The "How was your day" question

[dma13]

Hi fellow nurses,

I frequently get asked this question by family/ friends after work. How do you guys answer this question? Do you talk about your day, with respect to Hipaa of course, the ups and downs? Or do you simply answer something to the likes of "Oh it was fine" or "It was good" and not get into it.

I find myself doing the latter. To non-nursing family/ friends who ask this question, I find it hard to talk about the realities of my job, I work with the critically ill, so it's not exactly light stuff to talk about. And most of the time I think they are just asking casually out of being polite, not that they really care how my shift went.

So to spare them (and myself from reliving the emotional/ moral distress) I usually just end up just saying "It was good." Even though many times it was not good. How could it be 'good' when your patient is near death or died. Or just found out they have cancer or that they overdosed on drugs...It's not stuff people are necessarily prepared to talk about/ hear.

So I settle for the very vague "it was good" or "i was busy, but it was fine" meanwhile my heart is in a knot about the truth of how my shift really went. It's hard not talking about it and holding it in sometimes.

So I would like to hear from all my fellow nurses out there how they deal with this question.

[Sour Lemon]

And most of the time I think they are just asking casually out of being polite, not that they really care how my shift went.

No one cares how your day was, that's just polite small talk. If someone started rambling on about "emotional distress", cancer and overdosing in response to that question, I'd be very tempted to give them a hard smack to the face. At best, I would NEVER ask them how their day was EVER again.

[vanilla bean]

I agree with Sour Lemon's opinion that people don't usually really care how your day was (not so much with the smacking, lol) and they're just asking to be polite. I certainly wouldn't stress about how to answer and it's probably a good idea to stick with a generic neutral reply.

If you find you need to speak with someone about your true feelings/thoughts about difficult days (because your "heart is in a knot"), you may want to speak with a counselor or therapist to help you work through your emotions and perhaps learn some coping skills or healthy ways to process what you're dealing with.

[dma13]

So then how do you typically respond to this question?

[vanilla bean]

So then how do you typically respond to this question?

Good, thanks. Fine, thanks. Busy, thanks. Crazy busy, thanks... you get the idea.

[Libby1987]

I respond somewhere near the truth with keeping it simple. If work kicked my butt that day then I say it kicked my butt. Or, it was a tough one where's my wine?

Most don't want details, nor should we give them, but I don't have to lose my emotional integrity by glossing over a tragic day by saying it was fine.

[SmilingBluEyes]

However you choose to respond, be succinct cause no one wants a life story to such an inane question.

[RNperdiem, RN]

How was your day translates to "how are your feeling".

The answer is tailored to who is asking. The more distant the relationship, the simpler the answer - "fine", "busy", "uplifting", etc.

For the people I am close to, I can add a bit more- "so tired- controlling family, demanding patient and lots of procedures, how was your day?"

That is usually enough of an answer. If the person asking the question wants more detail, they will ask.

[Cricket183, BSN, RN]

I realize this is slightly off track but I'll never forget one time when I was still fairly new in my career--maybe 3-4 years in. I was working as the charge nurse on an inpatient oncology floor. There had been a lot of new exciting changes to our oncology unit in the past year or so--hiring a new oncology coordinator who was amazing, the opening of a patient library complete with computer access, many new policies had been implemented, many of the nurses had been encouraged to start pursuing OCN certifications and I had been the first to recieve mine that week, etc. We were doing a lot to improve the unit. So the hospital CEO was taking a tour of our floor with the oncology coordinator, our unit manager, and some other higher ups. They were there primarily to see the new library which was made possible by donations from a prominent community family who had lost a family member years earlier to cancer. The entourage stopped by the nurses station, introductions were made, hand shakes and all that. The CEO asked me how our day was going on the unit. Instead of saying the politically correct, "Fine." Or "Great." (I'm not very politically savvy!). I thought she really wanted to know. It was one of those really horrible days. We were short staffed. There had been one issue after another all day. And while our oncology coordinator was amazing, our unit manager who saw to the day to day running of the unit, wasn't worth 2 cents. (She was eventually fired but that's a whole other story.) I didn't elaborate on any of that, I simply said (with a smile), "It's been a bit of a rough day, but we are getting through it." She (the CEO) thanked me for my honesty, asked me a few questions, then I excused myself to go take care of one of the many pending issues that needed my attention. Later my unit manager read me the riot act. She thought I made her look bad to the CEO, which was not my intention. I was just being honest. The oncology coordinator, however, said I did the right thing. To this day, I'm not so sure.

[WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN]

I agree with RNPerDiem. If it is someone with whom I am not invested in a relationship, I'll say a cursory but kind remark. It usually imparts politely my mood and answers the question.

With my husband, I find I overshare, so we made a rule that if I have to vent or if I am excited, I need to try to limit to no more than three. He shares my stress and he already has an incredibly stressful job too, so I vent what I must, gush about what I can, and leave the rest alone. (If I have to vent more, I have a fantastic group of girls and a guy that I routinely vent with. We do that for each other for good and bad.)

He (hubby) rarely shares and says if it's been brutal or not. So if he is telling more info, I know to listen and just let him express it. It's hard for both of us to encounter the things we do and we need an outlet, but we need to keep in mind that our quality time together cannot be marred by the negative outpouring that happens. Likewise, bottling it up is not healthy, so find an outlet and balance that matches your needs and those of your friends, family, acquaintances.

[NotAllWhoWandeRN, ASN, RN]

I will never understand why it's "polite" to ask someone a question when you don't want them to actually answer.

The kid in the Taco Bell drive-thru does not care how I am.

I tend to avoid frequent contact with the sort of people who will ask without caring, but if the question is unavoidable, I usually say "Fine, thanks" or "Oh, could be better, could be worse! *falsely chipper voice with an undertone of bitterness*"

[prmenrs, RN]

If I had a really sick baby, sometimes I'd ask them to pray that my patient would get better--if that would be appropriate. I might tell something funny that a baby did (usually related to pee, poo, burp, barf, etc.), or that a family said. And they did say some funny things. I also said, usually, that I was happy doing what I was doing.