I keep reading articles about the newer generation of workers, and how they just have a different attitude towards work. Well, I'm getting frustrated and disappointed by some of what I see in my workplace.
I know it's not all young people, and I'm pretty young myself.
But I'm seeing a decline in patient care and lack of interest in nursing excellence by the newer staff where I work.
Socializing with each other seems to be taking precedence over patient care. Goofing off and playing practical jokes is seen as okay. Those who disagree or try to point out when behaviour at work crosses the line of appropriate get rolled eyes, and they act like we are nagging or picking on them.
This past weekend, patients didn't get turned properly, and when we came on for nights, we found a patient who had been admitted seven hours previously still in the dirty sheets from the ED stretcher, with alcohol swabs and an empty muko lubricant packet stuck to his skin. The day shift staff had been playing jokes on each other, squirting with syringes. One of the nurses put muko lubricant on the phone receiver in the Stepdown unit for a joke, and one of the patients family members got a phone call, and was slimed. This was a family member of someone who was a seriously injured trauma patient. I was embarrassed, to be honest. Our patients deserve better.
I told the manager, and she'll talk to the nurses who were on duty at the time. But these are just examples of the behaviour I'm seeing every day at work. A trend to care more about break time and hanging out with co-workers than knuckling down and doing the work. Does anyone else see this happening?
I feel some of our staff really don't understand the concept of professionalism, and that you have to act differently at work than you do when you are out with your friends. Maybe part of it is that their friends essentially ARE their co-workers, so work is just another place they see their friends. But still, how do you explain to people where the line is or even teach that concept if it is new to them without sounding like an old hag?
Steph and Marla, your posts reminded me of this list of "rules" I recently received in an email:
To anyone with kids of any age, here's some
advice.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did
not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. Love him or hate him, he sure hit the nail on the head with this!
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem.
The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS
NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you
as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the
slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
:yeahthat: Amen!! So true, so true. I like #1. I have an eleven year old who screams "that's not fair" about every other sentence. I told him today that phrase has officially became a bad word in our house. His response "that's not fair!" He got pretty bored with no tv this evening. I'm not real popular around here tonight.:chuckle
Whatever happened to getting FIRED? When I was younger, if you did something like lube up a phone that was subsequently used by a customer you would have been FIRED (and I am only 33 :stone, so not THAT long ago).
I agree with others who said the reason there are problems with this kind of behavior is that people are ALLOWED to get away with it! It really ticks me off that people are allowed to act this way with little to no consequences.
What goes around, comes around. I remember growing up hearing about how lazy my generation was. Interesting now that my generation has kids they think it's changed.
Also remember the younger generation just didn't spontaneous become this way. They learned and followed examples, or weren't guided by parents, teachers, mentors, supervisors and managers a generation or multimedia created by a generation ahead of them. Maybe our parents were right and this is the mannifestation of that laziness they accused us of having when we were younger.
I still have hope that the generation behind me will snap out of it the same as we did. :)
Every generation always bemoans the younger one. That's the one constant in this life. Personally, I've worked with good and bad nurses of all ages. Most of the ones I know with poor work ethic were burnouts, not new grads (I think that's because the new grads have a healthy amount of fear) but that doesn't mean I should classify all older nurses as having a poor work ethic. Same goes the other way around. To generalize like that shows a lack of maturity IMO. Focus on the behavior, not the age.
Specializes in Telemetry, ICU, Resource Pool, Dialysis.
I see the problem as more a supervision problem in general. The young nurses I work with, and have worked with in the past have been very dedicated to being professional. I have seen a reluctance to disipline certain people or problems. I think it may be a fear of losing staff. I find it interesting that we are reprimanded for stupid things, but sometimes complaints about laziness or attitude problems get swept under the rug. Or the old "I think this issue would better be resolved by you (the complainer) directly addressing it with the person" This works if you have a problem with someone who just needs to be made aware of the problem, and is willing to change. It doesn't work with people who believe "if it was that big of a deal , my manager would talk to me." As long as they feel they are getting away with it, they'll keep doing it.
I HAVE noticed a big difference in behavior/work ethic among the ancillary staff, though. Some of the younger ones really take their jobs for granted, and seem to feel like they can pick and choose which parts of their job they want to perform and which ones they find distasteful. Alot of disappearing at the first whiff of poop, and leaving for the day before all their duties are done. The rest of which I am held responsible for. They seem to take absolutely no pride in their work, apparantly believing some of it to be beneath them.
You seem to have a group of losers with you, how dare you imply that nurses in their 20's and 30's are the same as your group!
I am thirty and a great, hard working nurse. How would you feel if I said I could run circles around the old 50 something nurses?? Not nice, right?
Get over yourself before you graduate or you will never develop relationships with the people you work with.
:angryfire
I am a 52 year old nursing student. My classmates are the 20 to 30 year olds. It appears to me that this group lacks any kind of work ethic.
They will hide out so they do not have to work. They learn something and that's it. They don't want to do it again. Some smoke pot before clinicals and the attitude is f-this and f-that.
One girl was bypassing blood pressures before insulin. She made them up. And the staff is lax.
I am so proud to be a nursing student. I find it hard to get through to the youth that they are so lucky to be here with their parents help.
I sure with they knew how a iron works. Where is the pride????? Iron those uniforms.
On problem with "new" nurses is that many may be entering nursing because they've seen the glitzy ads that make nursing seem almost glamorous. They're told that it's stable, they can always get a job, they have flexibility, they can "go places," and so on. What is omitted is the real nature of the job, or at least the fact that before they can move to being a nurse practitioner, CRNA, or nurse exec, they need to have some patient care under their belt. I truly think that many really entered the profession without any real thoughts on why they want to do nursing, what the work is really like, and what their responsibilities. Many schools also allow you to glide through, stuffing your head with inane theory and little practicality.
