this past week i stupidly offered to help out with a day shift need in the long term acute care hospital where i work. i normally work nights, but they were extremely short so with the offer of a bonus, i thought i would help out. welll, to say it was the shift from h*%$ is putting it mildly. i wasn't clocked in yet nor had i had time to check out what my assignment was, when two different nurses told me that i had the sucky assignment. i only had 5 patients but all three patients had g-tubes or ng tubes with three of two of them getting tube feedings and two of them getting tpn. all 5 got their meds via g-tube. they all had bucketloads of meds spaced out all day long as well as several iv antibiotic meds spaced throughout the day. on top of that, i had to take a new admit! if one of the nurses that had an easier load had not pitched in to help me with the new admit i wouldn't have gotten out of there until midnight. i was so overwhelmed all day, that more than once i broke down in tears. it didn't help that the nurse sharing the hall with me had plenty of time to take breaks, lunch and just sit at the desk in the nurse's station, never offering to help me, even though she knew i was drowning. i didn't have time for lunch so i was glad i had taken time to eat a good breakfast before i went to work. i did put in a no lunch time sheet so i would get paid for the time i worked instead of eating. i was so behind all day and felt like such a loser. i haven't had a bad shift like that in a long time. i guess i am spoiled on night shift as there aren't as many meds to be given and they aren't spaced out as badly throughout the shift. not that that particular assignment isn't bad on nights as well as days. needless to say i will never work med/surg on day shift again, i don't care how short they are. i felt like i had been"bent over" even though i was helping out. i got the worst assignment for helping day shift. anyone else ever have a day like that? am i a loser or just being a baby?
Specializes in med/surg, Icu/Ccu. ER, PACU, HHC, LTC.
fellow employees tend to forget whether you are on your regular shift or unit or what have you, that we are all being paid for an 8 or 12 hour shift way too often......the days of working *together* unfortunaltely are gone and many use way too much of their paid time worrying about what others are doing and finding ways NOT to do the job they are being paid to do.....
A loser would not have cared how the job was done as you did.
The staff who made that assignment should be ashamed of themselves for doing that and the staff who was aware that you had the horrible assignment obviously knew better. What could have been a nice learning experinece for you turned out to be a horrible experience. Now, those nurses won't have your help again! They have not only hurt you, but they have hurt themselves. It amazes me that nurses do not realize that acts like this keeps them short. Who would want to be treated like they treated you? I respect you for sticking with the shift and taking care of your patients.
this past week i stupidly offered to help out with a day shift need in the long term acute care hospital where i work. i normally work nights, but they were extremely short so with the offer of a bonus, i thought i would help out. welll, to say it was the shift from h*%$ is putting it mildly. i wasn't clocked in yet nor had i had time to check out what my assignment was, when two different nurses told me that i had the sucky assignment. i only had 5 patients but all three patients had g-tubes or ng tubes with three of two of them getting tube feedings and two of them getting tpn. all 5 got their meds via g-tube. they all had bucketloads of meds spaced out all day long as well as several iv antibiotic meds spaced throughout the day. on top of that, i had to take a new admit! if one of the nurses that had an easier load had not pitched in to help me with the new admit i wouldn't have gotten out of there until midnight. i was so overwhelmed all day, that more than once i broke down in tears. it didn't help that the nurse sharing the hall with me had plenty of time to take breaks, lunch and just sit at the desk in the nurse's station, never offering to help me, even though she knew i was drowning. i didn't have time for lunch so i was glad i had taken time to eat a good breakfast before i went to work. i did put in a no lunch time sheet so i would get paid for the time i worked instead of eating. i was so behind all day and felt like such a loser. i haven't had a bad shift like that in a long time. i guess i am spoiled on night shift as there aren't as many meds to be given and they aren't spaced out as badly throughout the shift. not that that particular assignment isn't bad on nights as well as days. needless to say i will never work med/surg on day shift again, i don't care how short they are. i felt like i had been"bent over" even though i was helping out. i got the worst assignment for helping day shift. anyone else ever have a day like that? am i a loser or just being a baby?
pam:scrying:
my, my, how nice of your colleagues to run up to you and start the demoralization and fear right off the bat.
but, my dear, how silly of you not to ask your lazing about hall colleague to help you. i get so tired of people thinking others should read their minds and should just offer to do more work than they are required to do.
i'm sorry you had a bad shift but i hope you will learn to speak up and ask for help before all goes haywire. and i hope you will learn to say to the charge person - "look, 2 nurses have run up to me and said i have an awful, undoable assignment, all the tube feeds, tons of meds all day long, you know i am a night nurse and not used to days, ny body is having a hard time adjusting to working when i should be sleeping, and so on. i'm here to help but am already feeling overwhelmed. i want a change of assignment or i will not be able to stay."
you have got to learn to speak up for yourself, also to not allow perhaps well-meaning (but hard to imagine how they really meant well) coworkers get the better of you.
and, no, you are not a loser. your decision to not do days any more is quite wise, since they took advantage of you so badly.
oh, as for no lunch - just take it. there's usually no good time. just do it.
You are definitely not a loser. And I agree with gr8rnpjt. The next time you hear they are short, PLEASE let them know that you might have helped them out had they not dumped all over you the last time you did. They need to know that they shot themselves in the foot.
I don't like the tit-for-tat revenge approach. It might feel good at the moment but what if she ever does want to do it again, to maybe pick up some extra money, let's say, or if she wants/needs to work Days?
She will have shot herself in the foot, along with them. Much better to take a courteous approach and say she's afraid to work Days because she had too hard an assignment and it seemed no one noticed her plight, (although she should have just asked the Charge Nurse for help and should have declared that she needed a lunch break), so she is afraid to come back. That would be less of a slap in the face, perhaps, than the revenge approach and it might get the offenders thinking that, "Gee, we are so short because we are just not very nice to those who come to help us. Maybe we need to revise the assignment and start working courteously, like a real team/family."
It almost seems like a universal occurrence that the night team is usually the nicer group who is more willing to help each other out whereas the day team is the snarky team always looking to "eat" each other.
blue49
23 Posts
fellow employees tend to forget whether you are on your regular shift or unit or what have you, that we are all being paid for an 8 or 12 hour shift way too often......the days of working *together* unfortunaltely are gone and many use way too much of their paid time worrying about what others are doing and finding ways NOT to do the job they are being paid to do.....
A loser would not have cared how the job was done as you did.