I thought those words earlier today after reading another thread that started to go sideways because some had an issue with the OP. This seems to be happening frequently; the OP will start a thread with the best of intentions; then someone responds with personal attacks against the OP (and misses the point of the post); then others pile on additional negative posts against the OP,
rendering the thread useless.
I wonder if those who try to debate the poster and not the post do anything to make AN a more welcoming place. Do they share their knowledge or experience with others? What have they done to become a valued member of AN?
I'm sure I'll be criticized for starting this thread. I may even have a few people take shots at me. I'm tough; if I can handle cancer, I can handle criticism from anonymous posters on a forum.
So how have you helped to make AN a positive place where nurses can learn from each other?
Those of you who know better will realize that with more than 800,000 paying members AN is big business, and has its own form of Press-Gainey. The recent thread on how the Customer Service trend in hospitals is bound to die a slow death (but "bound to" does mean inevitable) because giving everyone what s/he wants in priority to what s/he needs for therapeutic reasons is illustrative.
Sure, you're really going to annoy a diabetic whose "management" consists of two doughnuts instead of four and making up for it by using Splenda instead of sugar when you refuse to give him all the sweets he's come to assume are his way of managing his illness-- it's worked so far, right? (Well, until it didn't.) You're going to make a family angry if you don't give their NPO dad a cheeseburger, or even a glass of water. You will be reported, via Press-Gainey or other rating scheme, for not being unfailingly nice; your employer may warn you verbally or in writing or not be inclined to grant your schedule requests.
So too on AN. You're going to annoy someone whose nursing or work or life experience hasn't yet expanded to include some personal challenges and the consequences of their actions. You're going to make someone's eyes roll with your recommendations. You're going to hurt some people's feelings if you point out the places they could have found their answers without expecting someone to hand it to them. You're going to be reported via that little yellow triangle, anonymously, and you will never know until the similarly-shaped 16,000-pound weight drops off the cliff.
Someday the hospital (probably via pressure from an external entity) will realize that Customer Service isn't working out so well in terms of outcomes. Perhaps most people will deny the idea that giving Dad that bottle of Vlasic pickles didn't have enough salt in it to really make a difference in his CHF the night he went into failure. But sooner or later, truth will out.
So too, but only to a point, on AN. Being unfailingly supportive and not caring enough to correct what will become career-ending knee injuries (in an attempt to help less-experienced practitioners avoid the mistakes we made as youngies) is a lot like helicopter/snowplow parenting toddlers and adolescents. Over-empowered children who are protected from the realities of life (or learn that when inconvenient realities rear their ugly heads, they can be safely discounted and ignored) are not going to be happy ones when they get to the world of work and discover that things are not always going to be going their way and that their opinion isn't the court of last resort. You know what Will Rogers said: "There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."
The difference is that hospitals, even if privately held, are quasi-public institutions. There are laws against refusing the ambulance or transferring out people who come to your ER because they're uninsured, for example; you can't discharge someone from an LTAC without a safe discharge plan. There are laws about labor relations, work/hour violations, and so forth to protect the employees.
No such things apply on the internet. There is no outside entity to collect stats or even anecdotal reports. We are it. The inevitability of bad patient care or personal outcomes from newer practitioners who didn't like the advice they got from older ones will not come back to bite this forum on the gluteus maximus. So perhaps it really doesn't matter if we are all unicorns farting glitter and rainbows (I learned that terminology here). Perhaps that's all this should be.
But. There are those of us, mainly but not all older ones, who do care, and care passionately, about our profession, the vulnerable people we serve in so many capacities, and the quality of the education our newer practitioners acquire both in school and in the years to follow. We aren't trolls, and we don't mean to be intentionally cruel. But you know what? We've seen this rodeo once or twice or twenty times. We want you to know what we know without, perhaps, suffering the ways we did to learn it. If sometimes we are blunt or caustic or say things someone doesn't want to hear, that's why the god of AN gave us an ignore button*. It's no skin off our noses if you don't want to hear what we have to say. We're just casting our bread upon the waters here. (You can look it up. :) )
Perhaps the number of "likes" amassed by those crusty old bats should count for something, too, perhaps as much as the "reports," in a perfect world. Why did the victim mentality, the "I don't like it!" begin to count for more than anything else (outside of the Bill of Rights)? Is it all about the money, as in the hospitals? No, I'm reasonably certain this isn't going to happen here.
