Blue collar treatment with white collar expectations

Published

All nurses in the United States have been socially engineered by the system to accept this type of treatment.

Most nurse policy is written nurses who have a disconeect from the average working nurse and don't usually practice real day to day nursing for which they are writing policy for.

Policy writing nurses are not the ones getting the forced overtime, working holidays and dealing with increased patient loads.

I think nurses as a whole we should advocate for nurses who actually work the job to be writing policy for it, not a nurse that had thier last patient care experience 20+ years ago.

How many of your upper management nurses are getting forced overtime and working weekends and holidays???????

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency Room.

Your post reminded me of an issue at my (Catholic) hospital. Easter is not considered a holiday, but the Monday after Easter IS. Why? So administration can have a 3 day weekend. So every year, I work Easter Sunday without an extra differential. But people working the Monday after Easter get a differential. What's wrong with that?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

We don't get Easter at all, and we are a Methodist hospital. We only get our 6 holidays - New Years Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Whoopee!

I think you are right, nursing in general does not get the respect it deserves.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care.
All nurses in the United States have been socially engineered by the system to accept this type of treatment.

Most nurse policy is written nurses who have a disconeect from the average working nurse and don't usually practice real day to day nursing for which they are writing policy for.

Policy writing nurses are not the ones getting the forced overtime, working holidays and dealing with increased patient loads.

I think nurses as a whole we should advocate for nurses who actually work the job to be writing policy for it, not a nurse that had thier last patient care experience 20+ years ago.

How manty of your upper management nurses are getting forced overtime and working weekends and holidays???????

FYI -I am a mid-management nurse, working as director of an ICU. I put in an average of 50 hours a week, more than any of the staff I supervise. The upper-level management at my hospital also are working more than 50 hours a week. When we have a week-day holiday we have to use our vacation time PTO to get paid for it, it is not part of our salaried hours. I am on call 24/7 and it is not uncommon for me to work a 10 hour day shift going to meetings as well as helping in the unit, doing admits/transfers, general ICU patient care, etc. I get home for about an hour and have to go back in to work part or all of the night shift because of a sick call. I took call to cover night shift this past Thanksgiving and Christmas because some of the staff wanted off. We are in a rural area so there are very few agency staff we can utilize to fill these sort of needs or we would. We regularly seek to hire into vacancies. When I did the math on how many hours I work I figured out I am being paid less per hour than any of my staff.

I am also responsible for writing policies.

Your generalization regarding management is not accurate. I highly doubt I am the only manager in America working like this.

:angryfire

Up Vote Up Vote ×
FYI -I am a mid-management nurse, working as director of an ICU. I put in an average of 50 hours a week, more than any of the staff I supervise. The upper-level management at my hospital also are working more than 50 hours a week. When we have a week-day holiday we have to use our vacation time PTO to get paid for it, it is not part of our salaried hours. I am on call 24/7 and it is not uncommon for me to work a 10 hour day shift going to meetings as well as helping in the unit, doing admits/transfers, general ICU patient care, etc. I get home for about an hour and have to go back in to work part or all of the night shift because of a sick call. I took call to cover night shift this past Thanksgiving and Christmas because some of the staff wanted off. We are in a rural area so there are very few agency staff we can utilize to fill these sort of needs or we would. We regularly seek to hire into vacancies. When I did the math on how many hours I work I figured out I am being paid less per hour than any of my staff.

I am also responsible for writing policies.

Your generalization regarding management is not accurate. I highly doubt I am the only manager in America working like this.

:angryfire

No offense to you, but let me clarify that I am referring to upper management in general. I will be the first to say that there are always exceptions to the rule.

But in a strange way you help to prove my point. A mid level nurse manager does the math and figures out she's making less than her subordinates. I believe you fall into the category of the Socially Engineered Nurse doing more and more and getting paid less and less.

Sounds like your work-place has white collar expectations of you but are paying you a blue collar wage.

Your profile says you have 27years nursing experience. Are you being compensated justly for that??? My guess is NO!!!!!

I hope you show them your math equations when you ask for that big raise.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
FYI -I am a mid-management nurse, working as director of an ICU. I put in an average of 50 hours a week, more than any of the staff I supervise. The upper-level management at my hospital also are working more than 50 hours a week. When we have a week-day holiday we have to use our vacation time PTO to get paid for it, it is not part of our salaried hours. I am on call 24/7 and it is not uncommon for me to work a 10 hour day shift going to meetings as well as helping in the unit, doing admits/transfers, general ICU patient care, etc. I get home for about an hour and have to go back in to work part or all of the night shift because of a sick call. I took call to cover night shift this past Thanksgiving and Christmas because some of the staff wanted off. We are in a rural area so there are very few agency staff we can utilize to fill these sort of needs or we would. We regularly seek to hire into vacancies. When I did the math on how many hours I work I figured out I am being paid less per hour than any of my staff.

