Breaking point re: expectations vs. time

The keep adding because we keep doing. It starts with one thing. They add it, we find ways to fit it in. They think, okay, there were able to add that, so they have some available time in their shift, lets add something else. We then find ways to fit that in too. Then the cycle keeps going. As long as we find ways to fit the tasks into our shifts, they are going to keep adding things. Until we, as a profession, are comfortable speaking up for ourselves and asking them what they would like to take away from our responsibilities so we can add this new responsibility, they will keep adding more to our plate.

Usually the patient pays the price. Less time for care, corners cut, increased staff turnover.

This is a good question, but one I've never been able to figure out myself, except that in nursing - like all jobs - management wants to try to squeeze the work of 2 people from a single person. This leads to burn out, as we all have our thresholds for endurance before we tell our self, "I'm done" and move on.

When I became a nurse it was nearly a quarter century ago in a state with low wages anyway. I never felt my salary reflected my educational worth (for the record: 1994 in Tucson, AZ I earned $12.75/hr as a new grad RN - this was the highest paying facility in my city. Pretty bad, huh?). As a result I never felt truly compensated for my work, and still don't because a low starting pay follows you for the remainder of one's career - giving the next employer impetus to offer a similarly low wage in compensation for literally working your fingers to bloody nubs.

Oddly, despite this resentment, low pay was never the deciding factor in my leaving past jobs. It always, always, always was the result of job duty expectations not matching reality. Many times these obscene expectations were a danger to patients, and my nursing license ... so to quote George Thorogood: "And out the door I went ...".