So farewell, my beloved nursing students (with apologies to Esme) with questions on med math and physiology, new grads who are mystified by confusing situations, and people who want to change their focus from bedside to my specialty. For better or worse, it's been good being with you. Good night, and good luck.
* With 800,000+ people here, I'd like to see this feature more prominently disclosed-- perhaps next to the "report" button would be a good place, and keep down everyone's blood pressure...and keep up those ever-valuable Press-Gainey scores.
Hey. Hold on a minute. GreenTea- what??
You're not leaving are you?
i may not be a crusty old bat of nursing yet, but I am a crusty old bat-so.....
sit your butt back down at that computer and start doling out that hard-nosed advice! If you say you care as much about this profession as you say you do, then you do not have the option of leaving! I know I will personally throw a fit of battiness proportions and stomp and kick too. I will start making all of my care plans based in medical Dx and forgo contemplating the patho phys behind my pts conditions!
( I hope you can see my intention here, for my words :) ). Ahem....
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Those of you who know better will realize that with more than 800,000 paying members AN is big business, and has its own form of Press-Gainey. The recent thread on how the Customer Service trend in hospitals is bound to die a slow death (but "bound to" does mean inevitable) because giving everyone what s/he wants in priority to what s/he needs for therapeutic reasons is illustrative.
Sure, you're really going to annoy a diabetic whose "management" consists of two doughnuts instead of four and making up for it by using Splenda instead of sugar when you refuse to give him all the sweets he's come to assume are his way of managing his illness-- it's worked so far, right? (Well, until it didn't.) You're going to make a family angry if you don't give their NPO dad a cheeseburger, or even a glass of water. You will be reported, via Press-Gainey or other rating scheme, for not being unfailingly nice; your employer may warn you verbally or in writing or not be inclined to grant your schedule requests.
So too on AN. You're going to annoy someone whose nursing or work or life experience hasn't yet expanded to include some personal challenges and the consequences of their actions. You're going to make someone's eyes roll with your recommendations. You're going to hurt some people's feelings if you point out the places they could have found their answers without expecting someone to hand it to them. You're going to be reported via that little yellow triangle, anonymously, and you will never know until the similarly-shaped 16,000-pound weight drops off the cliff.
Someday the hospital (probably via pressure from an external entity) will realize that Customer Service isn't working out so well in terms of outcomes. Perhaps most people will deny the idea that giving Dad that bottle of Vlasic pickles didn't have enough salt in it to really make a difference in his CHF the night he went into failure. But sooner or later, truth will out.
So too, but only to a point, on AN. Being unfailingly supportive and not caring enough to correct what will become career-ending knee injuries (in an attempt to help less-experienced practitioners avoid the mistakes we made as youngies) is a lot like helicopter/snowplow parenting toddlers and adolescents. Over-empowered children who are protected from the realities of life (or learn that when inconvenient realities rear their ugly heads, they can be safely discounted and ignored) are not going to be happy ones when they get to the world of work and discover that things are not always going to be going their way and that their opinion isn't the court of last resort. You know what Will Rogers said: "There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."
The difference is that hospitals, even if privately held, are quasi-public institutions. There are laws against refusing the ambulance or transferring out people who come to your ER because they're uninsured, for example; you can't discharge someone from an LTAC without a safe discharge plan. There are laws about labor relations, work/hour violations, and so forth to protect the employees.
No such things apply on the internet. There is no outside entity to collect stats or even anecdotal reports. We are it. The inevitability of bad patient care or personal outcomes from newer practitioners who didn't like the advice they got from older ones will not come back to bite this forum on the gluteus maximus. So perhaps it really doesn't matter if we are all unicorns farting glitter and rainbows (I learned that terminology here). Perhaps that's all this should be.
