I agree with FelineRN, a lot of times CNA's think we are sitting around doing nothing but in reality, we are required to do soooo much charting and paperwork. We have a lot of great CNA's on our floor, and we have a lot of complainers. Somehow, at 12 midnight when they are complaining they haven't charted a single vital sign, they r still out the door on time every morning.
Be proactive. When there's downtime, look for things to do to make the floor an overall better place to work. Granted, don't do this all the time bc downtime can be a good thing mentally for us all sometimes :) It's a very exhausting profession. But, to pass the time, I'm sure the VS machines could be sanitized or a sharps container could be changed. I work as CN a lot and I always look for things like this to do bc I feel like if I help the flow of the floor then everyone ends up less stressed in the end.
Learn to prioritize your care. This is somethiing they don't teach you but you can learn with time. For example, we have a lot of NA's that will say "I can't take that person to the bathroom because I am taking this one, or feeding this one, so on." I feel like a better response would be "could u see if the nurse can go bc I am doing this and can't get there right this second. If she's busy will you buzz back into the pt and tell them it will be a couple of minutes but I will be there as soon as I can." This way, you haven't thrown it off on someone else who possibly can't get there right that second and the pt knows you got the msg and is informed. As a nurse we can't say "sorry I can't deliver you your pain medication because I am changing or feeding another pt right now." I feel like as long as you work as a team and keep your patients informed of what's going on then ppl usually end up happier.
On another note, unfortunately, sometimes the harder you work the more some nurses will abuse you You will learn overtime who these nurses are.
Hope this helps and good luck :)
