Pick and choose policy

CathyLew · Mar 4, 2011

heck yea! it is human nature... playing favorites. and a really bad thing for any manager or administrator to do. Happens all the time. and if you mention the inconsistent manager style, you are picked out as the trouble maker. its a loose loose situation when it happens.

what I suggest, is keep notes. Keep a huge fat notebook on it all. dates, times names. It may do nothing more than make you feel better, but it may possibly come in handy some day.

netglow, ASN, RN · Mar 4, 2011

Happens everywhere!!!!!

This story is sort of related, (but not ) I will always remember one of my school instructors. She would let "the boys" off with murder. They could SLEEP in class, doze in pre-clinical meeting at the hospital! Be late with careplans, and... be one hour late for clinical, several times!! She then would take them by the hand and rush them around so they could get some skills in! BS you say????? NO!! I asked one said "dude," why he was late so much? (sick? family sick? car trouble?) His reply, "hey, partied last night and my girlfriend did not wake me up". :anbd: AND, one of the older guys would joke with this instructor using lots of inuendo, and she would toss her head and giggle. I approached him as well, called him out as a "piece of work", and he smiled and said, "hey, aint cheatin, aint tryin". :anbd: Us girls? we had to walk on eggshells.

systoly · Mar 4, 2011

Happens everywhere!!!!!
This story is sort of related, (but not ) I will always remember one of my school instructors. She would let "the boys" off with murder. They could SLEEP in class, doze in pre-clinical meeting at the hospital! Be late with careplans, and... be one hour late for clinical, several times!! She then would take them by the hand and rush them around so they could get some skills in! BS you say????? NO!! I asked one said "dude," why he was late so much? (sick? family sick? car trouble?) His reply, "hey, partied last night and my girlfriend did not wake me up". :anbd: AND, one of the older guys would joke with this instructor using lots of inuendo, and she would toss her head and giggle. I approached him as well, called him out as a "piece of work", and he smiled and said, "hey, aint cheatin, aint tryin". :anbd: Us girls? we had to walk on eggshells.

That didn't work for me. Too ugly .

canesdukegirl, BSN, RN · Mar 4, 2011

heck yea! it is human nature... playing favorites. and a really bad thing for any manager or administrator to do. Happens all the time. and if you mention the inconsistent manager style, you are picked out as the trouble maker. its a loose loose situation when it happens.
what I suggest, is keep notes. Keep a huge fat notebook on it all. dates, times names. It may do nothing more than make you feel better, but it may possibly come in handy some day.

I keep very detailed notes regarding this manager's behavior. I talk to my husband about it as well, because he is also a manager in the same system, but in a completely different department. When I tell him what happened that day, he just shakes his head and asks me why this guy is still a manager.

It is discouraging.

CrazierThanYou · Mar 4, 2011

Yep, I agree, that's going to happen ANYWHERE. That's just the way the world is...

RubyRN,CHPN · Mar 4, 2011

and that is why that place is my former employer....simply should not and will not be tolerated.

linearthinker, DNP, RN · Mar 4, 2011

Oh yeah. I used to see it all the time. Most minor transgressions go unaddressed b/c it is more trouble than it is worth to write it up, lol. However, when you need ammunition against "problem" employees, you pursue every avenue to get rid of them, right? If that means writing them up for scuffed shoes or whatever, so be it. No it isn't fair, but it is just human nature and the nature of overworked administrators.

neuroms · Mar 5, 2011

Halo effect, manager probably doesn't even realize he's doing it. Because an employee has one quality the manger likes, he will minimize that person's negative behaviors to a large extent, and vice versa, due to an attribution heuristic shortcutting the cognition process. Some people--not really ideal managers--are quite poor at self-monitoring for these interpersonal bias.

