Getting flack from techs (vent alert)

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

Ooooh. Someone needed a new one ripped today.

I'm passing meds and a patient tells me another patient needs assistance. I find her standing in the smoking room with a puddle of charcoal-induced poop on the floor around her and covering her legs and feet. Pt seems not terribly concerned by this fact, as she continues to smoke. She just gives me a "what caused that?" and keeps on puffing.

Poor student nurse is nearby - one of us hangs onto the patient and the other grabs some towels, alerts the custodian, and we get her into the shower. Wrapped her IV site, got all the supplies. Pulled tech who had just brought her breakfast up (we'd been on the floor for a grand total of 1 hour) and the tech is irritated that I pull her away to do the shower so I can finish passing meds.

I get questioned, "Well, can't she do it herself?"

No.

"She looks like she could do it herself."

Well, she can't. I need you to do this.

"Well, I'm sure not gonna feel like eating my breakfast after this."

(Afterward, she apologized and said it was clear after she showered her that the patient wouldn't have been able to do it alone. Well, thanks for the update, Mr. Obvious! I think she also sensed my irritation, as I am generally a pretty easy-going person.)

I commented to the charge nurse, "X is really just going to have to start taking my word when I say something needs to be done." Charge said she'd talk to her.

I get very tired of having to explain my requests. It's one thing if I was asking her to do something outside of her scope of practice, but that's her JOB!

OK - feel better now...

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Originally posted by Nurse Ratched

"Well, I'm sure not gonna feel like eating my breakfast after this."

LMAO! This just struck me as funny! Amateur!

Glad you feel better after letting it all out! Except for saying that is does indeed suck to work with people that do not sense their need, that have to be asked, requested, or demanded to do their jobs.... other than saying that I feel for ya in that respect, I have nothing other than hogs for you....

Heather

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OOPS! I meant that I have HUGS for you in that last line! You already know enough hogs!

Heather

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Sounds like my kind of day....only I was dealing with a committee of nurse managers acting like teenagers, slumping in chairs slurping yogurt and then trying to bust my chops.........that was AFTER a two hour staff meeting where we were told how wonderful we did last fiscal year and how short those ALOS REALLY need to get THIS fiscal year...and oh yeah....about that case study you all need to do........sigh. WAAAAAAAAAAAA

I support you! :-)

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Specializes in ICU, nutrition.
I have nothing other than hogs for you....

You're not talking about those pregnant pigs down in Florida, are you? :rotfl:

Sorry you work with such an ass, Ratched. Is the tech new? I mean, "I'm not going to feel like eating breakfast after this?"

BWAHHHAAAAHHHHAAAAHHHHHAAAA

I don't feel like eating after cleaning neon green tube feeding diarrhea either, but I get over it by the time the microwave dings.

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Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.

You guys slay me lol.

She's not new. She DOES happen to be pregnant, but as another staff member put it once about her, "That girl hasn't had a well day since she came here." Very whiny. She'll be gone soon - she's moving as soon as the baby is born, so nothing will happen to her in the meantime.

And when I cleaned up the c-diff patient while my lunch was heating up (today), the thought never occured to me ;).

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

What was her problem. I can be eating, clean up poop, then go back to eating with no problem whatsoever!!!

While, we're ranting. I have to fight with a couple of the techs to get them to stop their precious vital signs rounds, or charting of said vital signs to help. "I'm busy right now!!!! You gotta do it" I always get. Then at 7:10 they wave goodbye, while I'm still there until way past 8:00 finishing up. Sigh...

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Specializes in NICU.

