I was supposed to take an exam at 8:30 am in the morning today, but my phone which was fully charged and plugged in decided to completely die over night, how? I have no idea.
I woke up at around 10:00 am and noticed how bright my room was, I quickly tried looking at my phone to see the time and noticed it was off. Yep, I have missed a nursing exam! I felt sick to my stomach and started panicking.
The very thing I immediately did was explain my situation honestly to my instructor and what happened. Our Syllabus policy states that we are able to make up an exam with a VALID excuse before the test, but I of course decided to be honest, and well, guess what? I was denied my exam and got a big fat 0.
So I pretty much lost a letter grade.
Anyway, I know the instructors will tell you to be honest all the time, but in situations like mine, you should lie.
She even encouraged me drop out of nursing school, even though I got A's on my last two exams. I can still make a B if I worked hard, but I can't believe she would encourage that.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I had a house fire....lost everything. I called out from work at my moonlighting job for a vented home kid for a week. I was homeless, I had no clothes...FIRED ME right on the phone as they watched the fire department save my dog by doing mouth to mouth on the snow covered street on the news with my house engulfed in flames.
Clearly a fire isn't even a valid excuse.
OP I am sorry this happened.
A REMINDER!!! It is ok to debate a subject but a reminder we need to be respectful of each other.
I had a house fire....lost everything. I called out from work at my moonlighting job for a vented home kid for a week. I was homeless, I had no clothes...FIRED ME right on the phone as they watched the fire department save my dog by doing mouth to mouth on the snow covered street on the news with my house engulfed in flames.
Clearly a fire isn't even a valid excuse.
OP I am sorry this happened.
A REMINDER!!! It is ok to debate a subject but a reminder we need to be respectful of each other.
Now that employer was just evil, sorry this happened to you
I didn't read all the replies but here is my opinion.
It's okay to make a mistake but instead of learning to have a back up plan, go to bed at a reasonable time or anything else you take not being honest as what was learned?
In some profession being irresponsible and sleeping in late can be life or death. You deserved a 0 and should have learned to not do it again.
My husband is an officer. If he is late once he's put on probation, twice and he's fired. It's because him not being there may be life or death if back up is needed. Same with the nursing profession in some setting. Your instructor is prepping you for the real world which you obviously need a big dose of reality.
I had a house fire....lost everything. I called out from work at my moonlighting job for a vented home kid for a week. I was homeless, I had no clothes...FIRED ME right on the phone as they watched the fire department save my dog by doing mouth to mouth on the snow covered street on the news with my house engulfed in flames.
Clearly a fire isn't even a valid excuse.
OP I am sorry this happened.
A REMINDER!!! It is ok to debate a subject but a reminder we need to be respectful of each other.
I'm feeling a great urge to say things that aren't respectful of your employer. Can we have an exception to the rule for that?
It might sound nice to say "oh just lie...we all do it...it hurts no one." Ok, so you tell the instructor "my house burned down." In most cases considered a valid excuse, but what happens when the instructor asks for proof that it happened.
Instead you could try "my tire blew as I was driving in." I happen to think that mishaps with one's car can be a valid excuse for being late (I was late for work one day because my car's battery could not handle the -12 degree F night). It does happen. But suppose the instructor says "well, show me the tow truck receipt...or the receipt for a new tire."
How about "my grandfather died this weekend and I was driving back from the funeral and didn't make it in time." Instructor: "then show my the funeral card or the obit." I had a professor in college who said when going over the syllabus for the course, that we needed to bring in the obit/funeral card if that was our reason for missing an exam. To use his words, "believe it or not, students have lied to me before."
Point is, what is going to happen when "proof" for the lie cannot be produced? At that point, the 'choice' involved in dropping out of nursing school might be taken out of your hands.
My guess is, this instructor has been lied to before. As someone has mentioned, she has probably heard the alarm "excuse" before. While the OP might have been 100% honest about why he was late, the instructor may have been rolling her proverbial eyes thinking "here we go again...another student who thinks the alarm excuse will work."
I'm all for compassion, but it is not a lack of compassion which leads the instructor not to allow the student to make up the test. Yes, messing up the alarm is human...yes it is a little thing that happens. However, one of those "little" things can cause serious harm to a patient. Just saying "well, it happens, I'm human" isn't necessarily going to protect you. I'm not going to go as far as saying the instructor did the OP "a favor." However, the 'show some compassion' argument doesn't really stand up either. The plaintiff's attorney certainly isn't going to show someone "compassion" for a little mistake that happens to humans.
FWIW, I don't think it was necessarily appropriate for the instructor to tell the OP to drop out of nursing school, but I need to know the context and tone of the comment before I am able to say anything further about that.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
nobody will sympathize with you UNTIL it happens to them... anyway... don't you folks have a nursing exam to study for. 12+ pages wow.
Many of us have been there and done that in one way or another. We simply accepted the consequences of our actions without complaining on a message board how unfair it was that we suffered the consequences of something we did.
Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN
20,908 Posts
I had a house fire....lost everything. I called out from work at my moonlighting job for a vented home kid for a week. I was homeless, I had no clothes...FIRED ME right on the phone as they watched the fire department save my dog by doing mouth to mouth on the snow covered street on the news with my house engulfed in flames.
Clearly a fire isn't even a valid excuse.
OP I am sorry this happened.
A REMINDER!!! It is ok to debate a subject but a reminder we need to be respectful of each other.