I freaked out

Nurses General Nursing

Published

I totally freaked out at work the other day. It was extremely inappropriate and uncalled for. I am embarassed to go to work.

The other morning, right during our 8am med pass ~ including all the insulins ~ the janitors were waxing the floors which meant that whole portions of the hallways were totally blocked off from the pt. rooms. I had a heavy assignment which was the farthest from the med room, pts that were unhappy, tons of meds. Each time I entered the pt's rooms there was something extra that they needed. Well, with just "busyness" and inability to even remotely catch up, I freaked out at the janitors. Okay, I am very embarassed to even admit this, but I began what started as asking them why portions of the unit were totally blocked off, why couldn't they just do half of the hallway, etc. in which I eventually got more worked up. At this time, there was PCA's, other nurses, new orientees, student nurses that stopped to watch the whole confrontation. I eventually "mini" stormed off. Afterwards, I apologized profusely to the janitors, in which they accepted my apologies, but of course, I am now looked at upon a different light. Usually, I am happy, friendly, smile at everyone and I am not like this. People were kind of keeping away from me and talking about this incident all day (understandibly). I am working tomorrow and I don't even want to go in because of this.

I respect the janitors. It is not my opinion that they are below us (my husband was a janitor), it was basically that I felt that the management scheduled it at time when the floor was the busiest without any consideration for the unit. I sometimes feel that the nursing staff is disregarded and unimportant to basically all involved in hospital operations.

Please help me. I don't know how to face work now and am terrified for tomorrow and every shift after.

I hope your day was better. Just remember that if anyone gave you grief, more than likely they will find someone else to talk about in a short while. Just be yourself, be professional, and above all, if you should happen to see someone else "freak out" on whomever, don't make them feel as your peers made you feel. :nurse:

Never mind the fact that it's a proven fact that shiny floors and people with confusion and low vision do NOT go together. But what ever looks nice for administration........Buff away!

Specializes in Med-Surg, Tele, DOU.
Never mind the fact that it's a proven fact that shiny floors and people with confusion and low vision do NOT go together. But what ever looks nice for administration........Buff away!

:roll

Thank you everyone for your replies. I ended up getting canceled the next day (nothing to do with the outburst ~ hopefully...). Today I went into work to drop a few things off and I had my adorable baby boy which made everyone smile, so hopefully it will keep their mind off of my terrible rant. And I guess what some of you said about always being "peachy" is true...So thank you everyone for helping me to feel better. :)

Glad you've faced them and it all went well.

In these situations, I always, say "Chin up, chest out. Look em straight in the eye & think, if they are talking about me they are leaving some other poor bugger alone!!"

Specializes in Case Management.

There is stress in every job, and we all have our days. It happened to me a few weeks ago at my-get this-OFFICE JOB!

I had a horrible monday and believe me, stress is stress, and just because it is a clean office job does not mean it is stress free. Top this Monday from Hell off with the fact that the night before I was wakened from my sleep at 2:30 am by my drunk soon to be ex-husband yelling and screaming and swearing at me and telling me to take my (4 yr old)son to day care in the morning. (he usually is more responsible than this, and he watches my son during the day) So, no problem I take him to the day care where my daughter works, usually they are cool about drop-ins, but they were full and not happy about taking him. So I did not want to keep him where he was not wanted, and spent a good part of my busy Monday trying to find a day care for my son. The day went fast, and at 4:30 I am rushing to the elevator to get to the parking garage and leave the office for my 1 hour drive home.

( almost forgot, soon to be ex called at about 8:30 am asking where our son is, and he denied he had called me at all. -can you say black-out?-

So I am rushing down the elevator to my floor in the parking garage where I am parked, get my keys ready in my hand and suddenly, they slip out of my hands--and down the slit in the floor down the elevator shaft.

