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?

Lady Charge, surely you must be aware of the prison-camp studies. It is human nature to immitate the captors. "Trustees" ie pets of the bad guys treat fellow prisoners worse than the guards do. Not exactly your enlightened behavior, but built into the wetware of homo-sapiens. I wonder if it is time yet for a national nurses' strike. PRobably not. I wonder if I will see it in my lifetime. Teachers also get majorly f-ed over as a matter of routine. All of us, women. Bawk bawk bawk, says my dh. All hen-house doo-doo. Women working together ... sure trouble. The cliques and cabals also exist among men co-workers in the corpo world... anyhwhere you go. Just an extension of sandbox antics. To TNNurse..... darlin, do not go in there alone. You must have a lawyer advise you before you do. You probably have a wrongful termination suit. I wouldn't even set foot in the g/d place. Just see a good employment lawyer. BEFORE you take them on. If you cant or don't want legal advice, please strip your mind of ANY EMOTIONAL JABBERING. Everyone knows how crappy they treated you. They know it better than you do, and are probably laughing at how they "got" you. You EXPECTED otherwise and you are FURIOUS. Do you realize you cannot win an argument with an irrational opponent? The best you can do is a "draw." You cannot go back to your job as if it never happened. The only thing you can build a case with, a case that will get you $$$ with which to salve your wounds, is FACTS. FACTS means neither innuendo, mood, ambiance, tradition, education, intention, assessment nor outcome: FACTS can be used as weapons, by professional FACT-USERS. They are called LAWYERS. I wouldn't begin to do my own dentistry, and you should not begin to do your own legal work. If you insist on going to this Platinum Level Kangaroo Court, Do not lay EVERYTHING on the table. A lawyer will know what to reveal, what to withhold. Your "proof" your "judgement" your "findings" and your "conclusions" will be fine annecdotal material to give to your Attorney. Give him everything, after you strip out the emotions. (Lawyers love for you to jabber on, while the meter is running, of course, and you are paying, they will listen until the next ice age.) An employment lawyer is your best bet. You obviously have beaten this "defective person" to a pulp. "They" told you to stop, when they did NOT fire her with your "proof." You didn't stop. They were embarrassed. They weren't doing their jobs, documenting incompetence. They don't want (or didn't want) you to do YOUR job. They only want to have POWER over OTHERS, this power is the heroin of the corporate mind. In the corporate medical industry, it is ALWAYS, ONLY, and ALL about money. "They"are lazy. They want to get paid for doing as little as possible. They lack initiative, personal ethics, and plain old gumption. "They" can find fault with anything they chose to pick apart! They're real good at it. They abuse and neglect patients as a matter of course. They get paid for it. The hospital doesn't give a crap about the patients: It is ALWAYS, ONLY and ALL about money!! "The hospital" is only brick and mortar. It is run by robots. Robots in groups are known to behave very very badly. You are not automatic. YOu are not a robot. YOu feel betrayed because you did 110% better than people who get raises and have tenure. You used your education, intellect and physical strength to grind out invention after genius invention in the everyday of nursing care. True, you were rewarded, but you didn't have any POWER.... and now you are being punished.... because they DO have POWER. The rewards and the punishment are meted out by IRRATIONAL robots who are addicted to POWER and CONTROL. YOu mean nothing to them. They spit on you. They wreck your life. They are confident in the belief that you LET THEM. Take some time. Don't go back there. Get a lawyer. Please listen to an old gray-hair diploma grad from the Cretaceous: this is the tricky part. When you solve the problem, the root of the problem, you will have changed and outgrown this mess. You will amaze yourself!

A few words of advice: NAME RANK AND SERIAL NUMBER. My sister the professor of nursing would advise you to go back and learn more. Myself, I learned enough. Stick to simple phrases and beware they are trying to elicit an EMOTIONAL REACTION from you to DISCUSS POLITICS and HOW YOU FEEL. It's all b/s. stick to the facts. Bring your lawyer along anyhow. Don't ask permission, it's easier to ask forgiveness. You are walking into THE SHADOW OF DEATH!!! They want you to resign. They offered you money to do it. Bring the lawyer along and HE can tell them how to FEEL about adding another "O" onto the end of that sum. My prayers are for your good light. Never let it be extinguished by mudslingers. These are the dark days. Things will get better.... (one of my prayers.) Hugs from Panhandler:deadhorse

