Any experienced nurses still have bad shifts?

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I am in no way a new nurse but I had an awful shift the other day and need to vent. Not a thing went right and I felt like I was a new graduate all over again. I feel bad that my coworkers had to pick up some of my slack, but all of my patients were sick sick sick. Please tell me I am not alone and nurses with decades of experience have off days too!

Specializes in PACU, OR.
It's true, nurses with decades of experience have bad days too. You are not superhuman.

Yeah, dead right. The only steel anywhere in my frame is in my spectacle frame. All of us have days that make us feel every year of our lives, plus a few added on. You're not alone.

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Some days will kick your backside. After 12 years, I sometimes have those shifts too.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

yep. still have bad shifts -- bad weeks even!

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Specializes in multispecialty ICU, SICU including CV.

I am pushing 11 years and it still happens. It's less from being overwhelmed at the workload these days and more from something else (you get reamed a new one for no reason, crazy family, crazy coworkers, crazy patients, crazy SMELLS -- see below, etc.)

I will never forget the day a couple of years ago when I was 8 months pregnant (I work in a surgical ICU) and I had a critical with a wide open, bleeding, clotty, dead bowel with high output fistulas. The odor was indescribable. I had the joy of trying to manage the output (how do you do I&O on a clot? LOL - I ended up lifting it all into a graduate and calling it 700cc) as well as transfuse multiple units of blood and manage a vent and manage gtts for hemodynamic instability AND try not to vomit at the same time (I had that super-sensitive pregnant nose.) I still don't know how I made it through that day.

I was so mad they gave me that assignment! I would never do that to a pregnant woman -- but that's beside the point. YES -- we all still have bad days. It's not just you.

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Specializes in Plastics. General Surgery. ITU. Oncology.

We all have shifts where we feel like the path of our lives is strewn with cowpats from the devil's own satanic herd and we wish we had a nice job in a cosy office with nothing more taxing to do than account for last months overspend on paperclips.

Then a good day comes along and we remember why we do it.

Swings and roundabouts ;)

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Oh Yeah! we still them, about 8 years ago I was working in a LTC facility, it was a bad night!!!, ( 2-10 SHIFT) We had called 911 for a res. who had fallen, c/o pain --ect.. when the amb. crew arrived, they went down the hall and asked if "this" was the resident who they needed to get ( pointing in another room) , I looked down the hall and low and behold there was another res who had fallen and was laying on the floor. I knew then it was going to be a bad night. Also on this VERY night, -- we had a tornado warning, 2 residents dying, and got a hail storm that knocked out all the south windows, and we were running on the generator- AND in the middle of all this we had a resident's family asking "Where Mother's slippers were?" yes!! and as the song goes...Mother said there'd be days like this....." jeeesh!!

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Of course they do, the longer you do it the better you get at handling the bad ones but they still come.

Yup. And the longer you're around, the more perspective you have. I have bad shifts, but I typically am over them by the time I get home. I look at what went well, what I need to do differently next time I encounter certain situations, and I also accept that sometimes things are going to be a "perfect storm" and completely beyond my control.

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Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.

Yep, still have the really rough shifts occasionally. On a med/surg floor, you've never worked enough years to have truly seen everything, but after a few years you get enough confidence that you know the bad days aren't because you suck as a nurse. It's just that stool happens.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

i was so mad they gave me that assignment! i would never do that to a pregnant woman -- but that's beside the point. yes -- we all still have bad days. it's not just you.

and i don't know why they give the 500 pound patient to the nurse with the bad back or the patient that has to be walked several times a day to the nurse who's just back from rotater cuff repair or the infected patient to the nurse with the allergy to isolation gowns. but if you have the job, you need to do the job. and you're the one who chose to get pregnant and have the job. i'm the one who chose to come back to work with the bad back, melissa who came back after her surgery and jean who chose to work in the micu with the allergy to isolation gowns.

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Specializes in multispecialty ICU, SICU including CV.
and i don't know why they give the 500 pound patient to the nurse with the bad back or the patient that has to be walked several times a day to the nurse who's just back from rotater cuff repair or the infected patient to the nurse with the allergy to isolation gowns. but if you have the job, you need to do the job. and you're the one who chose to get pregnant and have the job. i'm the one who chose to come back to work with the bad back, melissa who came back after her surgery and jean who chose to work in the micu with the allergy to isolation gowns.

i did do the job. i didn't even complain -- well, except on here, right now. why are you all up in my a$$ about it? this was a posting about crappy days at work and i gave my prime example of a horribly crappy day, magnified by the fact that my nose was hypersensitive.

i do think it is smart and it makes for a healthier work environment to makes assignments according to people's personal problems/issues/abilitities, etc. especially if they are temporary. chronic reasons not to work are one thing. being 8 months pregnant is short lived. i would not give any nurse that i know is pregnant a combative patient, etc. etc. i think it's sensitive and it shows that you thought about what you were doing when you made assignments, and undoubtedly the staff appreciates it.

fyi i worked up to the day before i was due with both of my pregnancies, puking first trimester, cankles, waddling, short of breath and all. i'm not a whiner, and i pull my weight.

i just don't get why you are jumping on me. that was unnecessary.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i did do the job. i didn't even complain -- well, except on here, right now. why are you all up in my a$$ about it? this was a posting about crappy days at work and i gave my prime example of a horribly crappy day, magnified by the fact that my nose was hypersensitive.

i do think it is smart and it makes for a healthier work environment to makes assignments according to people's personal problems/issues/abilitities, etc. especially if they are temporary. chronic reasons not to work are one thing. being 8 months pregnant is short lived. i would not give any nurse that i know is pregnant a combative patient, etc. etc. i think it's sensitive and it shows that you thought about what you were doing when you made assignments, and undoubtedly the staff appreciates it.

fyi i worked up to the day before i was due with both of my pregnancies, puking first trimester, cankles, waddling, short of breath and all. i'm not a whiner, and i pull my weight.

i just don't get why you are jumping on me. that was unnecessary.

i wasn't "jumping on you." why are you jumping on me?

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I am sick and tired of pregnant nurses expecting "special" treatment. You didced to get pregnant and God knows I did not make you that way. So if you can't perform the job outlined in your job description - stay home!

Also, all the women who expect any male working on the unit to help them pull up, turn or lift their patient. Try seeking out a female nurse once in a while. Not saying all nurses do this, but more than enough do. I don't get paid additional to help you do my job and yours.

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