This sooooooooo reminds me of some people we have working on our unit. One of them, a secretary, spends all of her time surfing the internet, playing games online, talking to her boyfriend (who also happens to work there), and disappearing for what seems like hours at a time. It's like, if she sniffs work in the air, she bolts before we can sk her to do something and is gone until it's time to clock out! When you ask her to put in labs (which I usually do myself since it ends up being done faster and being done right), she will put in exactly half of them, causing you to have to search the computer to find out which ones aren't in there, and then put them in yourself. The other one is a CNA who seems to just absolutely hate her job. She moans and groans and complains ALMOST every time you see her, about a variety of different things. She also seems to disappear when you need her most, and last night, we were slammed. Our NICU had 16 babies, half of them VERY CRITICAL, and only 6 nurses. we got preemie twins in and still no extra staff. The Level II across the hall had 18 babies and TWO NURSES. We had asked her if she could get the beds ready when we found out we were getting the twins, and she did. Sort of. One of the beds was broken. She put out exactly half of the supplies for a new admit and said screw it to the rest of it. She put monitors by the beds but no cables. She was overheard, when someone asked her about the beds (she was on her way out the door to go home and the babies were being wheeled out of L&D), to say, 'I don't care...I'm not worried about it.' The other admit nurse looked at me and we ran to find our half-made up admit beds in total disarray and we had to run all over the damn place looking for UAC cables, etc. while the doctors were staring at us like we were idiots. Now, I am the queen of being over-prepared, and this just cooked my goat, you hear me? I am still irritated at that girl. What was she thinking? I mean, Jesus, I would usually do these things myself, but we were so busy, and she KNEW THAT, and isn't that what they are there for in the first place? And she's in nursing school! I worked as a CNA when I was in school and I busted my ass. That's a hard job- I KNOW that. But do they not know what is expected of them? And why is it, exactly, that so many people get away with stuff like this? (And god almighty, I'm not talking about only CNA's or techs, before you jump all over me. I am talking about lazy people in general, and these two girls specifically.) I just can't imagine taking a job and then slacking off like that. I could understand if it was once in a while, but it seems like every single shift. That's a little ridiculous. RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

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Originally posted by 3rdShiftGuy

While, we're ranting. I have to fight with a couple of the techs to get them to stop their precious vital signs rounds, or charting of said vital signs to help. "I'm busy right now!!!! You gotta do it" I always get. Then at 7:10 they wave goodbye, while I'm still there until way past 8:00 finishing up. Sigh...

Doesn't that just pizz you off to no end? Now, I don't mind helping clean poop, putting pts on bedpans, fetching soda and such for pts EXCEPT for when the techs are sitting on their behinds at the nurses's station and I have 2 hours worth of charting left....:( And I sure don't want any feedback if I ask them to do something. I have actually had to tell techs and CNA's that the request is not up for debate...I have made up my mind and this is what you are going to do...or else we are going to play chicken and I will not blink....and I will get my way....:D

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A couple of years ago we got a new tech who complained about how overworked the techs were and how the nurses just "sit on their butts doing nothing and making big bucks". She created a rift between many of the techs and the RNs. She started pointing out to the RN's how many beds needed to be made and which ones were we doing. She even went to HR complaining about how the techs "did everything." She started to "forget" to do things while she was in with a pt and would say that the RN could get it while she was in the room and would become upset if she was told she needed to go back and do it herself. She wanted less work for the techs and more for the RN. I don't mind doing all of the pt's care, but the reality is that the staffing levels are based on the techs doing a certain amount of the pt's care. She hadn't worked as a tech anywhere else and had no idea that compared to other facilities, our hospital really doesn't have the techs doing that many tasks.

I had more than one pt complain that this tech would act put out if they asked her to do something for them such as get fresh ice water or bring them another blanket or pillow.

This tech stayed long enough create friction on the unit and then she left. I often wonder where she went and if she is creating the same problems there, too. Our NM said she called her last month asking if we had any positions open. Thank goodness we did not at the time.

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I WAS a tech once too....BUSTED MY A$$ and wouldnot dare tell a nurse what i "couldn't or wouldn't do"...No nurse had to tell me twice...Consider it done! and with a smile:)... Now I'm an R.N. do ALL my stuff....and God forgive the techs for the looks and excuses I get when I politely ask for a cup of ice for a patient.. I want A "HOG" too:chuckle :roll

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

just can't get good help nowadays, huh? what an awful day for you...seems this sort of thing is becoming more and more common. NO one has a work ethic anymore, it would seem.

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