I am also responsible for writing policies.

Your generalization regarding management is not accurate. I highly doubt I am the only manager in America working like this.

:angryfire

You're not---I'm doing the same thing. And it's BECAUSE I've been a floor nurse (and treated like pond scum!) that I do what I do to keep my staff happy, not to mention my boss, residents, families, board members, the general public.............:uhoh3:

Up Vote Up Vote ×

All of our managers are gone by 5:00 M-F, have their weekends and holidays off, and don't work any overtime. They sit in their cute little candle & potpourri-scented offices and wonder why nurse retention is at an all-time low? :rolleyes:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatrics, MS, ICU.
All of our managers are gone by 5:00 M-F, have their weekends and holidays off, and don't work any overtime. They sit in their cute little candle & potpourri-scented offices and wonder why nurse retention is at an all-time low? :rolleyes:

That is pretty much how it is at our facility also. Our management spends more time chit-chatting than anything else. We had an awesome director who left because of the BS a little over a year ago. I will never forget one day when we were struggling to clean a patient who was very large and on a vent...all of a sudden there was someone else in the room and wiping the nether regions...I looked up and there she was. She always pitched in, you never had to ask her, she was always there for us. The new one never jumps in...she also does not usually wear scrubs to work. Sorry but we are short staffed and she does not even come in to help. It is very discouraging...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
FYI -I am a mid-management nurse, working as director of an ICU. I put in an average of 50 hours a week, more than any of the staff I supervise. The upper-level management at my hospital also are working more than 50 hours a week. When we have a week-day holiday we have to use our vacation time PTO to get paid for it, it is not part of our salaried hours. I am on call 24/7 and it is not uncommon for me to work a 10 hour day shift going to meetings as well as helping in the unit, doing admits/transfers, general ICU patient care, etc. I get home for about an hour and have to go back in to work part or all of the night shift because of a sick call. I took call to cover night shift this past Thanksgiving and Christmas because some of the staff wanted off. We are in a rural area so there are very few agency staff we can utilize to fill these sort of needs or we would. We regularly seek to hire into vacancies. When I did the math on how many hours I work I figured out I am being paid less per hour than any of my staff.

I am also responsible for writing policies.

Your generalization regarding management is not accurate. I highly doubt I am the only manager in America working like this.

:angryfire

Bluehair - you sound exactly like the boss that I had for 8 of my 10 years in the ICU.:kiss I had major respect for that woman - she 'raised me up' in nursing!:) I learned so many things from her - not just about nursing, but people skills, too.

Sadly, I haven't had anyone come even close to her example since. I've seen what 'good' is - and what I'm seeing nowadays is less than mediocre - even pitiful.:madface:

One of my little irritants with this currant facility is that they haul us out of bed in the middle of OUR night every two weeks for their little meetings at 1:30PM - they will make NO concessions on the time at all - yet our DON has made it plain that she does NOT want to be bothered at night.

I don't care - the other nite she left us with totally screwed up staffing for a Sunday nite - she had cancelled two staffer CNA's that were supposed to work - leaving us with 2 CNA's when we're supposed to have 4.

So I called her at home at 10PM and got her out of bed to ask her what she expected us to do?! I ended up offering one of the evening girls a bonus for staying and working part of a shift.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Geriatric and now peds!!!!.

Sounds like our facility. management is out the door at 5pm, and gets their weekends off. Just last Friday, we had a meeting. We are so short on nurses and cna's. We were told that we needed to work more to help them out. Some brave soul said why dont mgt get on the floor and take the med carts (they are all nurses). We never did get a straight answer. We do get every other weekend off, and I havent had a full weekend off in over 6 months. Yes, it is my fault, i could say no, but then I feel a little guilty thinking of my fellow nurses working short. Nursing school doesnt prepare you for the realities of the nursing world.

Wendy LPN

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care.

Welcome to the vocational vs. professional gap in nursing.

The solution, in part, is to stop treating ourselves like a vocation and start acting like a profession.

Professionals barter their skills and services for appropriate compensation: it's all about the money.

Vocationals trade part of their just compensation for the satisfaction of their work: They're 'called' to the job.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't or can't be 'called' to nursing. What I AM saying is that consideration SHOULD BE NO part of your negotiable, bottom line.

I KNOW what I have done for you lately, what have YOU done for ME?

~faith,

Timothy.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU, ER, HH, NICU, now FNP.

Precisely Timothy. Show me the money.

You can and should love your job, but can and should be compensated fairly for it.

A union is the blue collar answer - NOT the professional white collar answer.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion