Late arriving Nurses

OCNRN63, RN · Aug 5, 2015

That pot of coffee would be decaf every time if they pulled that crap with me.

Or strong enough to take the paint off the walls!

Emergent, RN · Aug 5, 2015

I am a widow and almost 60. Not sure if that makes me a snot. I raised my kids without a husband, since he died when they were babies, since didn't have the luxury of a husband AND kids. Always got to work on time and still do.

Everyone's time is valuable, and speaking of church, the Bible instructs us to give special care to widows.

OrganizedChaos, LVN · Aug 5, 2015

From the other point of view:
Although I personally would feel embarrassed to show up 20 minutes late to report at 0705 and would be apologizing profusely if I did, I consistently clock in to work a little on the late side- somewhere between 6:44 and 6:51. And I don't feel bad about this. Nor do I feel like the world revolves around me and that no one else's time matters, as was previously suggested. Per our unit policy, 6:51 is technically still "on time." As nurses, we have extremely tough and abnormal schedules and it's not easy on everyone. Waking up at 5 AM is pure hell on my body and I feel like grandma death until about 0800 each day. Night shift didn't work for me either- I had crazy bad insomnia and shift work sleep disorder which led to a major depression episode. 12-hour shifts are extremely taxing on the mind and body and some of us just have a very hard time dragging ourselves out of bed so early in the morning- or in night nurses' cases, after a day of poor-quality sleep that goes against their biological rhythms. Oh how I wish I could do normal/sane/healthy 9-5 hours and still be a bedside hospital nurse (in something less mundane than lactation)!
I hate, hate, HATE it when the night nurse is standing at the door and stalking me to the break room as I put my lunch in the fridge at 6:44 AM yelling, "I have room xx for you!" I also by habit round on all of my patients between 1800 and report time, and cannot stand it when the early birds of night shift come in at 1830 and take up all the computers when it's still technically my shift and I need to use said computers to chart whatever I just did for my patients during that time- which, by the way, your welcome because that patient will now NOT be calling you between 1845-2000 for that issue. Now can I please have somewhere to chart about it since it's still day shift? :)
I personally think I make up for my mild tardiness by working really hard once I'm there and helping others out- including the night nurses. I am the type that gets straight to business once I clock in and am quick/easy to give report to (I don't use my cell phone during report like so many do, I don't care to hear a long drawn out story about what breastfeeding education topics you've discussed- because that is an expectation and not a relevant update, I don't need you to tell me what times you gave Motrin or when my next bili draw is due because I can look that up myself- usually faster and with more accuracy, I don't grill you over irrelevant issues, etc.)
I don't ever mind staying 15 mins late after my shift to draw a stat lab on the patient I got to know all day, give norco to a patient who called for prn pain meds at 1900 after declining them when I rounded and offered them at 1830, call a doc about a new or unresolved issue, do a late discharge on a patient who got discharge orders at 1845, etc., rather than dumping those time-sucker events onto the oncoming nurse who needs to get their assessments done, so I would not appreciate coworkers being pushy about me being a few minutes late in the AM or expecting me to come in "10 minutes early" because it means they are not willing to ever go the extra mile to help me out if I needed it. A lot of the early bird nurses would tell you "too bad, it's 1845, it's your problem now" if any of those things popped up, because they are every bit as in a hurry to leave as they were to arrive.
Also, I work more overtime than anyone else on my unit of over 150 nurses. As in- I routinely work 5 12's per week. I'm giving up my entire dayS off that I could be sleeping in, shopping, at the gym, at the beach, etc. to help out the very busy unit which definitely needs the help, so if me running 5 minutes late in the morning upsets you because I have apparently wasted 5 incredibly important minutes of your life, sorry but I don't really feel any sympathy. Me helping out on so many extra shifts collectively saves a LOT of people a LOT of time and stress in the long run :) May I suggest you spend those 5 minutes you wait for me doing some relaxation breathing exercises to ease your anxiety/OCD/type A issues and call it a day.
In the adult working world, you don't get to pick and choose your coworkers and there will always be those types you don't like. If you hate it, there are always other jobs, which inevitably always have more of those people you don't like. But if one day all the nurses who have trouble with timeliness got kicked out of nursing for it, the nursing shortage would be muuuuch, much worse and you'd have a lot more work on your hands. Life really does go on- even when things happen 5-10 minutes after you planned for it to. You have to pick and chose your battles. I don't go to management and complain because your pushy, type-A personality stresses people out. Hopefully you can learn to appreciate something about the tardy nurses- maybe they don't mind staying late to help you when you need it just like me? :) - and realize you may have your own bad habit that is horribly annoying to others.
Just my two cents!
RTransitionAntepartum, Women's Surgery and Women's Oncology.

Yesssssssssss.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Aug 5, 2015

I can't stand those that think the time window for billing purposes (agency bills in 15 minute units so 6:53-7:07 bills as 7AM, 7:08-7:22 bills as 7:15) is a window to show up late. The corporate policy is to be at the home ready to work 5 minutes before shift start so the outgoing nurse can leave by 5 minutes past. So oncoming arrives ready to work at 6:55 so outgoing can give report, finish notes and leave by 7:05.

Life happens, if once in a blue moon (last week would have been your chance :) ) you come in at 7:05 because you overslept, forgot to fill your car with gas, hit all the red lights, really needed coffee (and we're kind enough to bring one for me as I work nights some cases) fine, we are human. No one is perfect, but you will get a written report and I'm not hanging out to chat as I have to get home, get my child ready, fed & to school then I might be able to go to bed.

Do not walk in shoving your smart phone in my face saying "write down the time, I'm not late. We have a window. It's 7:07!" No darling you were supposed to be here 12 minutes ago, no I didn't start your 7:15 treatments (times purposely by the nurse case manager so no question as to which shift is responsible) here's your written report. Don't laugh and say what's the big deal you're just going to bed. Um, not that it's your business but no I'm not. Im late to get my child's morning routine started. I've been awake since yesterday and must be awake for the next 4 hours due to obligations. Bed today is around 11:30 AM.

It's not a window for tardiness, it's a window for billing school districts and insurance as we aren't paid to the minute nor do they bill to the minute. We bill to the quarter hour & are paid to the quarter hour. Now the clock changed to 7:08 as you walked in (I wrote down the time just like you demanded!) and I get 15 extra minutes of pay, you lose the same. (expect a call as you will have to explain your tardiness pushing me into overtime that is not billable)

Life happens. No one is perfect. But accept personal responsibility. I don't care if you waltz in ready to work at 7:05 on occasion understanding that as you walk in I'm walking out hitting the major points as I leave. Questions, call the office.

I'm dreading two weeks from now as I'm supposed to be relieved by "I have a window, I'm not late nurse" again when I fill in for a colleague.

And if you are chronically late don't expect me to lie for you if I'm asked by the manager what time you showed up this time, especially since just because you think the patient's mom is obliviously asleep she knows exactly what time you walked in the door AND she keeps track, reporting monthly to the clinical manager when she visits.

NursesRmofun, ASN, RN · Aug 5, 2015

We have a built in 15 mins before and after shift we are to be at the floor. We are paid for it. So, we actually get paid the entire 12 hrs. It works , for the most part.....not usually late getting out, so far.

allnurses Guide · Aug 5, 2015

Or strong enough to take the paint off the walls!

You can always water down strong coffee. We had one LVN who made the weakest coffee - it was like drinking tea. We finally asked her to please, stop making coffee!

We have a built in 15 mins before and after shift we are to be at the floor. We are paid for it. So, we actually get paid the entire 12 hrs. It works , for the most part.....not usually late getting out, so far.

I think that is what I was saying - my shift was 0245 to 1515 . . . . but I still came a bit earlier than that.

