Always Complaints, Never an Attaboy

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Specializes in Med Surg, Perinatal, Endoscopy, IVF Lab.

Do you ever feel like all you hear are complaints and ways that your screwing up from management? Between all the "you need to do this better" and the lectures on ways we need to seriously improve.... You NEVER hear a "you all are doing a great job". Maybe it's just me, but a pat on the back would be nice every once in awhile... especially considering all the butt-kissing, holding your bladder, skipping lunch, hostility, and nonsense jacho prep we put up with.

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Specializes in Gerontology RN-BC and FNP MSN student.

Exactly!! I would look at them like I don't even know what they're talking about.

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Specializes in Gerontology RN-BC and FNP MSN student.

A person who feels appreciated will always do a better job....its not rocket science.

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Specializes in Critical Care/Vascular Access.

You're doing an awesome job! I love the way you give 110% and go out of your way to help every one of your patients! Keep up the good work!

(did that help?)

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Just pay me and I'll feel encouraged and keep showing up for work.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Just pay me and I'll feel encouraged and keep showing up for work.

Should have added the word WELL to the 'just pay me'.:)

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Specializes in Orthopedic, LTC, STR, Med-Surg, Tele.

YES. YES YES YES.

One of my coworkers who has worked with us for less than a year remarked the other day that morale was really low on our unit. This is exactly why... we only ever get feedback if we're doing something wrong.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Worked for a company that had printed up "PAT-ON-THE-BACK!" blank forms for all of us to put up on a bulletin board, by way of thanking co-workers for whatever......

This was years before c/o sexism and sexual harassment; We had one male nurse that every female employee was ga-ga over. One weekend he REALLY, REALLY helped me out by doing my very important and necessary home health visit during a big snowstorm when even I, an experienced New England snowstorm driver, could not get a tenth of a mile up the road below my driveway.

I changed the word "BACK" with white-out and black-ink marker to read "PAT-ON-THE-BUTT!" and posted it.

No one got huffy about it; everyone knew why I had changed it; I mean his butt was just FABULOUS. It was, he said, one of the best 'atta-boy' awards he had ever received.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
You're doing an awesome job! I love the way you give 110% and go out of your way to help every one of your patients! Keep up the good work!

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Love it! Why by the way are we always giving 110% when normal [not nurse] people seem to happy just giving 100%? Sigh...nurses are such overachievers.

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Specializes in CVICU.
Love it! Why by the way are we always giving 110% when normal [not nurse] people seem to happy just giving 100%? Sigh...nurses are such overachievers.

Did you mean to specify 'in a hospital setting'? Because my brother is a software engineer for a travel company and is salaried. He'll work 8-5 in the office and then go home and often work until 8 or 9 at night because his company assigns projects with impossibly short deadlines. Many professions have to put in way more effort than should be expected due to poor working conditions.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
Do you ever feel like all you hear are complaints and ways that your screwing up from management?
Yes. This behavior can be summed up with one simple phrase: human nature.

It is human nature to be hyper-focused on negativity. A person can do 5,000 good deeds, but (s)he is remembered for the one or two bad mistakes.

For example, a satisfied customer mentions it to a few other people, but a dissatisfied customer blathers on about the bad experience to everyone (s)he knows. Human nature ensures that negative experiences are seared into peoples' long term memories.

It might be unfair, but it is what it is.

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Specializes in retired LTC.
A person who feels appreciated will always do a better job....its not rocket science.
I also think this proven evidence-based research.
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