Many of the posts on here lay out complaints and concerns about coworkers and work environments. All legit. That's one of the good uses of a forum like this. We can draw insight and just plain old moral support from each other.
Even so, I just wanted to say...
I LIKE my colleagues. Well, the vast majority of them, anyway. And I like the shift that I work.
We are a varied, multicultural group; though there isn't much attention paid altogether to the multireligious/multicultural aspect. But it is there.
I work night shift in an ER. We are chronically understaffed. Even though we all have our individual assignments and responsibilities, we all play nicely together and cover each other. Nurses and techs often jump in to help each other with little or no request. My prime mentor from school and orientation is a favorite partner for me to work with; but really we all tend to chip in and get it done. A few of my coworkers, nurses and techs, are especially kind to their patients. That is always encouraging. For the most part docs and nurses work cooperatively. The guys who do our 'transport', moving patients to X-ray or admitting units work hard and in good spirit. Our housekeeping folks are pleasant and pretty diligent, though way overworked. One older woman in particular always greets me when she comes to clean a room, and makes sure to let us know when she's made a pot of fresh coffee in the break room. The charge nurse I usually work under is pretty efficient and doesn't hesitate to let us know if we're not getting something done right; but he keeps his sense of humor and goes to bat for staff and patients anytime he knows something is wrong.
One of our techs recently had to work elsewhere briefly. They came back to us in tears of frustration. They're accustomed to seeing fairly conscientious and compassionate patient care in our ED. They're accustomed to be treated as intelligent perceptive members of the team, and listened to when they have something to say about a patient. They were so disappointed by the care and attitude they saw in this other place.
Honestly, I know we aren't perfect; and at my age I'm not all that naive. But I think most of our patients get pretty good care, and they get it with a measure of real concern. And most of us play nicely together, and really help each other out, and all that makes for a mostly good environment for patient care.
We have our bad moments, to be sure; but I just can't think of anything worth venting about in our unit at the moment.