Oh those days of 12 hour shifts, getting up at 0145, working 100 hours a pay period because they needed me.

New nurse brain back then. Give your all for the company.

RNKPCE · Aug 5, 2015

If the shift start is 7AM what is the issue of she's clocked in and ready to go at 6:51?

I think that poster's shifts she was referring to starts at 6:45. That poster said she'd be 20 late if she showed up at 7:05.

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Aug 5, 2015

I think that poster's shifts she was referring to starts at 6:45. That poster said she'd be 20 late if she showed up at 7:05.

Got it. I saw on time if arrive 6:45-6:51 not start time of 6:45

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Aug 5, 2015

You can always water down strong coffee. We had one LVN who made the weakest coffee - it was like drinking tea. We finally asked her to please, stop making coffee!
.

When I worked in the ED nights as a tech, the one tech made the most fantastic coffee using Foldgers and one other brand. He was ill, the nurses asked if I could try brewing a pot. At 21, I drank coffee but was only successful at making tea. The nurses asked me to try, it did not go well at all. It looked more like I dunked some beans and I don't even think the water heated up hot enough, an amazing epic fail for an automatic drip coffee maker. I was forgiven as my brain had other talents such as memorizing all commonly used physician phone numbers in a three county area, and memorizing the contents/location of the stock room, sterile procedure trays, and procedure carts. (I'd actually get called on the down low on a night off asked to direct the staff to an obscure set up preferred by a physician who was on his way in to care for a patient)

I'd bring my evening "snack" and sit in the break room with a book for 20 minutes before we could clock in at 6:53PM because I was paranoid about oversleeping or getting stuck in summer traffic living in a tourist area. Once I had a late EMS call, had my uniform on under my jump suit and the crew just left me there as there would no way I could make it back to the squad building, get my car and to work on time due to the traffic created by the accident we just transported was still being cleaned up. Fortunately the local PD knew this and a kind officer brought me to my car in the AM.

Where there's a will there's a way, chronic tardiness affects everyone not just the one who is chronically tardy.

Junebug903, LPN · Aug 5, 2015

I work 8 hour shifts. There are multiple nurses and CNAs that come in to work late every single day. Even up to 30 mins. My job is was to lenient on this policy. I am always early and clock in at the earliest time possible. This helps me get more prepared for the shift and wake up more for another 10ish minutes.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Aug 5, 2015

Here is another perspective on the chronically tardy person:

The chronically tardy, in large measure, have a perception that others do not feel them to be important, so they operate in a way so as to impose themselves on a situation - exerting control to feel in control - while in reality they are silently validating their own sense of unworthiness, whether consciously or unconsciously.
If we return to our discussion of self-worth -- a more nuanced definition of self-esteem that takes into account transactional social perception in a way self-esteem does not - we begin to see the interdependence of self-perception, other-perception and action that defines and drives this dynamic.
Until we see ourselves as valuable - self-perception - we will not recognize our value to others - other-perception. Not seeing our own value, and, by association, feeling that others do not regard us as valuable begs the question, "Why show up?"

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/enlightened-living/200812/tardiness-self-worth-and-being-present

**LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM** · Aug 5, 2015

Ah...I see. The life of a "60 year old widowed" snot is less important, less valuable than someone with a husband, toddlers, church obligations, and school." I was never married, but I don't have kids, and I had to put up with the attitude of "My life is more valuable than yours because I have a husband and kids." Well, as Suzanne Sugarbaker would say, "Big woo!"
I agree with Wade. If you are showing up right on the dot, yes, technically you are on time, but then the off-going shift has to wait for you to put your stuff in your locker, get your papers, get your drink, then get into report.
If the off-going shift has to wait for you, then yes, you're late.
Someday you may be that 60 year old widowed snot, FWIW.

A little late here, but I'd like to take a timeout to thank you for quoting Designing Women, one of the most awesome shows of all time. Also, I agree with everything you just said.

Late arriving Nurses

late arriving nurses