i work night shift and there are just things i dont understand.....
1. report is started exactly at 6:30am, why is it necessary for the day shift to run in late, then decide to still put on makeup, get their coffee, start talking....i'm ready to go home, i'm sleepy..please be considerate
2. i've heard the rumors that "night shift nurses are lazy". i'm sorry that you feel that way but we have different responsibilities in our shift, and i feel we make sacrifices with our family...besides if its so much easier, why dont you try it?
3. it's nice to smile in the mornings and say hello. its very rare to see a day nurse come, smiling, and saying "good morning". Even though i'm tired and sleepy i still know how to be polite.
4. Dont ask me details about every single thing about the patient...example, "what date was this test done?", although you know the patient has been there for weeks. I gave you the results of the test, and technically i'm responsible for giving you report for the previous 24 hours, or even 12 hours...
sorry these are just things that have been piling up on me. I am in no way putting down one shift over the other, instead of giving examples of things i experience. I am always early to work and make sure I give myself extra time if needed. Yet, i have only been a nurse for 6 months and see that nurses either are burnt out or appear to hate their job.
I work in LTC. I choose night shift because I don't like being around all the department heads etc, who drive the day (and evening) shift nurses nuts with their stupid questions and inability to actually HELP do anything. I never get admissions, or wound measurements, or really have to deal with the families. As the night shift RN supervisor, i do have to deal with issues on my own. I have no one to defer to. My DON never answers her damn phone and the administrator gets ****** if I wake her up..i deal with staffing issues on my own, as well. That being said, I appreciate my day shift counterpart..she gets a ton of **** dumped on her, and deals with doctors, families, and dept. heads..each shift works hard in their own way. As I see it, we are all in this together..with one goal..caring for the RESIDENT...
1. Day shift comes in late for me if the regular nurse is off because the floaters have to talk to the charge RN first to get assignment. The worst offenders are the ones that will actually complain for 15 minutes about how bad in terms of acuity my post is. Incidental overtime...joy. This is an issue that should be brought up to your supervisor.
2. All three shifts have complaints about each other. "Oh this shift has so much help on their time." "THIS SHIFT LEFT ME WITH ALL THIS WORK." "This shift is so lazy". In my place I really sympathize with the 3-11 nurse as their staffing and patient ratio is the same as mine (up to 36 patients on a bad day). And they have all the admissions and phone calls.
3. I cant comment on this one. Some people are just not morning people.
4. I'm guilty of asking the other shifts on this.
A lot of people in my work are burnt out on my job. We find different ways to cope. Caregiver fatigue is something to be looked into. I will say this though, while the nurses are busy fighting each other upper management will find ways to capitalize on that.
skrn68
5 Posts
I work in LTC. I choose night shift because I don't like being around all the department heads etc, who drive the day (and evening) shift nurses nuts with their stupid questions and inability to actually HELP do anything. I never get admissions, or wound measurements, or really have to deal with the families. As the night shift RN supervisor, i do have to deal with issues on my own. I have no one to defer to. My DON never answers her damn phone and the administrator gets ****** if I wake her up..i deal with staffing issues on my own, as well. That being said, I appreciate my day shift counterpart..she gets a ton of **** dumped on her, and deals with doctors, families, and dept. heads..each shift works hard in their own way. As I see it, we are all in this together..with one goal..caring for the RESIDENT...