panhandler

Yuppers, my "panhandling" is of bedpans, o course.

well I DO take offense. I am not encouraging people to "run from job to job" and I am not encouraging people to "jump ship." You missed the point I was trying to make, to encourage others to take an objective rather than a subjective view of employment. Cheap shot, miss gauge14.

How does one explain all those different employers on your resume when applying for a new job? HEY GIRL -- Who is writing the resume?

The teeth have been extracted not only from unions, but from professional nursing associations in our country. This means that employers can screw nurses over and there is no recourse. Period. My advice: learn the warning signs of a TOXIC UNIT. Test early and often. GET OUT OF DODGE if they test positive, and KEEP IT LIGHT... Do a good job, keep skills current, and remember that ALL INSTUTUTIONS have the SAME CACA. I am VERY OLD now and this is the sum of my experience. No one is going to hold your hand through your career. No patient wants to be cared for by a nurse who is suffering from the institutional abuse that should be blatantly apparent to you after your first 6 weeks on any job. Make your own job. Make your own life. Somebody gives you caca, tell them to stop it. If they don't -- then you decide ON THE SPOT to keep taking it, or to move along. Pick your battles. Don't rely on your bosses for "strokes" to your ego. Nurses eat their young. It's that simple.

So, the months go by.... and how are you doing, TNN? I went through a gritty exit from what I thought was a secure job last year. I've been working in a new job, and was happy until last week when I discovered the same pattern all over again. MEDIOCRITY HATES EXCELLENTS. It is a bitter, generations-long war we brought with us from the days when raw meat was all we knew. Good thing I like individual people. As a group, people suck.

"I have a dream...." that one day the nurses in the USA and worldwide will take the reins of control from the medical-industrial complex.... ..we are everywhere.... we are everywhen.... who nurses the nurse?

NurseKat64, you are the answered prayer of each patient who is touched by you. God bless your hands, your day, your life. panhandler

TNN your situation is so very ugly. I have been wondering about setting up some rules of conduct in ADVANCE of employment with any institution. Does anyone have experience with or ideas about nurses presenting their own CONTRACT at time of employment and/or with the annual review process? In the past we trusted our health-care-employers, but that time has ended. It came to an end when the bean-counters started running the hospitals. Back-stabbing and politics is now the norm. Patient care and safety take a back seat when a manager thinks her "numbers don't look good." High turnover rates --- totally undiscussable!! How, in the absence of a bargaining agent (union or state nurse association) can we secure our rights and responsibilities in a written LEGAL and binding contract(and expect to continue employment or be hired)?

This little "thread" is part of a whole cloth. It is a cloth of greed and abuse. The only way to fight fire is with fire: our last refuge of sanity is the law of the land. We need legislators to be on our side. The question is, can we bribe them enough or guilt-trip them enough with advertising and lobbying to stop our oppressors, our employers, who allow the everyday business of doing nurses to death.WHO HAS THE CUJONES TO TACKLE IT? WHERE'S THE MONEY TO DO IT? Three months ago I got thrown out of a job for advocating for a patient's life. Aside from the expensive defense of my license, being denied unemployment, and shunned by the people who used to force me to eat quiche, I want to let you know that I just tried to sign up with a temporary agency. There's a "release" in the application that states in effect I give up the right to legal action against anyone, past present or future who may slander, libel or harass me. I ain't gonna sign that. Do you think it's a Stupid Test: ie. if I am stupid enough to sign it, they can feel free to whump me like a rented mule? huh? So I am going to revive the little business I had going 5 years ago, doing journals, vanity publishing, studying for my BSN-MSN, tending my garden, and volunteering in counselling senior citizens. What am I saying??? I AM a senior citizen!! I have great tickets current in all the stuff you need to work (right now!), 30 years of experience, I have talent, organization skills, and I can type 120 words a minute. I can nurse circles around anyone out there. I will NOT work for a pittance. I will NOT work where I am not certain that my car will still be there when it's time to go home. I am withdrawing from the backstabbing narrow-minded pill-pushers in pantyhose..... I just don't fit in. For instance, I'd rather read a book than go to a covered dish supper. If forced to attend, I'd like to bring wine instead of a "covered dish" to THEIR party. Soggy quiche, heavy potato chips and wilted carrots make me puke; besides, I have done the Acute GI Bowling Dance with bad Mayo, and will not eat it unless I have accurate provenance. So this effectively isolates me from "society." Yes, I am wierd. I am too old. I am too pretty. I have too much experience to kiss butt to be allowed to wipe S--t on the night shift. State Nurses Society, my big white patoootie. There's no help for burnout THERE. THey just want money so they can do what they always do: print platitudes, waste time, and bow down to Big Health Care Medical-Industrial Dollars. O forgive me, but I do not think that NURSES have the CUJONES to WALK OUT OF THEIR JOB not even for one hour. If we all did that, I bet your little tin cup that we would have the attention of the Big Boys. Who has the cujones..... do you?

