Work frustration poll

Published

  1. Biggest source of workplace frustration

    • 51
      Patients/families
    • 56
      Direct co-workers
    • 158
      Administration/workplace politics
    • 27
      Other (please specify)

292 members have participated

Who is the biggest source of stress and frustration at your workplace?

Paperwork, without a doubt. We do double entry on a lot of stuff. Vitals on the nurse flow sheets AND on the graphic sheet in the chart; fingerstick results on flowsheet, glucose record and on the MAR etc.

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I have to vote for families also!!!!

Major frustration when you go to call in a patient into the ER area and 20 family members insist on accompanying the patient into the small room. Are they allowed the same privileges at the doctors' office? Even when you tell them only 2 visitors at a time, they all eventually slither back into the room!

Seems we have a strange phenomena here also...everyone who comes to visit our ER is related to the 4 other patients in the next bays over yonder. Therefore, you have visitors and patients running through all the bays comparing illnesses of great grandma and yeah well you think you're bad, Aunt Bessie had that all week...on and on..WHERE DID I LOSE CONTROL!!!

Sometimes I actually think they come in the same car!

Also why is it that the visitors demand a cup of coffee when they hit the doors! We have a coffee machine in the waiting room area but they complain it costs $.50 a cup! Dunkin Donuts is also down the street, people!!! I KNOW I'm not a waitress because I don't get tipped!!!

I just don't know how you all do it on the floors...with the same family members days on end! God Bless You All!! At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and know I won't have to put up with the same repeaters for a day or two but day after day??? NO WAY!!!

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Specializes in ICU/CCU (PCCN); Heme/Onc/BMT.

Answering the phone. . . phone calls. . . .

Which is one reason I work nights.

Ted

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I wanted to put all of the above, but it wasn't an option. co-workers would be last on the list, because I feel we are all privates in this trench warfare job. Admin.--definetly a problem. Patients and family are number 2! why do some act as if they've just checked into a day spa!? I guess I'm just tired of people, tired of mursing, tired of the same old.......

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Specializes in ICU.

Too many managers...not enough nurses. The other day we had 4 nurses on the floor looking after 19 patients....and there were 4 managers (who know jack sh*t) running around supervising the 4 nurses on the floor...it's just incredible.

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Specializes in NICU, L&D, OB, Home Health, Management.

I have to say FAMILIES!!! In L & D they are in and out, giving advice, getting in the way, contaminating fields, sticking their noses into other parients rooms . . . I could go on and on. When did labor become a spectator sport?

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I also would select all of the above.

I left bedside nursing because of the politics and butt kissers, but I won't go back because of co-workers. (You know eat our young [or fresh meat in this case] Policy.) I already been down that road and I won't go back to bedside nursing so a new group of nurses can give me crummy assignments, etc...until I PAY MY DUES.

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All of the above.

The public, administrators, managers who ignore common sense.

Nurses can not use mechanical lifts to position patients up in bed for those quick boosts to help with resp. distress and routine positioning. Do the vital signs at the start of shift, administer meds, restart I.V's, get report, document real time, deal with chest pain/sob/ events,moniter 6 telemetry,....for 12 hrs, day in day out.

All at the same time. ...For years.

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Staff nurses who like to blame registry for everything. Actually had a Charge Nurse draft a butt scorching letter to my agency with a litanyof complaints about my imcompetance, patient had to wait over an hour for discharge orders (hello, I don't write them, the Doc does and where the hell was he?) patient on PCA and family c/o altered level of consciousness, PCA not on basal rate, just removed the button from reach. My favorite, "did not teach a patient straight cath instructions prior to discharge (patient demenstrated correct technique t/o shift and it was so charted, but sometimes you just rub a staffer the wrong way and this one really has it out for me, calls me a BRAT! etc. My attitude is, don't hate me because I'm beautiful! I am competent, kind, a team player and compassionate with my patients, professional with my partners in health care. One idiot isn't going to change that.

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Originally posted by fancynancy

All of the above.

BUT I voted for FAMILIES :(

I worked in LTC for many years and the families could make a sane person go NUTS :roll

When I was unit coordinator yes I would say that a good part of my day was spent kissing the "problem" families butts. We had one daughter who refused to have us do her moms laundry and then would call on cell and want us to put the laundry bags out in the parking lot for her NOW :nurse:

Now I work in acute care and get my fair share of little old ladies from the nursing home. I enjoy them and they appreciate the attention I give them. Everything changes when the families come to visit.

One lady in particular is a frequent flyer and her daughter is INSANE

(moms MD has recommended that she "see" someone) She is the MOST annoying person you could meet. One day I have "MOM" and I see a big sign over her bed TAKE BP ON LEG !!!??? Shunt in L arm so OK we take in the right arm. I couldnt find rhyme or reason to take it in the leg- check the orders and the chart. Lucky for me her MD was at the desk- he never heard of it- never ordered it either :confused: "just take it in her arm......"

Found out later from another nurse that was the daughter who insisted that BP was taken on her leg and a nurse put the sign up to appease her. WTF

Me and daughter had it out last discharge about nystatin powder ! She wanted MORE POWDER to take to nursing home The tiny bottle was empty I said they will order her stuff when she gets back to NH. Threatened me "you BETTER get the powder NOW" while "MOM" is on the strecher ready to go !!!!

She argued with me, there are no doctors there + they cant put orders in until friday for delivery on wed ??? Where does she come up with these things ?? She left despising me and powderless............

She's baaaack and I wont take that district for a million bucks, saw the daughter yesterday at the desk and I looked right thru her- like she didnt exist :imbar Im getting cynical I guess but my heart goes out to those NH nurses who have to deal with this insane woman on an everyday basis

deb

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Specializes in Med/Surg, ER, L&D, ICU, OR, Educator.

I have to vote for admin. as he is from "the old school" and the board are all "yes men". DON tired and fed up, so we have lived with no change for 5 years waiting for his impending retirement, but now with stock market drop,.....indefinite. Depressing!

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

My vote will always have to be for administration and politics. The facility I left in July of last year has made no attempt to address any of the issues I brought to their attention when I left. I didn't get an exit interview, so I wrote a letter to the recruitment and retention chairperson. Received a very nice, totally patronizing letter back indicating that my concerns would be investigated, and another from the VP of nursing (or whatever they're calling the position now... who can keep track?) stating basically the same thing. The unit manager of patient care (who is a lovely woman and had only been in the job less than a year) then sent out a memo to the staff asking if they all felt the same as I did. They, of course, all said "No" because they didn't want to see her in any trouble. :chair: So naturally, nothing changed.

There's a good deal of political manoeuvering going on at my new facility as well.

*Our peds CV surgeon is viewed as He-who-must-be-accommodated , even to the extent of having a ventilated patient cared for in the hallway. Not kidding!:eek:

*The only individuals who are ever considered for financial support for attending conferences are those who are preceptors. Aren't we all expected to keep current?

*Management calls the home of any individual who calls in sick to see when they'll be back to work.

*They keep expanding programs and opening new ones without making any arrangements for additional staff parking. :( (It took me more than six months to get a staff parking space, and it's on the 14th level of a rented parkade off hospital property, with no security. :eek:)

*The standards and practice committee, consisting of our clinical instructor and CNS plus a couple of staff nurses, continually comes up with questionably necessary new policies that are in oppostion to the center-wide policies but which must take precedence. Wouldn't you know they all include more nursing time and significantly more charting? :(

I could go on and on. I won't. You're welcome!:wink2:

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