Just one take on it. I may be wrong, but I think that this massive recruitment effort is merely bringing warm bodies in who may not really want to be doing nursing.
I have been a nurse for 28 years. I was an LPN for 18 and have been an RN for 10. I'm in grad school at the present for FNP. Nirsing has not been the same for many years and I feel that those who are getting into it at a early age are needing more experience then just getting out of High School. Maybe the steps need to be steeper and experience should be a prereq. I have seen both younger and older nurses do stupid things that endanger the patient.
I think too many people are focusing on the age group being mentioned by chichigg and not the fact she says "this group". I will admit that at first read, I had thought she was writing about the 20 and 30 somethings but on my second read I understood her to be talking of the particular group she was dealing with.
I'm 30, not that it matters how old I am, and I have seen all ages just plain fail to live up to what I would consider a good work ethic. I'm currently a licensed CNA, EMT-B, and Cosmetologist, I can honestly say that all three licenses mean that I know how to pass state exams and nothing else. I also believe that it is those who are either burnt out from their job or from being chewed up and spit out by their employer that seem to just "go through the motions" of their job when pride in one's work falls to the wayside.
One of the things that my Cosmetology school taught, and I believe that all professional schools should teach, is how to avoid (or delay) burnout. I'm not saying that lubing the telephone handset is professional, what I am saying is that learning how to have fun on the job and still getting it done the right way will go far to prevent burnout.
In my facility, I feel that the gal who sets up our schedules is overworked because not only does she have schedules to do but also payroll, and ten tons of other things that should be doled out to more people. Our DON while having many duties of her own, needs to get out there on the floor when she can and practice a little patient care if she is going to continue to refuse to acknowledge our lack of staff. The last thing any staff member wants to hear is their DON saying how fun it was to pass meds then come in the next night to hear of how many med errors and missed meds this same woman made.
In case you haven't guessed, I am the type who refuses to be abused by my employer or my patients, let me clarify that last bit, my patients who fully know that they are being abusive, just plain mean/rude does not qualify as a valid psych dx in my book.
The nurses/aides/managers/administrators that fluff off and think everything is a big joke need to find a means of getting their job done and still have time to goof off or get out and find a different field. I'm lazy, I'm slow, and disorganized, but I still get my job done even though some want it done faster than I move somedays. My joke is that I have two speeds, slow and stop; I am not as organized as you want me to be, if you rush me, I will forget something.
Uhgg,, save it for bar night or the facility picnic. Nothing says you cant have great working relationships with your co-workers without making a joke out of everything. If you need to then you need some serious help. Maybe a little more socialization outside of work so you dont feel you have to do that stuff at work might help.
And whoever put that lub on the telephone needs to be canned pronto. The last thing you patients want is to hear the nurses cackling out in the hall.
I think too many people are focusing on the age group being mentioned by chichigg and not the fact she says "this group". I will admit that at first read, I had thought she was writing about the 20 and 30 somethings but on my second read I understood her to be talking of the particular group she was dealing with.
I'm 30, not that it matters how old I am, and I have seen all ages just plain fail to live up to what I would consider a good work ethic. I'm currently a licensed CNA, EMT-B, and Cosmetologist, I can honestly say that all three licenses mean that I know how to pass state exams and nothing else. I also believe that it is those who are either burnt out from their job or from being chewed up and spit out by their employer that seem to just "go through the motions" of their job when pride in one's work falls to the wayside.
One of the things that my Cosmetology school taught, and I believe that all professional schools should teach, is how to avoid (or delay) burnout. I'm not saying that lubing the telephone handset is professional, what I am saying is that learning how to have fun on the job and still getting it done the right way will go far to prevent burnout.
In my facility, I feel that the gal who sets up our schedules is overworked because not only does she have schedules to do but also payroll, and ten tons of other things that should be doled out to more people. Our DON while having many duties of her own, needs to get out there on the floor when she can and practice a little patient care if she is going to continue to refuse to acknowledge our lack of staff. The last thing any staff member wants to hear is their DON saying how fun it was to pass meds then come in the next night to hear of how many med errors and missed meds this same woman made.
In case you haven't guessed, I am the type who refuses to be abused by my employer or my patients, let me clarify that last bit, my patients who fully know that they are being abusive, just plain mean/rude does not qualify as a valid psych dx in my book.
The nurses/aides/managers/administrators that fluff off and think everything is a big joke need to find a means of getting their job done and still have time to goof off or get out and find a different field. I'm lazy, I'm slow, and disorganized, but I still get my job done even though some want it done faster than I move somedays. My joke is that I have two speeds, slow and stop; I am not as organized as you want me to be, if you rush me, I will forget something.
I've read the whole post, and I think there are few points to be stressed:
#1: Maturity has NO age.
#2: If any one wants to become a nurse, a requirement for the career should be WORK ETHIC.
#3: Humor is the greatest medicine...as long as no one gets hurt.
#4: TEAMWORK is key (you don't have to be anyone's freind at the job...if they call you a "party pooper," so what?)
I'm about to turn 24, and I would like to say I'm young and senile, love humor, but have a work ethic, as well as I know as anurse I don't have to take s*** from a manager, coworkers, or a facility, including patients. There's a nursing shortage out there, so I know there is are plenty of facilities that promotes well being for EVERYONE-staff, patients, visitors, etc.
And if you can't find it, find it within YOURSELF.
NancyJo
79 Posts
:yeahthat: Amen!! So true, so true. I like #1. I have an eleven year old who screams "that's not fair" about every other sentence. I told him today that phrase has officially became a bad word in our house. His response "that's not fair!" He got pretty bored with no tv this evening. I'm not real popular around here tonight.:chuckle