But. There are those of us, mainly but not all older ones, who do care, and care passionately, about our profession, the vulnerable people we serve in so many capacities, and the quality of the education our newer practitioners acquire both in school and in the years to follow. We aren't trolls, and we don't mean to be intentionally cruel. But you know what? We've seen this rodeo once or twice or twenty times. We want you to know what we know without, perhaps, suffering the ways we did to learn it. If sometimes we are blunt or caustic or say things someone doesn't want to hear, that's why the god of AN gave us an ignore button*. It's no skin off our noses if you don't want to hear what we have to say. We're just casting our bread upon the waters here. (You can look it up. :) )
Perhaps the number of "likes" amassed by those crusty old bats should count for something, too, perhaps as much as the "reports," in a perfect world. Why did the victim mentality, the "I don't like it!" begin to count for more than anything else (outside of the Bill of Rights)? Is it all about the money, as in the hospitals? No, I'm reasonably certain this isn't going to happen here.
So farewell, my beloved nursing students (with apologies to Esme) with questions on med math and physiology, new grads who are mystified by confusing situations, and people who want to change their focus from bedside to my specialty. For better or worse, it's been good being with you. Good night, and good luck.
* With 800,000+ people here, I'd like to see this feature more prominently disclosed-- perhaps next to the "report" button would be a good place, and keep down everyone's blood pressure...and keep up those ever-valuable Press-Gainey scores.
You've said it so well . . . and it's all so very true.
Just a friendly reminder: as other posters have stated, sometimes statements and stories that might be funny or cute when coupled with facial expressions and tone of voice can come across as rude and sarcastic.
No, OCNRN63 you won't get criticized. At least not from me. I am fairly certain I know exactly which thread you are referring to, and the personal attacks toward the OP were abhorrent! Frankly I am rather surprised the moderators let it continue.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
The pile-ons make me cringe most of the time. When they don't it's usually a long ordeal of the old "why don't you--- yes, but" game involving a member who really never wanted advice in the first place and figured they'd stop by for a quick validation of something they were already certain was correct.
For the unwitting sometimes the pile-on reminds me of an old BC comic where the cave lady hammers away at the poor snake with her club until the snake ends up looking like a fragmented wavy line.
Ruby Vee is the best and also one of a very few who has an entire thread
on this site dedicated to Appreciating Her!
Here is the first post from handyrn:
I'm not sure how I managed to miss this thread the first time around . . . I just now saw it. Thankyou handyrn and Nurse156! WOW, you guys. Thank you everyone who posted on that thread.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I really, REALLY doubt that was directed at you. Everyone, let's all take a deep, cleansing breath. Remember what they say about winning arguments on the internet.
I believe it was Ruby Vee's post about nurses sharing their wisdom with the newbs. It went sideways in about 2 posts. If it wasn't a record on "teh innernetz" it definitely was for AN.
A difference of opinion is "I beg to disagree; I think ----" or "I understand your point, but my point is ----" or "However, I strongly disagree with your second to last paragraph. "
People were responsing with a personal attack. A difference of opinion is respectful . . . at least the first few times you bang your head against the brick wall.
I'm sorry. I didn't realize the OP was talking about a specific post. I thought they were just talking about in general.
Yes, sometimes people are attacking the OP. Sometimes they are sharing an opinion the OP of the thread doesn't agree with and feels like they are being attacked. Whatever thread this OP was talking about, I didn't read, so I didn't see the responses. There may have been personal attacks on that one.
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Carpediem1012, BSN, RN
315 Posts
Hey. Hold on a minute. GreenTea- what??
You're not leaving are you?
i may not be a crusty old bat of nursing yet, but I am a crusty old bat-so.....
sit your butt back down at that computer and start doling out that hard-nosed advice! If you say you care as much about this profession as you say you do, then you do not have the option of leaving! I know I will personally throw a fit of battiness proportions and stomp and kick too. I will start making all of my care plans based in medical Dx and forgo contemplating the patho phys behind my pts conditions!
( I hope you can see my intention here, for my words :) ). Ahem....