I just got a notice from the lawyer I am hiring to defend my license to the BON: this chap (recommended by the State Nurse's Association) is charging about $400 per hour. He wants a RETAINER of $2K. THAT is the reality. WHen you get stabbed in the back, you get to pay most of what you have saved from a too-low salary just to have the axe handle removed. For shame! Ah, what we have abrogated, what we have abdicated! Ah, my sister nurses, take heart's-ease in large doses. Hospital work is: Life in the shark tank. Except that SHARKS are CLEAN. Like you, I just do not want to believe how deep and how foul the chancre of for-profit health "management" has gotten. Its roots are wrapped tightly around the law itself. Shine some light on it, and you too will smell its stench. Perhaps it is better to walk blindly in, mesmerized by the "benefit package." Perhaps it is better to "yes" them to death, and remove the energy we would otherwise give to the patient to satisfy the nonsense that passes for "administration." Who's got the cujones to challenge it? We would starve without table scraps from the feast of 50% of the USA Federal Budget that is taken by the Medical Industrial Complex. A famous lady tried to DISCUSS a revision of the status-quo, and was thrown out on her largesse by the US Congress. Politics aside, Mrs. Clinton was brave, but the fight was lost before she turned on the microphone. The prescription drug, the Medicare and Medicaid messes, are just the top of the iceberg. Our lawmakers are bribed into preventing the enactment of a logical, intelligent healthcare system by paid lobbyists from Big Medicine, Big Sugar, and Big Oil, Big Insurance, and of course, Big Law. These entities 'write' more than 80% of the "news" we "believe." Including, my sweeties, the venerable "AJN," whose mission is to continue the hypnosis. The beauties at that journal also left splinters in my spine. (I was, and I quote from my kangaroo-court Axe-It interview, "too aggressive towards our sponsors," and "too involved in reporting State Nurse Association organizational efforts in local hospitals.") Any ideas? Any comments? There is an age-old conflict called "shoes-on-the-baby" whereby we must earn our bread and shut our senses off to the way in which that bread appears on the table. Do our clients pay us directly? Or have we hired a "landlord" to do our dirty work? There's nothing inherently wrong with making a profit, because it keeps the doors open and the lights on. It's just that our "landlords" have diverted all that "sticky" money into their own purses. Do nurses OWN the hospitals? Of course not, we stick our heads in the comforting sand which blinds us to the financial realities. How can an "administrator" earn so much more money than someone who holds the patient's life in her hands -- literally!! As nurses we trust blindly in our bosses. We are hypnotized by professional mezmerizers to believe in a secure and safe environment. We cannot do nurse functions in a vacuum: we need supplies and institutions to enable us. We want clean floors and linens, we want the electric to work. We want to push that button and have someone come when we get overwhelmed. We are shocked and hurt when they betray us. I looked in the home-town paper (population 65,000) for a "RN" job today. Every thing BUT: techs, 9-to-5 "administrators" -- staffing clerks; Medical Assistants; Insurance specialists; front-desk receptionists; "floor care technicians," records managers, sanitation experts, QA professionals, Info Technology specialists,Dietary Managers; Activity Specialists; Physical Therapy Aides; Patient Care Tech; Assistant Nurses. We've sold the farm. Our little kingdom has been paved over into a gated community where we are no longer welcome. The salary for a registered nurse with 20+ years in the field in my town is at 40% of the national median; Rent, cars, food, clothing, are at 110% of the national median. Therefore, I conclude that hospital bedside nursing ain't gonna pay the electric bill this winter! Something's gotta give. It's time for new ideas. I heard one this weekend: that firefighters, cops and nurses who are ON THE LINE should have tax-exempt status, and the ancillary personnel OFF THE LINE have to pay. It might answer the 50-year-old NURSING SHORTAGE in record time.

