I wished I worked @ Wal-Mart

[WindyhillBSN]

So at work yesterday I sent a message to pharmacy saying I hung some vancomycin late.....then I noticed that it had been discontinued, so I sent a message saying that it had been discontinued, so that they would know that I didn't hang it....later I also noticed that they left off one of my medicines from my order, so I refaxed the order, well later I got a threatening phone call from the pharm. Manager yelling @ me asking why I refaxed it...why am I sending messages..that my explanation of why doesn't make sense to anybody...that I shouldn't have done that...that the entire thing was my fault. So naturally I tried to defend myself...then she cut me off and said I didn't want to mess with her...and I know you got me on speaker phone and other people can hear me...and she's the wrong person to mess with..and that she would fix the order. I went home so upset after that..I'm so sick of working so hard to be a good nurse, only to have stuff like that happen. Why am I doing this? I wish I worked @ walmart.

[rntg]

Almost on a daily basis, I hang up the phone and work and wonder why we on the nursing floors are expected to be nice to everyone, but we have to take everyone else's cr__! You talk to any other department including the doctors, and they can be rude, rude, rude! But we would get reported if we talked to them like that. Goes for ER, OR. PACU, dietary, maintenance, sometimes even security...and I am getting tired of it!!!! And Doctors..they can be the worst. Everyone needs to get over themselves and talk civilly like they would like to be talked to! I really do feel your pain.

[scoutsmom]

OMG! report that person!! , no excuse for that kind of behavior, and on the wal-mart note.. I sometimes wish I was a ticket taker at the Movies, that actually was one of my teen year jobs, ahhh..... life was so simple back then.. Even my days I detassled corn in the endless fields in Iowa ,as a teenager.., in retrospect.. were so fun and simple. I heard a joke once about Nurses, here it is , ....they found a nurse floating in the river ( dead) how did they know it was a nurse???? her bladder was full, her stomach was empy and her Butt had been chewed off, I always think of that when I'm having a bad day, and it makes me smile,, and It is soooo true! ;-)

[mappers]

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Best advice out there.

Sometimes we do things that we think are helping, but instead it is really creating more work for the person on the other end. We get mad at them because we think they are unresponsive, when in reality we're not doing what is needed. They get mad at us, we get mad at them, a vicious cycle is started. No one is trying to be difficult. As a matter of fact usually the opposite is true: we're trying to be helpful but are inadvertently creating more work for the other.

Sometimes to just stop, make a phone call and say, "There seems to be an issue here and I'd like to resolve this for both of us. What am I doing wrong or could I do it differenlty that might make it easier for you?" You'd be surprised how much better life becomes when we all get on the same page.

I was on a committee one time for SCIPP issues. We were complaining that PACU would fax orders to pharmacy before bringing a patient up to the floor and the meds not being in the MAR before they get there. We found out that registration wasn't getting the patients into the computer on a timely manner, therefore, pharmacy could do nothing with the orders faxed by PACU. Pharmacy would either pitch the orders, or keep "watching" to see when the patient was in the computer, thus creating more work for their staff. In the meantime, the floor has now re-faxed the orders and pharmacy now has to double check the two order sets to make sure nothing is different. Nursing is mad at pharmacy for "not doing their job." Pharmacy is mad at nursing for doubling their workload. In reality, the problem was with bed-booking and registration and nobody knew it!!!

I think working 4 hours in pharmacy should be a part of all nursing orientation. Or at least getting an orientation about what they do, what happens when we send down orders, etc. Complaints about Pharmacy seem to be big issue. I really wish I knew how they worked. I have a feeling nursing complicates the problems and if we just did things a little differently, things would go more smoothly.

(An orientation to registration and bed-booking may not be a bad idea either btw.)

And the reverse is true as well. Maybe if they understood more of what we go through, they could do things differently as well.

Everyone hates committees. But sometimes, getting everyone in the same room and telling "their side" opens a bunch of eyes and solves a bunch of problems.

[caffeineRx]

She knows who I am....she obviously has something against me, she was so unwilling to reason...

This is exactly why I fear the field of nursing. Not because I should be afraid, but because it feels like you deal with THOSE kind of women on a daily..among other extremely stressful things. I know that I am going to major in something else for my Bachelors. I'm sorry you have to deal with her nonsense.

[AZMOMO2]

Its funny how we as Nurses should know how to do everyone else's job... but they shouldn't know how to do ours? Can you imagine a Pharmacist shadowing a nurse for a shift? A perfect world would be an orientation to include a day of shadowing every field they interact with on a daily basis... NOT likely to happen tho. Soooo... in reality what we really need to do is train people in manners and respect, and to be professional!

[WindyhillBSN]

I think every department has been cut to the bone and is working short staffed. I've always liked working in places with a satellite pharmacy because there was more personal interaction with the pharmacists. I would advise speaking face to face with the pharmacist and explain why you did what you did.

I already did, and she said it didn't make sense and that 3 others agreed with her that it didn't make sense...

[WindyhillBSN]

OMG! report that person!! , no excuse for that kind of behavior, and on the wal-mart note.. I sometimes wish I was a ticket taker at the Movies, that actually was one of my teen year jobs, ahhh..... life was so simple back then.. Even my days I detassled corn in the endless fields in Iowa ,as a teenager.., in retrospect.. were so fun and simple. I heard a joke once about Nurses, here it is , ....they found a nurse floating in the river ( dead) how did they know it was a nurse???? her bladder was full, her stomach was empy and her Butt had been chewed off, I always think of that when I'm having a bad day, and it makes me smile,, and It is soooo true! ;-)

love you for this!

[caliotter3]

At Wal-Mart you would have the manager treating you the same way, and you would be getting paid less.

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

Don't throw the "I wish I worked @ Walmart" card out there into the universe, it could very well come back as a reality. And trust me, there are countless numbers of unemployed nurses out there who would kill to be in your shoes, especially ones with thick skin that can brush this incident off. What happened to you is a blip on the screen of your career, you worked hard to be where you are - embrace the fact that you have a privileged post in these economic times. Move forward. You're going to let this one piece-of-trash person re-evaluate your entire nursing career?

[jnette, ASN, EMT-I]

At Wal-Mart you would have the manager treating you the same way, and you would be getting paid less.

THERE ya go !!! Spot on !

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

At Wal-Mart you would have the manager treating you the same way, and you would be getting paid less.

exactly. I was thinking the same thing, only about the customers. Working in a nursing home I've taken every kind of physical abuse there is from residents, and it's still better than some of the customers treated me when I was working in retail.

[angellee15437]

I would prefer Lowes over Walmart. No nightshift.LOL