "no food" rule if we were given an actual opportunity to take a meal break. But we weren't allowed anything, not even a granola bar or something! Leaving the floor to get some food in your system is not always possible!

Next came the "no drinks" rule!! In the middle of summer I might add!! We were not allowed to have any kind of drinks at the nurses station, including water!! We were told that if we wanted/needed a drink than we had to leave the floor and go to the breakroom to get a drink!! Even our practitioners were appalled by this new rule!! The kicker is, these rules did not apply to administration, they continued to eat at their desks and always had their coffee cups with them or made multiple trips to the vending machines for soda. On the first day of the no drinks rule the administrator went and dumped out everybody's coffees, sodas, waters, ect without so much as a warning! A few days later she was looking for her cup of coffee which she had left at the desk, she asked the unit clerk if she had seen her coffee cup, and the clerk tells her "Oh I dumped it out and left the cup by the sink because you said that's what we were supposed to do if we saw someone's drink up here at the desk" all of us nurses laughed about that one for days!!!

No THAT is funny......:roflmao:...I'll bet she wasn't pleased....:sofahider

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Did they think about the nurses that work doubles and would be standing for 16 hours? That's just ridiculous and very bad for a nurses back and feet.

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Specializes in PCCN.

see post 124

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