Need help getting through feeling of burnout

[LNDRN19]

Hi everyone, I haven't been here in a long while. Hope you're all well! 

This is a tiny bit long, apologies, but thanks for reading this:

I've been a nurse for a bit now—19 years. I'm currently a OB charge nurse and have been for 6 years. I love supporting the nurses, techs, and doctors and the APRNs. My crew seems to like working with me, as far as I can tell. I get positive comments from them fairly frequently. Lately, I have been pushing for them to provide evidence-based care versus doing whatever they want, so maybe my popularity is changing. I don't know.

Recently, I've been feeling burnout like never before. I've had to work through several bouts of burnout in the past and have always managed, but now...I don't know how to get through it. 

What broke me is nurses habitually calling in for dumb@$$ reasons, leaving me to not only run a very busy unit, but to also take a full patient load. I love patient care; that's not the problem. The problem is my patients don't get the best version of my nurse self because I'm constantly pulled away from them. I hear the nurses talk about why they call in—they have often partied the night before and are too drunk and/or tired to work the next day. Then they come to work when they are ACTUALLY sick and spread the illness all over the unit. I recently was sick for a solid week and the only person I was somewhat near was one of the Party Nurses who came to work masked but very sick. They also call in about 30 minutes before work to say they will be 2 hours late to work. (Our state has legislatively-mandated sick time allowances for which you can't discipline employees for using. It's not a lot of hours, but still, no discipline).  OR, they are on-call and use that state sick time when I call them in.

Other things contributing to my burnout: working at a for-profit hospital where NOTHING works as it should. Phones hardly work. Wi-Fi is sketchy, at best. Ollllld equipment that barely functions. If the doctor goes to the main OR, it's like they are in a concrete bunker and I can't call their cell. Tiny raises, if any. No recognition after selling your soul to the hospital. Big time focus on profits over patients and employees. Etc.
 

I have applied for a few management positions and have not gotten them because I was told I'm "blacklisted" from management since I turned down a management position they offered me a few years ago. I turned it down because we go through managers like water hitting a hot stove and I didn't want to be the next person unemployed a year after taking the job. Also, they "require" 60-70 hours/week, but of course you're only paid for 40. Additionally, I wanted to help the nurses learn since I have so much experience—that was a waste of time because they do whatever they want, anyway, and nothing is done about it.

I'm almost ready to leave the profession altogether. 
 

Please tell me how you all are getting through these crippling bouts of burnout....

[JKL33]

This sounds like quite the rough time. It sounds like the workplace is a major problem; not necessarily nursing itself. Several bits you included in your post (crappy equipment, staffing, the retaliation for not having previously accepted a management position) -- those are big problems and not individual ones. This is crappy treatment, not some individual "burnout" hurdle that you personally should feel ashamed for not being strong enough to handle like an Olympic hurdler.

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What broke me is nurses habitually calling in for dumb@$$ reasons, leaving me to not only run a very busy unit, but to also take a full patient load. I love patient care; that's not the problem. The problem is my patients don't get the best version of my nurse self because I'm constantly pulled away from them.

I agree the call outs w/o discipline would be annoying. But let's be clear: Your management has decied that *YOU,* the charge nurse, are the back up plan for when staff call in. I do know how I have handled this type of situation: If I am put in an assignment being the primary RN for a group of patients, that is priority #1. I guess there will be no charge nurse. I vehemently reject the idea that I can do these two jobs at once just because that is management's fantasy. I actually find it annoying when other charge nurses become 100% frazzled over this situation; I have seen people in tears about reports that weren't run and supplies that weren't counted/ordered and Dr So and So had to wait for XYZ and the nurses didn't have anyone to break them, all because the "charge nurse" was in a patient assignment.  Sorry but this is solidly one of those cases where "your [management] crisis is your problem; if you feel it is imperative to have a charge nurse to do these dozens of duties, then you will need another back up plan for when someone calls in." PERIOD.  I fail to understand how so many RNs get both guilted *and duped* into feeling like they individually must perform impossible tasks or else this whole place falls apart and people will die and blah, blah, blah. IF it's THAT CRUCIAL then management better have a solid back up plan.

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I hear the nurses talk about why they call in—they have often partied the night before and are too drunk and/or tired to work the next day. Then they come to work when they are ACTUALLY sick and spread the illness all over the unit. I recently was sick for a solid week and the only person I was somewhat near was one of the Party Nurses who came to work masked but very sick. They also call in about 30 minutes before work to say they will be 2 hours late to work. (Our state has legislatively-mandated sick time allowances for which you can't discipline employees for using. It's not a lot of hours, but still, no discipline).  OR, they are on-call and use that state sick time when I call them in.

I really do hear you, but.....let it go. Not one single bit of ^ that is something you can change.

Anyway.

So the question is what will you do about all of this?  When I felt pushed beyond what is reasonable and achievable, I was angry for a very good long time. An embarrassing length of time. It took way too long to accept that the whole situation was just patently and truly ridiculous and therefore....so was my inertia. At some point, doing the same thing and feeling the same crappy things every day does become an individual choice. We can't expect others to change (that includes peers and especially corporations and management; it isn't gonna happen). If we are that miserable then *we* ourselves must make a change.

Take care ~

[IntegrativeRN]

I'm sorry for your very real stress and burnout when you are giving 1000%. It is palpable through your post. To me, you sound like an absolute hero for even attempting to fill both absent nurses' shoes and function as charge at the same time and yet, it is an unsustainable situation. At my last hospital, Charge could step in on a single patient that was tanking (cardiac) for brief periods but was not permitted to accept full patient loads. On call or float would come in to keep Charge free. You may not single-handedly be able to change the for-profit nonsense and party call-out culture on your floor, but you must protect yourself. If the powers that be are willing to "blacklist" you for not taking on a doomed management position, they are willing to burn you when a patient situation goes south because of your split attention. Your only real choice is to hold their feet to the fire to provide an acceptable float when on call calls out or insist they will lose your many years of experience and deep patient care. 

[HiddenAngels]

Sounds like economics.  Judging from your post it seems you are unappreciated and devalued.  Time to cut your losses.  If they are that comfortable knowing that you are going to swoop in at any moment and bail them all out, let them fall.

Invest elsewhere.