I waited a full minute looking at the slit in the floor, half expecting my keys to pop back up like a toaster pastry, no such luck. So I go to the front desk and tell the guard what happened, he looks at me and says, "I don't know, this is a really busy time for maintenence, I am not sure when they will get to it." I explain, I have to get home, my son is at daycare, I need to get him because they close at 5. Then, the maintenence men show up and tell me to wait on the bottom floor for them. (there were about 6 of them) When we all got down to the bottom floor, they started their sh**, "Not sure how to do this". "Don't think we will find them", "This is a bad time, I have to leave", did you bring a toothbrush?" ( I guess insinuating that I would have to sleep there) "well, we have to do this then that and another, and we don't have the manpower to do that" ----Excuse me, there are 6 of you. Everything out of their mouths was negative. Not one person said, don't worry, we will have you out of here in no time, nothing like that, all negative comments on how I should not have done this and that and how complilcated it would be to find my keys. So I burst out crying, and would not stop. I saw a lot of my coworkers, they are all nurses, all consolling me while these janitors looked at me like I had sprouted horns just because I was crying. I told my friends,

"these guys are saying they can't get my keys" Then one looked over and said, "we didn't say that, we will have her keys in a couple of minutes". Just lying about what they had said earlier.

When I got my keys, I grabbed them and headed for the stairs, said thank you, and they yelled after me, "thank you" like I hadn't said it. I was so mad, and embarrassed. But I ended up telling everyone at work about the story and to this day I tell everyone on the elevator hold onto your keys, and everyone laughs. I don't talk to those maintenence men however, who deliberately tried to make me feel hopeless, then lied about it to my co workers. :madface:

Beauty, we all have our days when anything can set us off. I bursed once at my boss and later had to ask him to forgive me. Once he accepted your apology, you can move on. Dont dwell in the past, if you do, it would hinder you. Put the past behind you and go to work with a smile.

Good luck to you.

The last hospital unit I worked in was post-anes. ambulatory surgery. They would come in to strip the floors on the evening shift - our unit was closed at nite.

I'm one of those people that is very sensitive to smells, like strong cleansers, etc. and they would always make me sick - but they would also sicken some of our post-op patients, too! We finally talked to the housekeeping supervisor, and they would wait until all the patients had left - and I was gone.

Specializes in Pediatrics.

This is the "General Nursing Discussion" thread.

What is wrong with seeking general advice from everyone, including nursing students?

This is the exact attitude that "people" complain about nurses with attitudes.

Perhaps nursing students have encountered this "general problem", but perhaps because we are "student's" our opinion's don't count.

Specializes in ORTHOPAEDICS-CERTIFIED SINCE 89.

The general nursing forums are where anybody can post things about work, testing, anything at all. Since most student nurses (diploma schools excepted) don't really work the floors day in and out, this is the perfect place to get the question out, and to get the most feedback.

And to the OP I've been there except it was on a weekend day shift and the housekeeping staff kept moving chairs around and finally locked them all up in an unused area. Then the MACHINE started cleaning carpet......grrrrr, went "Nurs-tal." Hadda apologise the next day too.

Hey...I can certainly understand..Freaked out..nah..that's called confrontation honey.nothing wrong with that when it is neccesary.As for me when he started partioning off the floor I would have told him "NO" I would have pulled rank(pt's need always come first) and told him to do ONE SIDE only! I only say this now so That next time you see them setting up...PULL RANK..If he was already set up I wouldv;e MOVED his partition to just one side..if he doesn't like it tell him to take it the manager...Will they choose floor finishing over patient care???no..

It's not a matter of respecting someone else it is a matter of the janitor had no common sense or (no sense of what takes place in the facility)

As for your coworkers..good they saw you mad and will not want to pi$$ you off...as for the "get me this..get me that" thing pts do with med pass..Here's my solution to that and it stopped it from happening..

Make sure the Aides pass ice and water,take the pt's to the BTR, and have set out the linens for AM care.Don't fall for that "I have to do vitals" GIVE THEM a cart with the ice and linens...If they gripe ..remind them that you multitask..so can they.AS the nurse on that floor you do have some say in how things are done.I am not Atilla the HUN..and OH well if I you are seen that way..@ least you will get your meds passed,the pts won't "nickle and dime" you and the janitors WILL NEVER TRY THAT AGAIN...Problem solved!

P.S. The aides that gripe..ask yourself why.

Their replacement can be trained easily enough.

Specializes in RN.
beautifulb. . .you are already a BSN, right? Why are you posting this on a student nursing forum? Why would you want the advice of student nurses on this?

I think you are a bit cynical!!! :nono: Student nurses are people to and may have worked in another environment with experience like this and their input is just as important. Maybe your wording of "Why would you want the advice of student nurses on this" could have been different. As a matter of fact, I think you were in that same position at one point in your life. Sometimes we need to think about what we say before we say it and where we originally came from!!![EVIL][/EVIL]

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