SweetLikeSugar · Mar 5, 2011

This is an issue on the floor I work on. Usually it's regarding overtime pay. Our NM will pitch a fit if a stand-by RN who works 8 hours a week is there 15 minutes past the end of her shift. Doesn't matter if she had 2 rapid responses and 3 admissions during her 8 hour shift and is catching up on her charting. She's cutting into the budget!!! But there are several full time nurses who "milk the clock" and purposely put off doing their charting until after they've passed off report to the oncoming RN and that's no problem. One of these nurses recently told me she had almost 15 hours of overtime on one of her recent paychecks. On my unit, it just depends on who the manager is friends with outside of work.

MouseMichelle · Mar 5, 2011

See it all the time, it's called favoritism, whoever kisses the bosses bum the best gets away with it.

dlatimer · Mar 5, 2011

Favoritism is probably always going to be present. This story is related.

When I began my nursing career if I did what was the best for the patient, and I didn’t step on the doctor’s toes too much, then everyone thought I was doing a fine job. Now, when my supervisor, a member of the ruling class in one of these healthcare conglomerates decides I no longer am doing what is best for the company or as is currently explained ‘not a good fit for our organization’. Then they can fire me ‘for negligence or incompetence’ as they were the ones deciding the definitions. The healthcare organizations can also ‘weed out’ the nurses who become too smart or compassionate or the personnel that require too much pay that would threaten the profit margin of the institution. Which explains why there continues to be a nursing shortage if nursing schools are churning out graduates at a breakneck pace? I continue to see ads for nurses and pleas from nurses who can’t find a job. There seems to be a disconnect.

I have recently found out that my state Board of Nursing has the same investment in these healthcare conglomerates. I recently had a hearing to determine if I was negligent and incompetent. The accusations were: 1) I neglected to write down one value in a list of vital sign values present on the evidence. The evidence did not include the nurse’s notes, which could explain why the value wasn’t entered (the wave form could have been abnormal or the value could have been faulty). The evidence also didn’t include the physician’s assessment of the patient at that time. The accusation also implied my inaction caused the patient to die 7 days later. 2) That I had knowingly disabled monitoring alarms. Alarms are going off all the time in an ICU. When I respond I turn the alarm off since it has served its purpose in alerting me. There was no death mentioned with this accusation. 3) That I had responded to an alarm only when the daughter of a patient alerted me. I was documenting the care delivered to this point and was finishing a sentence. The daughter was very aware of her father’s condition and I considered her interest in his condition as more than mine. And, since I was sitting in front of the patient I was quite aware and expected this alarm to happen as the patient’s heart condition indicated it was more than probable. The treatment was the same regardless. No one died.

What the accusations didn’t mention was my supervisor threatening me with Board of Nursing notification when I told her I would quit because I wasn’t able to deliver quality care in this ICU. My patients and their families always come first and if I can’t perform by own principles and morals; it is time for me to leave.

I was more than a little surprised at the hearing when the Board of Nursing objected to my statement that other nurses declined to be my witness as they feared retribution by the healthcare organization. I wasn’t something I would make up. I was under oath.

To complicate employment matters even more for me was my self-reporting alcohol addiction treatment to the Board of Nursing, as required, and placed on 5 years’ probation. I didn’t complain. I just wanted to do the right thing. I was dismayed to discover no healthcare organization in this metropolitan area would hire anyone on probation. I have been without a job for over 2 years. I am working on another degree in another profession, but can’t get a job anywhere (one business hired me, I was in orientation, then told I couldn’t be hired without an explanation when I asked.) even McDonald’s. I will soon be living on whatever social aid I can get and become a burden on society. This doesn’t have any logic. If I am such an incompetent nurse: why didn’t it come up before 30 years? Why didn’t it come up previously at mentioned healthcare institution before being employed there 4 years? If, indeed, I was incompetent and negligent why didn’t they contest my unemployment compensation?

These are the questions that keep me awake at night and fear for the quality of healthcare in this state and country. The current rankings by various healthcare monitoring organizations make perfect sense to me. I have been present and seen the changes.