Most of the hospitals I go to, the staff is happy that I came to help out, they have no problem showing me where things are, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense are the places you walk into where the staff nurses look at you like crap on the bottom of their shoe. And don't mention that it's your first time at the facility and you need to be shown where vital things are like the, oh.... say med carts for instance. It's like you just asked them to give you their first born. I recently worked with these 2 staff RNs who snickered with eachother whenever I would ask a question pertaining to where something could be found. How immature is that?? And believe me, I ask questions as a last resort. I always attempt to find the item on my own. If these nurses are unhappy with their current situation, they can do the EXACT same thing as me and get an agency job for better pay and better hours. If any staff nurses are reading this forum, remember when we come to your facility, it's to help your shift out so you won't have to take care of as many patients. And don't assume that just because we're agency, we don't know what we're doing. There are excellent agency nurses out there. Lots of us better than the staff nurses that we follow behind and have to clean up after.
Now that I've vented, I have to say that switching to agency nursing is the best thing I've ever done. Almost double the pay, better hours, more days off, and no politics. One of the staff RNs I worked with told me I made more than her at $20/hr and I'm an LPN in the New Orleans area. That's sad. Hospitals need to pay more and stop making empty promises if they're going to have any staff left at all.