I hope the facility who terminated you gets turned every which way but loose by your attorney.:angryfire Poor TNNurse. You are living a nightmare! I am going to slip you some mental coffee. Honey, I hear you, hundreds of miles away, in Florida. Ditto Ditto Ditto: A staff nurse in ICU - who chose to remain at the bedside. I got terminated a few weeks back, and reported to the BOH. I was given the axe just days after being lauded for accurate documentation, leadership, and excellence in my years of service (perfect attendance, great attitude etc.). The rest of the "herd" -- my coworkers -- froze in place. No one spoke up for me. There was no "dispute resolution," no rejoinder to the slanderous comments of a physician who killed a patient with his incompetence. There was no bargaining. Just fabrications on the part of my boss and her boss. Over and over I ask myself, Why? The most proximal event (closest in time) was that I complained in an incident report that the physician was accusing me of lying, as a smokescreen to cover up facts a, b, c etc. Of course, the style of the Axe-ecution would make Dilbert puke. I was told, "have a nice vacation." When I got back, there was no job. Luckily, there are two other Old Nurses still working who report regularly on the spectacular turnover in the place (>70% annually). So far, it's been very quiet in the herd. The lions are still hungry, after all. The Director Of Nurses put words in my mouth and fired me for "saying" them. An unsigned (by me) Personnel Report was filed to the State, re-stating the fabrications. How's THEM apples! A toxic environment will not change by the actions of a single unarmed individual. Toxic environment knows what it is, singles out competence and gets rid of it to preserve its own existence: to whit: "Oh there's such a high turnover here, we just keep the number real quiet!" "Our recruiter just can't keep up with the demand!" My immediate boss is supervising her dear best friend, who imitates her in every way: choice of pets, clothing, hair color and country of origin -- plus: cruises, house swapping and socializing together. The "teacher's pet" is not only a mule's orifice, but likes to intimidate other staff -- to the point of angry tears. All, of course done when her Sugah Mamma is on a day off. I bet you feel wrong and wronged, and have searched in the attic of your mind for any kind of off behavior on your part. Does this help? You were working without body armor! You were a fool to trust anyone in a suit! They KNEW that other nurse wasn't doing her job, but they kept her there because they are in the habit of not doing THEIRS. Your complicity ("Silence") puts you into THEIR conspiricy. You did the right thing. Take a bath. Go on. Learn from this. I have engaged an attorney. It's expensive to defend my license. I will use my good sense in calculating how far it should go.... cost/benefit. I am an OLD nurse (58). I have the luxury of low overhead in my life. .. husband and sister feel I should not spend my savings to sue the hospital and physician for slander, because of the low dollar return. The lawyer wants to make money. Who has the money? The doctor. Who has even more money? The hospital. The hospital in question, part of a chain, has an annual budged for legal matters in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. At any one time they are managing FOUR THOUSAND CASES a year. I am bringing all this to the table with the attorney, whose middle name is Pitbull... Did you not know that for-profit medicine is a cess-pit of corporate politics? The patients are of least concern, if any. Professional nurses work this arena with the tools of law, truth, intelligence and science. There is no other real help. Unions? They got burned with our bras in the 60s, but remember, I am old. Old Nurse. If we give the fox permission to "manage" the henhouse, he eats fresh chicken every night of the week. Nursing has not taken control of its own profession. As long as we are wide-eyed DEPENDENTS of the system rather than its OWNERS, nothing will change. I accept that subservient position to obtain money and time off. I forgo my rights under the constitution of the USA to be an Employee in a For Profit Institution. The fact that I am a compassionate, ethical healer with talent, experience and education is thrown out the window by the bean-counting managers who control the purse strings of an institution. Anything else you may hear is just background music that was written-for-hire by other salaried slaves, who are neither compassionate, nor ethical, nor talented, nor experienced, nor educated! I love to help and to heal. I hope this helps. I hope it heals. In 35 years of bedside nursing, I have always wondered, who nurses the nurse?

[They'd never come up with anything stupid, that insults your intelligence and good taste, correct??? 1)Seven staff nurses from the ICU in a full page ad with isolated photos of groups of other hospital employees depicting the wonderful ethnic mix of skills and specialists in cleaning, dietary, security, and lawnmowing. 2)Meatballs and pineapple chunks served at 2 p.m. while I was sleeping. I've had better nightmares. 3)Mandatory class from 0730 to 1000 after a 12-hour shift: handwashing and using a non-coring technique when withdrawing NSS from a rubber-stopper vial. AH, yes, there's the little rubber embolus now..... 4)Mandatory Staff Meeting from 0730 to 0930 after a 12-hour shift: complete explanations of how the "hospital" "ACQUIRES" Philipine nurses twice a year by sending a Director directly to Manila, all expenses paid. (a slave ship is more expensive?) 5)Getting bawled out by the head nurse in front of a new orientee, and three hours later apologized to privately out of hearing of the new orientee, for imaginary "misdeed" # 4,214. 6) Hanging a new toilet roll in the bathroom I share with 25 other adults. Luckily I raised 5 kids to their mid-20s without committing BRATricide so I know how to deal with this issue. Creating my 15th requisition for a toilet brush for the same location.... having same rejected and being reprimanded for not following the chain of command, "misdeed" # 4215. 7) Learning a few new tricks every shift. Cash bribes to the maid: $10 / per 90 days: Having toilet paper at hand when you need it: priceless.

Florida atlantic coast, here, working nights in ICU.... I went back to nursing after a ten year hiatus (the last of which was in community college taking the refresher program). Nursing (as a job) has lost ground. I accepted 1/2 the vacation time and 65% of the pay I was getting ten years ago! Oh yuppers I get to live in my dream location, but "hospital bedside nursing" has become workstation dominated. If I said the words "job description" to any supervisor they would become incontinent. Nuff said. My sister wants to take her doctorate at Queens in Ozzie in about 3 years. We are going together to tour ozzie and make new friends, leaving hubbies and pets behind! I can get a leave of absence by then for study and travel.... I have a map on the wall of places to see etc. Hello from 2 hours south of Mickey Mouse!