Why are dayshift nurses so grouchy?

Nurses Relations

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I recently read a post in this forum that mentioned something about dayshift nurses were rude and grouchy. In my experience I've noticed the same thing. I've worked all shifts and it seems on days the nursing staff is grouchier and can be rude, even where i work now. Is it because there's more administrative staff around during the day? Or is the work load more overwhelming?

I work nights now and love it, even though the staffing is decreased, we get along great and it's rather laid back in attitude. We are quit busy, some nights with hardly time for a lunch break, but over all it is a nice shift. I admit I love the fact we don't have administration breathing down our necks!

Where I work we are short staffed over all and are always hiring new people, they come and orientate on days and usually quit before they are oriented to evenings or nights. Most of the complaints have been that they staff is rude and don't get along well. Does anyone else have this problem??

If so perhaps we should start our new employees orientating on nights, then evenings and finally nights, maybe they wouldn't quit and wouldn't judge the entire nursing staff by the treatment they recieved from dayshift.

Comments/opinions????

Why are night shift people so weird? Why are evening folks so flighty?

These are stereotypes, though I think that all shifts certainly have their own personalities (hmm, maybe I should go in to politics...).

Anyhow, I've enjoyed reading the comments on this thread, just wanted to challenge the underlying assumption.

I have worked nights and days. I have found that on night shift, it is much more smoother, usually only have meds and treatments to do. on days, you have administration breathing down your neck, plus docs, orders, labs, transfers to appts, rehab, plus your meds, treatments, pt care, etc.,etc.

As far as working conditions, give me nights any time. as far as my circadian schedule, I need days. Just my 2cents.

Greetings!

It's really very simple: who in his / her right mind wants to get out of a warm, comfortable cozy bed (more so with a significant other) at the unholy hour of whatever-am to go to work by 6:45 am. Forget grumpy! Y'all aren't awake yet!!!

(LOL big time!!)

Hope you all were recognized for Nurses Week.

See ya!

Grouchy Day Nurses:

From a TCU RN, We have anywhere between 6-8 patients we see in 8 hours including discharges, admits and emergencies. We have cardiac patients, dialysis patients,anything else that cannot be out on reg.. floor, patients straight out of ICU.

I gave over 90 meds. on one shift one day,gave 57 scheduled for 0900, did dressing changes, 15 IV piggybacks, plus cardiac drips,TPN, pain meds plus all the things already said that occur on day shift.

I did not have time to do all the caring, loving, compassionate listening, things that patients need.

We sometimes get no breaks,1/2 hour for lunch

sometimes, get to pee 1x a shift, if you are lucky. We are not expected to get paid for overtime only if a crisis occurs.

Our nite shift has the same amount of RN's,

gets all their breaks lumped into 1 hour which most of them sleep. Get $4 more per

hr.and complain about Days.

PM's shift has more admits and many meds too.

We are not grouchy,just frustrated that we cannot care for our patients in the high standards that they deserve. We do get grouchy after a day like the above when a PM nurse demands to know why some little task was not done that could as well be done on PMs or nites.

This kind of day is becoming an everyday occurance.

IT IS FRUSTRATION NOT GROUCHINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I can only speak to my own workplace experience, but it does seem that Day shift gets the 'grouchy' award. I work in an ED enviroment and the nurses on day shift for the 12 years I have worked there have been known as grumpy, grouchy, set in their ways, etc. But, I think this is because they are also the older nurses in the dept. and/or have been there for 10+ years. They were on off shifts forever and then finally got a day shift job so now they are older and getting burned out because of job stresses. However, I believe every shift tends to be label in some way or another and each shift also has its own personality. I think it is more important to rise above the destructive practice of 'shift wars' and band together during these days of great stress in health care. It will be interesting to see what happens with my workplace because in the past 1-2 years, we have had a few dayshift nurses retire and a few transfer and now some of our younger evening and night nurses get an opportunity to move to day shift. The face of day shift has changed.....time will tell if the 'personality' of day shift also changes. By the way, I am a night shift nurse for 15 years, love it and have no desire to go to dayshift!

well, well, well...did I enjoy all the reply's day versus night's. I really never noticed..I worked day/eve '77-81 then nights till 84 we went to 12hr day/night. after I lived thru that in 93 Iwent back to day/eve 8hr shifts and that's what I do now.jimbob I really liked your "you might find a lover/friend etc GOOD thought....and bikerdodd I'm tired just reading your stuff can't imagine running in your roller skates...but I do love to read about it!!!

I feel that there are certainly "grochy" nurses on days.Maybe they have to work days and really do not want to.I am sure there is an underlying problem, However if the staff and the patients suffer then action should be taken.The worst part is when you are pushed and and can not get it all done! The next shift shows up and is "pissedoff" because you didn't get it all done.That is why we have more trhan one shift, we are suppose to work together........

Just a quick note. We recently got a "night" nurse coming onto days and she thinks we day people should get the $2/hr........ A question where in your nursing education were you told not to give MOM in the evening. Maybe the day nurse is grouchy because she has to give MOM, suppository, fleets, and SSE to all her patients before lunch so they can go home, rehab, or SNF.....

I know what you mean I recently started a job with the prison and am orientating on days. One of the nurses there was so rude, and not very helpful. When I asked her if she enjoyed working there she replied, "It's a job". It took alot for me to go back after spending a day with her, but I did. The other nurses appeared to be cheerful and happy and very helpful. I dread going back to work on Monday though I have 5 more working days on that shift and I know I will be running into her. I wish that tenured employees realized that when you are new it can be overwhelming and stressful, and being rude and indfferent will not keep new nurses there, I can understand the high turn over rate there. I think employees that are that way should re-adjust their attitude then maybe new nurses would stay and they wouldn't be so grouchy if they could keep new staff from being discouraged and leaving.

I work agency, all over the state, as well as a full time ER position. I've worked on the floors, CCU and ER, and with only one exception, find that day nurses everywhere (in general) are much crankier. Some places I really don't like working just because of giving report. I feel like I'm being thrown to pirhanas! eek.gif Maybe it's simply the number of people around....look at the general difference between city people and rural people. I doubt that it's the stress level. I find nights just as stressful, just not as pressured. At least during the day, if someone goes bad there are plenty of staff around to help bail you out. Most places staff nights thinner, and sometimes there's not any help to be had, because they're minding their own 8 or 9 patients (ok, 3-4 in CCU-on a good night!) BTW, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool night person, but have worked days and eves enough to know what it's like.

Well I definitely agree with above postings and I myself spent > 10yrs working nights....now do days and I am a -itch for a variety of reasons...Kclm the blinking eyes in your post were great! and dyed in the wool ....that's a great term.

Well, I've done shift work most of my life and it's not just limited to RN's. Spent 4 years working for IBM. Worked 2nd shift the whole time. Hey, my energy started peaking around 6pm. I hate getting up early...except to go swimming. And I get crabby if up all noc. My line manager explained it to me like this: 1st shift is the prima donna shift--lots of meetings and suits hanging around acting like energy vampires mostly. 2nd shift had very little of that to contend with so we did the bulk of production. 3rd shift workers arose from their sarcophagus around 9pm, in the dark, and worked all noc in the dark, then went home and slept during the light of day--never got enough UVs. Ergo, their production was lower. This may not pertain to Nursing per se but this kind of attitude about the different personalities r/t different shifts is ubiquitous. I have noticed that an inordinate amount of obese and tremendously obese personnel gravitate to 3rd shift--or so it seems. Maybe due to increase intake of carbohydrates r/t decreased serotonin.

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