Most "Clueless" Thing YOUR Manager has Done

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

i was telling the story in another thread about the visitor who brought in the handgun to "put his wife out of her misery" and while he was at it, threatened to put a few nurses out of their misery as well. he was arrested at midnight, spent a few hours in jail and was back in the icu to visit again by 6 am. when we called our manager, her response was "well, he's from montana and everyone in montana carries a gun"! so i got to thinking about some of the dumb things i've seen managers do.

management is a tough job, and someone's got to do it, but sometimes i wonder how they pick them!

there was the manager who wanted me to give 10 mg. of im valium to a visitor who was throwing a fit because her father just died. (dad was in his 90s). the visitor was, admittedly, throwing an award winning fit and the md ordered 10 mg. of valium im to "calm her down." i suggested we send her to the er instead. physician insisted. i refused. nurse manager got involved, and told me to give it. i tried to reason with her. she insisted. i refused. she told me to go to her office and wait for her to discuss my future with the organization. i went, i waited. i heard the code called. nm had given the 10 mg. of im valium to the visitor, whereupon she respiratory arrested. (the discussion didn't go quite as she had intended.)

then there was the manager who wasn't quite sure how to deal with a male nurse i'll call vern. vern was a bit of a practical joker, politically incorrect and had a few other issues as well. one of them was extramarital affairs which shouldn't have been a work issue and probably wouldn't have been had he not had them with patients' family members. he also had a Mediaography habit which was facilitated by the new internet-capable computers we'd had installed at the nurses' station. female nurses were always sitting down the the computers to look up lab values and finding some image of couples in the throes of passion that vern had pulled up, downloaded or installed as a desktop. sometimes it was multiple couple -- but always graphic and Mediaographic. i know the manager talked to him about it a time or two, and i know it was documented since i did some of the documentation myself. but one morning the Mediaographic photograph was adorned with the message "**** me, dr. h_______". the person who sat down at the computer and got the full benefit of vern's handiwork was dr. h's straight-laced, fundamentalist partner. he was not amused. he was most decidedly not amused.

i know vern got suspended because i heard the "conversation" through the closed door of the nurse manager's office and the closed door of the icu. so did everyone else who was working that day, most of the patients and all of the visitors. the suspension was well deserved. so was the 6 months of probation that followed it. what surprised the heck out of me was the fact that vern got promoted to assistant nurse manager while he was still on suspension!

what's the most clueless thing your manager has done?

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There have been many, but I'll just name a couple. One is that he ignores incident reports/errors made by his "pets". Another thing that is a constant cause of poor morale, is he has hired several nurses w/less than 2 yrs experience & their starting pay was a few pennies less than those w/20 yrs experience. Also, the same people can call in sick or late w/any ridiculous family (or other) excuse & get away w/it, but he reprimands staff who have had legitimate reasons to call in. He decides who gets raises- it's always his pets. His pets also get phone calls all day long & get 45 min lunch breaks during which they leave the premises & then come back & eat lunch for another 15 min. for a total of an hour- sometimes longer, while the rest of us get lunch at 2 or 3 (sometimes later!) in the afternoon, then he refuses to sign our 'no lunch' requests. I recently gave my resignation, so I won't be putting up w/his incompetent management style anymore!!

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Goes like this:

Cardiac MD comes in, reviews previous strips on the monitor (can look back over several days right on tele computer) Finds 18 beat run of V tac. from day before. Wonders why he was never called, finds NO documention anywhere on matter. Even weirder, when cariac "event" happens, monitor automaticaaly prints out strip, so someone had to have accidentally thrown strip away! NM tried to nail monitor tech to the wall (monitor tech had like 20 years experience, very good, and insisted she did not over look this) until the TIME of the incident was realized...monitor tech was at lunch, and NM was covering for her that day. At that point the whole thing of how the NM over looked this and accidently threw away the tele strip and so on was swept under the carpet, and the staff does now know what became of it...but NM still works there. (So does monitor tech in case you're wondering) I however, do not!!

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

Had a patient at my last job who was trached and vented. It was hard to tell whether or not she was confused but she managed to pull out her trach a couple of times so for her safety the nurses had restrained her.

