NickieLea

I head to Target after Christmas to buy for the following year. Last year I found cute tote bags with Christmas scenes on them for 39cents each after 90% discount. I put a votive holder with candle in each, candy canes, and a cookie cutter. I paid 40 cents for the votive holder from crateandbarrel.com outlet and a penny each for the cookie cutters from an online cooking website. I had enough to put together 40 of these for my coworkers, 20 for each of my children's classes (no candle though, but tow different types of candy canes). So, 80 bags. I think I paid about $70, but that covered 80 people! People sure seemed to act like I went all out too! Oh, I alos buy my coworkers/classmates of my kiddos' Chritmas card the year before too! CrateandBarrel.com still has a few pretty clearance holiday items in the online outlet if you are still looking for stuff.

I'd love to do this too, but I do not want to leave my family while I travel and do this. I also live in Montana in an area not very populated. There aren't many opportunites here and my husband won't be able to leave here until 2007.

I've heard that the two 15 minute paid breaks in a twelve hour shift are only if patient needs are met first. So, if you purposely understaff, give your nurses too many critical patients, then the break thing is not going to happen. So that leave the 30 minute lunch (unpaid) that you are supposedly entitiled to. Well, there's that little stipulation again "once patients needs are met". If you mark down "no lunch" on your time sheet too often, then you get dinged for it at evaluation time for not making effective use of your time. Sometimes it is like administration wants to wring every bit of patient care out of you they can, chastize you for not being able to handle it all in an exemplary manner, then chastize you if you are able to juggle it all because you aren't working "efficiently". Breaks? I wish!

Uh oh, I didn't work as a CNA either! Tell that nurse to keep her opinions to herself unless asked. Blow her off and go on your merry path. It takes more than snotty opinions to make someone a great nurse. Don't let her ignorance get in the way of your journey.

Welcome to my world for about 15 years. Remove maternity leave for two babies, and that's what my career was like. I worked night shifts and just left a job that routinely scheduled me for 5-8 12 hour night shifts in a row. I'm pushing 40, my husband has a demanding job in the military, and I'm trying to provide some sort of normal life for two neat kids. So I left and took an Endoscopy position at a great place, Mon - Fri 0800 - 1600. No call, no nights, no holidays, and no weekends. I miss critical care. It was part of who I identified myself to be. I know the patients need nursing care, but I finally had to soul search and explore my priorities in life. My family has to come first. Now I sleep about 8 hours a night, make plans on the weekends, travel, and cook dinner! I see my son's football games, my daughter's dance recitals, and can cover if my husband needs to dispatch overnight somewhere. It isn't as exciting, but it's soothing! It's hard to come to the realization that I wasn't Superwoman. Please speak up. I missed out on so much because I lived in the fog from all those twelve hour night shifts.

When I am negotiating for a nursing position, one of the things I ask is that I do not precept students or orient new nurses. There are people out there who may enjoy that, but I'm not one of them and I don't want to be responsible for that in addition to everything else I do. When I was a student (in the Dark Ages LOL), I cna't recall one nurse helping me. I looked up all of the info, made myself scarce around the nurses, and immersed myself in my duties with my patient. I knew the nurses had full assignments and having to "teach" too wasn't necessarily part of their duties and I was sure staffing hadn't taken into consideration how much additional time having a shadow for your shift also took away from your patients. That said, where did I get my interaction time with patients that prepared me wonderfully for my future as a registered nurse? As a nurse tech! If I wasn't at school, I was working my tail off as a nurse tech. I worked nights too and foudn myself late to a couple of lectures because work ran late. I learned so much at work, probably more than I did in shcool. Nursing school never felt "real" to me. Even my NP program felt out of touch with reality. At least my clinicals there were a great experience. Getting your hands dirty in the actual work environment with patients is where it is at, in my opinion. The school clinical thing? Frustrating!

Make them show you in writing where they have ground for this. Paid Time off is supposed to be paid out at the end of employment. Please contact your HR department (do you know someone nice down there who you'd feel comfortable asking?). I've had to leave a few nursing jobs due to an active duty military husband. If I know a few months in advance, I verbally tell my management, but I've never submitted my resignation in writing earlier than two weeks before my last intended shift. It really sounds like you are being strong armed here. If they intend to drian your PTO anyway, maybe the poster's advice to call in sick until Dec 2 (so you can draw your PTO time) isn't sounding like such a bad idea fter all. When management treats employees like this, nurses are especially vulnerable. Our very nature makes us (generally speaking) want to please and help people. If you don't get anywhere with your HR department and managment, your local Labor Department could also provide some insight.

This is the third NICU I've worked in since I became an RN. I also worked L&D for a couple of years and ER for a couple of years. (DH is active duty Air Force, hence all the freaking movign around!) Some NICUs do it, some don't. Any cardiac kids we weren't expecting before delivery to be cardiacs, we didn't discover based on 4 point BPs. It seems as soon as I grow comfortable doing it the way the particular place I'm working in does it, we move!