Chronic Tardiness

[Tweety]

We waiting for a nurse to float from another floor this morning because we had two call ins. She was 25 minutes late. We bowed down at her feet "oh thank goodness you're here". She's 'sorry I'm late'. Earlier I had called her floor where they said "she's always late".

Have we created due to the nursing shortage an environment where tardiness is tolerated because we are greatful they even show up? Seem so at this hospital that tardiness is tolerated. The people don't even seem to have an excuse or care, they just want the hours to be 7:15 instead of 6:45. Of course they usually are the ones chomping at the bits to go home on time.

So the question is, what is your policy on tardiness. Is it enforced. Have we created a culture of mediocrity in nursing because of the "shortage"?

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

Of course there are good reasons for being late on rare occasions. If a wreck blocks the freeway and you're stuck behind it, what are you going to do except call in a say you'll be there as soon as traffic starts moving again. But...in most cases it's simply a matter of someone thinking (consciously or subconciously) that their time is more valuable than yours. Next time you have to stay over because you are waiting to give report to someone who is putting on their make-up, making personal calls, or enjoying some quiet time with their morning cup of coffee, just remember the message they are sending. "My make-up/phone call/cup of coffee is more important than whatever it is you do when you leave here." And, I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone here, but those folks who say "I'm always late, and I hate it, but I just can't change," are among the worse offenders. They're just more polite about about disrespecting you.

You know, I've heard that deep psychological garbage for years and years and you know what? It's simply not true. I work nights. I have insomnia. Sleep aids make me groggy, so I gave up on them years ago.

I sleep about 2-4 hours when I get home and then I wake up. I don't know why, but then I'm up and I CANNOT go back to sleep. So I get up, even though I'm exhausted. Later on, I lie down for 4 hours before I go in to work. I need that last 3-hour "nap" so badly that I sometimes just have trouble getting out of bed when the alarm goes off. I feel like my body has been encased in glue and I can barely move. By the time I get to work and get some coffee, I'm about normal, but I'm still close to 15 minutes late.

There's a half-hour period when both shifts are (supposed to be) present for the express purpose of giving report. But nowadays we give written report. I get my Cardexes and I just start checking my charts.

When I come in on time, the shift prior is still finishing up and I have to wait before I can get access to the charts.

Ergo, the only people who seem to notice when I come in are the unit secretaries because they're right next to the time clock. It shouldn't matter to them anyway.

So no, I'm not being late to be rude, inconsiderate, or pose a danger to my patients. As I explained above, how can it be rude and inconsiderate if the nurses I'm relieving are NOT FINISHED and even if they were, they still MUST BE ON THE FLOOR until quarter after.

There is no ulterior motive. It's my problem; it's not about YOU.

Pardon me for sounding so irritated. If I'm oversensitive, it's because I was down on myself for years about it, then I decided to just stop beating myself up over it. The fact remains, I'm late most days to work, and I honestly don't believe anyone's inconvenienced by it.

If I have to float and find that the unit I float to gives face-to-face report, I do apologise to the next shift and listen quietly and write quickly. I don't usually give my Charge any heat about floating me like others do, which wastes even more time and makes the floating nurse even later.

When you get right down to it, that whole being late thing for face-to-face report loses a lot of its rationale when we sometimes get floated to another hospital 25 minutes away!

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

OK. It's a couple of hours later and I just re-reread that last post. It sounds pretty defensive, and it's probably because you're right, I'm wrong, and I'm frustrated that I've had no success with this problem since....well, since I started working nights. I was always early for day shift, whether I slept or not.

Truth is, I signed on to come to work at a certain time and I'm not meeting that goal. Hard to admit and harder to fix. I've been putting off a lot of self-maintenance lately and this is yet another area I struggle with. It's like a messy kitchen. I've let it all go for so long, I'm not really sure where to start. But thanks for the wake-up call. I'm sure I'll be on time tonight.

[dinkymouse]

In my facility we have 4 aides that are always late. They were pets of the administrator who just left and we're all hoping they get their just deserts when the new one starts. They never call and some even decide when they are going home. I was told once not to write one up that came in 3 hours late. I didn't that time cuz it was my 1st day but now I do. It doesn't help but it makes me feel better. I hate that the ones who are there on time everyday get no recognition for it.

[NurseCard, ADN]

We have a couple of RN's on our floor that are always late. One of them is actually an EXCELLENT nurse whom everyone likes, and she has been honored many times. But, she never shows up BEFORE 7am. The other nurse is well, not a TERRIBLE nurse, but she's one of those with a poor attitude. She always makes the excuse that it's because she lives so far away (about 35 min from the hospital). Well, why doesn't she leave earlier? =)

Myself, I'll admit that I'm late a lot, though never more than say, five minutes past the hour. But I've *ALWAYS* had that problem, being an RN has nothing to do with it.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

I still work in the non-medical field while in school and this would be considered timecard fraud and/or theft which would warrant termination without remedial action. What prevents their supervisors from taking exception to this behavior? Is this not a reflection of their leadership? DeLySh

Well, each supervisor is responsible for his or her actions. I can only speak for myself. When an employee came to me asking me to initial their time card for a clock in or clock out, I always did a little investigating, asked around to see if someone would verify that the person came in on time, or left on time. When I couldn't find anyone to verify they had been at work on time, I wrote in a tardy time (one minute past the grace period). The employee would have been standing right there in front of me if I did this and I can't remember an instance of someone putting up a fight about it. Something had to be put on the timecard so that payroll could process it. Imagine the backlash if people had to lose a day of pay for forgetting to clock in.

Let me just clarify that I was being sarcastic when I wrote that bit about leaving the time card blank and asking a supervisor to sign it, telling him or her that they forgot to clock in. I had this happen a number of times as a supervisor. I usually only had to catch a person in a lie like that once and it didn't happen again. (NOTE: you wouldn't believe some of the excuses employees come up with to account for their actions! It made the job interesting to say the least!)

[ICRN2008, BSN, RN]

My employer has a strict policy on tardiness. If we clock in even one minute late, it is counted as 1/2 of an incident. Calling in sick is one incident, even if you miss more than one day. If you have more than five incidents, you get a verbal warning. At seven incidents you get a written warning, and from there you will be fired if you are late again.

It's kind if ridiculous, because being one minute late or an hour, it still counts as half an incident.

A "no call, no show" results in a written warning, and I think that they can fire you if it happens a second time.

We are health care PROFESSIONALS and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that we will act as such. That means showing up on time.

[elthia]

Oh, the walking rounds problems. I had a nurse do that to me. I told her one time when she just couldn't pull herself away from the patient to do her assessment that if she was going to insist on doing her work instead of getting report I was going to just go on and leave. She must not have been listening. On the next patient she started to do her thing, so I just quietly walked away. I went to the nurses station, sat down and waited. In a few minutes the nurse came looking for me asking why I had left. I told her I thought she was finished with walking rounds. She kind of blinked and looked at me. We finished rounds in 10 minutes. She never did that to me again.

Hmmm, thanks I might just try that when I go back to work.