Have you lost sight of the big picture? You forfeit your rights as a citizen when you work for the Medical-Industrial complex. Without a written contract (which probably would pre-empt your getting a job offer....duh) you have no "rights" --- none at all, not even those espoused by law. I have been burned badly by the M-I complex. The corruption is evident to you (now!) but it is wide and deep throughout the industry. It is driven by MONEY. THe place that forced me to resign using a kangaroo court and fabrication has an ANNUAL LEGAL BUDGET of 400 Million dollars!! Business as usual. Lobbyists work hard to preserve the MONEY flow to this corrupt system. This in turn corrupts our only protection, the LAW. There is only marginal gain at best using the LAW to expose the retaliations you have suffered. The Medical Industry wants ICU nurses to be inexperienced, tractable lackeys of its corrupt system. You can earn a great living there (sacrificing by prolapsing internal organs, galaxy-class headaches and varicosities) but you must be MOUSY. At any time (i.e. when your little 3% raise crosses the line they set) you can be fired for NO REASON. Administrators of working nurses are excellent liars and/or completely delusional. I have left the sandbox of callow fools, perhaps for the last time. I am accomplished in the art and science of clinical nursing, yet I have been tossed out on my keester. Devalued? you bet! Overworked? you bet! Dehumanized? you bet! THe medical system as we know it treats NONHUMANS with far more compassion than its regular human clientele. We know when to put our animals down. We don't keep them alive to fatten the purses of our employers. It's depressing, if you let it be -- My next "paying" job might be at hospice. However, my ex-employer has spread its poison to my future employers --- lying about their actions of course -- duh!... a few of my "girls" sent me notes, saying "sorry I didn't get to say goodbye..." -- Oh to be a fly on the wall.... The pendulum may not swing back in my lifetime. The hospital system here in the South (i.e., FL and TX) desperately needs a KILLING FROST.... Again, who has the cujones to take on this problem. Do you, TNN?:chair:

Golly gee, guage14, I thought MNi wanted to know why she SHOULD become an RN.

Why should you become an R.N.? some factoids: .Only 60% of registered nurses are employed in acute care hospitals. .Nurses in the profession are viewed as trustworthy, according to public opinion poles. .YOu have to be an RN to open a nursing home so you can nuzzle up to the Federal Teat.

IMHO you should get out of the toxic situation you are in. Go to the DON and ask to be transferred out immediately. Decline any of her questions as to why. If you are pushed to the wall, just say "I want my old job back." Keep your connections with ICU -- and wait for the current situation there to crash and burn. It will. Trust me.

I work 12 hour shifts in ER, where the pace is fast. our state requires that nurses be given a break after 4 hours. We are allowed one break per day. This means that any way you divide up the hours, a nurse will be working greater 4 hours without a break. Report the situation in writing to your HR department. Ask for immunity from retaliation, and ask for annonymity. Ask that a copy of your report be put in your personnel record. Any nursing supervisor knows that you must be given the opportunity to take a break, or paid overtime if you willingly do not take it. You are being screwed from 10 paces with no kissy-kissy. FRONT DOOR: If there is any retaliation, report the situation to your local newspaper, and report your institution to the state. Labor laws are in place because in the past, employers have screwed over the health and well-being of their employees ... again, it is ALWAYS ONLY and ALL about the money... you will get fired, but hey, that's better than not getting a chance to empty your holding tanks every four hours. BACK DOOR: A minimum of three nurses, with each other for witnesses, goes to the full-time charge person and voices a verbal, friendly complaint. Repeat as necessary. Reminder, don't act alone. YOu will be fired.

OMG OMG OMG What I am seeing here is the tip of the iceberg. Here's what we know: 1)The "nursing shortage" is a manufactured lie. 2)Experienced, innovative nurses are ground to a pulp by the system, ON PURPOSE. 3)There is WAGE-FIXING rampant in the healthcare industry for RN's. 4)The Nurses Associations have been de-clawed, de-fanged and de-balled. There is no effective representation for nurses. 5)Retaliation is broad throughout the health care industry when it comes to quality improvement initiatives, and any action designed to adjust patient ratios to reflect safe staffing. 6)There is no nation-wide pension plan specifically for nurses; there is no nation-wide health coverage for nurses; there simply is "no money": no money for nursing educators, nursing programs, nursing legal issues, and nursing rights. There isn't even any g/d representative of the profession for our funerals when we die. Who's got the cujones to take on this outrageous problem?