Nurses in their 60's or 70's

nursejoed · Oct 11, 2010

Is there a way you could have made your point without using pejoratives to refer to your older colleagues?
Nothing grinds my gears more than reading posts that refer to older nurses as "old-timers," "warhorses," "battle-axes"...you name it, it's been said. We talk about "eating our young" but we gnaw away on the old as well. Sure, there are some older nurses who should retire. There are some young nurses who have no business being nurses, too. Ageist attitudes don't serve the profession well at all. Just because someone qualifies for a pension doesn't mean they have to retire. If they can keep up and do their job well, then more power to them if they want to keep working.
No one is obligated to retire just to give another person a job.

No one is obligated to keep an incompetent employee on because they've been there a long time....

Trauma Columnist · Oct 11, 2010

I'm 52 and plan to work full time until I'm 70, then part time.

Have worked with plenty of older-than-me staff: yesterday as a matter of fact, found out one of the clerks on a busy 60 bed med-surg unit is 79! She plans to retire at 80.

Worked with several nurses in their 60's in a level one trauma center, (72k visits/year).

ShayRN · Oct 11, 2010

I plan on working until I can't work anymore! I love being a nurse. My husband and I have talked about what we will do when he retires. Plan is for me to try and get a travel nurse position and explore the country on their dime. He will come with me and be the house husband, lol. He tells everyone if we hit the lottery tomarrow, he would put in a two week notice and I would take a two week vacation. Truer words have never been spoken.

Streamline2010 · Oct 11, 2010

Two of my coworkers in LTC are in their 60s; one has decades of experience, while the other is a newer nurse who graduated from nursing school a couple of years ago. They both work the med cart (plus the desk, treatments, admissions, etc.), and are totally awesome.

Thank you for saying something positive. Not all people "expire" at the same time. Sure, there are some whose health and brains are gone by the time they hit their mid-40s. But there are others, like my mother, who seem 10 to 15 years younger than their age even though they are in their 60s and 70s. Remember, the retirement at age 65 was set in a time when most people didn't live far beyond that, and a good many died before reaching that age. So, age 65 essentially meant work until you only have relatively few years of life left.

I worked in heavy manufacturing. We had men in their 50s and 60s hoofing it around those factories and still doing heavy physical labor. Several were Vietnam vets who'd started doing that heavy work in 1965 to 1970 when they returned from Vietnam. The oldest of those retired last year.

I also found that person's post offensive, especially the part about older co-workers should retire because they qualify for pensions and have husbands at home. Be fired for not doing the jog, retire due to not being able to do the job, or retire because they want to retire: That is fair. Being forced out because 50% of the graduating class didn't find jobs would be a crime. Why should those fresh-outs even EXPECT to get a job?? EVERYONE KNOWS that fresh-out nurse grads are WORTHLESS until they have ONE YEAR OF EXPERIENCE, anyway. (Hope you all brought your umbrellas, 'cause my last two statements were heavily dripping the sarcasm, lol. )

heron, ASN, RN · Oct 11, 2010

No one is obligated to keep an incompetent employee on because they've been there a long time....

True ... it's the conflation of incompetence with relatively advanced age that some of us find offensive. That, and the implication that a pension is some kind of charity ... it is earned income ... where did some posters suppose pension funds came from before they so graciously consented to contribute?

If incompetent nurses are being kept on just because they've been there a long time, your beef is with incompetent management and colleagues who let the other guy take care of the problem because they don't want to deal with the hassle and the politics.

If you fear that the pension you're contributing to now will not be there when you retire, your beef is with the company, the pension fund management and state/national legislatures.

You, like all of us, will either get old or get dead. Personally, I prefer to get old ... and to pay my own way with an honest paycheck for as long as I can.

But that's just me ...