So one night I had her and it happened to be after the nurse tried to leave the restraints off and the patient ended up pulling out her trach. So on my shift she was restrained because I had four patients and I wasn't gonna have the same stuff happen like the night before.

The nurse manager is making rounds and wants me to "trial release" the restraints. Explained everything that happened the night before but NM still insisted. I refused. At the facility I work at now, trial releases are a "no-no".

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

our nm's are required to wear scrubs to work in case they need to work the floor. we had one nm who showed up every day dressed to the 9's. we would ask her questions to which she didn't have answers. apparently her supervisor... drilled it into her head that she had to wear scrubs to work so she finally did. when asked to take a patient she had to come clean and admit that she had never worked on a floor in her 10+ years as a nurse. she didn't even know how to hang a new bag of fluids. :uhoh21: needless to say, she was promptly let go.

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our nm's are required to wear scrubs to work in case they need to work the floor. we had one nm who showed up every day dressed to the 9's. we would ask her questions to which she didn't have answers. apparently her supervisor... drilled it into her head that she had to wear scrubs to work so she finally did. when asked to take a patient she had to come clean and admit that she had never worked on a floor in her 10+ years as a nurse. she didn't even know how to hang a new bag of fluids. :uhoh21: needless to say, she was promptly let go.

at least they let her go! in my experience, these type of people are generally promoted.

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a few of my managers remind me of what you say, for example, running a clysis line SQ at 100 ccs and then wondering why it pools, working a night shift because we are short and 'forgetting' to do the morning meds, being stressed because they have a death, an admission and a patient go to ER when he's had to work when we are short, yet he thinks that we don't do anything in a 12 hr shift. Makes you wonder how they ever made it through school, let alone nursed and made it through the gauntlet of being 'eaten young'. But my husband always says that managers are promoted to get them off the frontline, because they suck, in any field, so it's not surprising that nursing might work that way.

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
at least they let her go! in my experience, these type of people are generally promoted.

so true! i've seen that happen myself with a hh company. lmaosmiley.gif

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At least they let her go! In my experience, these type of people are generally promoted.
Oh yeah, I had a manager whose only experience was as home health nurse. She knew nothing about running a ortho/rehab unit. While a somewhat personable manager with patients and docs, she unfortunately treated her nursing staff like beast of burdens. She had no skill what so ever when it came to managment and it was impossible that she could ever take a patient or help out with orders or admission. After running the unit very badly for 3 years she was GIVEN A SECOND UNIT TO RUN. By then I was out of there and I don't know how it turned out but asking a person who ran one unit badly to take a second was insane. However, she did come in under budget and in the minds of upper managment that made her "the chosen one". There was another thing about her that bugged me. She was in that building 12 hours a day but never got anything done, she seemed to work very hard but nothing was ever taken care of. The dumbest thing I ever saw her do was ask a physician for narcotic perscription in front of her staff. He promptly turned her down. She had no skill, no experience and very bad judgement.
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My manager ranks right up there with all the ones you've all named.

She's so bad, in fact, that I don't know where to even begin. Playing favorites and being disrespectful to staff are certainly among her top sins and are the reason I might just get out of there.

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Specializes in LTC, office.

I love my job and I am ready to quit; all at the same time. Most of the latter feelings stem from my clueless Nurse Manager.

1. She talks out of both sides of her mouth. One minute she is sympathizing with us about the fact that we are understaffed and working our butts off. Literally within that same day she is dumping projects on us that she was given....because she doesn't have time. :uhoh3:

2. She either pathetically under-manages or over-manages. We will be left to ourselves for days. Then suddenly for a few hours she will be under our noses insisting on knowing every detail of the department and fixing problems that aren't even there.

I could go on. I have wondered if it could be me, that maybe I have a problem with authority. But I have never felt this way about other bosses, in fact most I have liked and respected. I feel neither for this woman.

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But my husband always says that managers are promoted to get them off the frontline, because they suck, in any field, so it's not surprising that nursing might work that way.

Oh how true....

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