we often see threads with the title "fired for no reason," or "new grad harassed and fired" or something to that effect. and i always feel at least a little sympathy for the individual involved, if only because i can clearly see by reading between the lines of their self-justifying post that there was a reason for their termination, even if they just don't get it. (there are always a few posts every year from a new grad who is convinced that the reason she's not getting along with her co-workers is that she's just so beautiful they're all jealous, that crowds of mean people are following her around, that she's so wonderful she's going to rock the er or icu or nicu or or and no one sees her wonderfulness clearly, or that some mean, tired, old nurse who ought to retire and get out of the way is targeting her for no good reason.)
i worked with a new grad who was recently terminated for, as she puts it, totally bogus reasons. evidently seeing mine as a sympathetic ear, she went on and on and on about how unfair it was that management expected her to get her act together and actually understand what was going on with her patients. "i've got the time management thing down pat," she said. "i don't know what else they want. they're just picking on me for no good reason." i liked sal, i really did. she was interesting and entertaining and really, really nice. she was also smart, hard-working (when she was at work) and well-educated. but she didn't study outside of work, and really didn't understand what was going on with her patients. i participated in several meetings with her in which it was pointed out that it's not enough to do the tasks, you have to understand why you're doing them. it's not enough to draw the labs. you have to understand what the results mean and then address them. for instance, if the inr is 9, it might explain the nosebleed, the cherry red urine and the fact that the hemoglobin is now 6. giving the coumadin at 6pm as scheduled is not a good thing, even if you gave it right on time and were able to explain to the patient that "it's a blood thinner." i could go on and on.
i got a call from sal today, complaining that she knows she's blackballed for no good reason because she just can't get another job. she wanted me to give her a reference. did she just not get it?
all you new grads out there who are convinced that you're being picked on for no reason, that your more experienced colleagues are just out to get you, and that you're being unfairly targeting, harassed, or picked on, hear this: it may be something you're doing (or not doing) and all those "mean people" are trying to explain it to you so you catch on, learn your job and succeed. we all tried over and over with sal, and she still doesn't get it. are you guilty of the same thing? if your preceptor says you lack critical thinking skills, do you take it to heart, think about it and learn from it? or are you convinced that the entire issue is that she's jealous of your extreme good looks? if your charge nurse charges you with a deficit in your time management skills do you spend time figuring out where you could speed things up a bit? or do you dismiss her as a tired old dog who can't learn a new trick and ought to retire anyway? are you taking to heart and benefitting from any negative feedback you're getting, however poorly given it is? or are you obsessing about how "mean" that nurse was to you and totally overlooking the message?
i wish sal would have "gotten it." she would have been delightful to work with if she had. but right now she's focused on badmouthing her preceptors and the charge nurse, and she still doesn't understand what she did wrong. don't make the same mistakes.
Also worked with my dad, like the others professionalism began with punctuality and procedeeded to hard work and keeping one's word. HOWEVER, my mother was always late and disdained authority. How did these two ever get together?
Anyway, although I always did my best and worked hard, he would always say if you weren't my daughter I'd fire you for lateness. Meanwhile, as the only girl I was abused by the guys who worked for him. I was paid alot, but pulled my weight and then some! Late to him meant not onsite and ready to work at start time. It was your responsibility to show up early, drink your coffee, read your paper-BUT BE READY at start TO GO!
I have always worked hard, but haven't always been ontime. That changed when I was a boss and I saw first hand the way it disrupts the planned work day. Then, like him I was always early.
I think you learn by those around you and the expectations placed upon you in childhood, however sometimes it's just maturity.
But habits can be changed, an inability to comprehend why something is done when patient safety is involved goes way beyond that! Some people were not meant to be in healthcare or other jobs. Just because I liked to build with erector sets and legos, didn't mean I could be an engineer without a base knowledge of physics and calculus. It's nice to want....but not always realistic.
Employees have no loyalty to their company because companies have no loyalty to their employees. When you can be replaced at the drop of a hat for any reason, or no reason, why should you be loyal?
I agree with out here. People complain that the younger generation is not "loyal". But where do they get that stance from?
I wouldnt turn not being loyal to a company into an ageism thing either. Ask the nurses who are vets and are being forced to stay in their positions by the economy if "loyalty" is the way to go. Most young people, myself included, are being told to use the market to their advantage whenever possible. Loyalty, yes, is more common among the generations ahead of us, but a great many of them regret it and tell the younger generation not to sell themselves short.
Thats wisdom speaking. Older generation see's loyalty is a dead end, informs younger genreation, and they stop giving it so freely. The lack of loyalty in the nursing field today has as much to do with younger nurses not believing in it as vet nurses teaching people it is not the best avenue.
I'd also add, there are a great many vet nurses being pushed out the door by hospitals who are trying to keep the administrative pay scale from being touched. Wonder how they feel about loyalty.
Loyalty to companies and organizations came from the fact that employees could count on being part and feeling like they were part of the success of a business. This also included the fact that business in some respects was paternalistic with the thought of the business"family" from cradle to grave.
Today's business which has evolved over the past 40 years provides top executives ridiculous amounts of money to get the most work out of the employees with the least amount of investment. No one is developed. No one is assured of their job. The harder you work, the more you are expected to do. If you give an inch they want a foot and so on.....
Loyalty to me, mean that while I am at any company I do my best and remain professional. What is professional? Being on time, speaking to my fellows in a professional manner, keeping up to date with trends, educating MYSELF, and performing customer service with respect to being polite but firm in what needs to be done.
Work ethic is learned and copied from the time you are young, until you take your first "real" job.
One of my children began working in a pharmacy as a teen....I was scared to death of whether he understood the grand magnitude of HIPAA and patient's rights. Would a teenager be able to keep silent in the midst of potentially juicy information? That message from me was repeated over and over, my concern was also expressed to the owner who in my opinion was very blase' about it. HOWEVER, my son as a young adult now tells me he always thought about what I'd said every time he was tempted to blurt some information about who may have been treated for genital herpies, hiv and whatever else. THAT CAME FROM HOME, however the other things like being late (and being docked), calling out (and causing staffing problems) and all others occurred when he was aging, the worker and felt the fall out, or experienced the problem when someone else did it.
Just because we think someone should know something doesn't mean they do. Experience is the best teacher and hindsight is 20/20.
thanks maisy. maybe using "loyalty to the company" wasnt the best words i could have used to convey my thoughts. like i said, i feel no loyalty to the company that i work for. they would throw me or any nurse under the bus in a second, all for the sake of "customer service".
i suppose i meant loyalty to myself. no matter how much i disagree with the company policies, i feel that i am getting paid to do a job to their standards and that i will do. but for me, that means working hard for those 12-16 hours i am there, being punctual, being professional and being accountable for my own actions.
i am NOT saying i fault any nurse, be it a new nurse or a seasoned vet, for doing what needs to be done to further their career.
those arent the people that i'm speaking of when i say "no work ethic". i'm sure we've all worked with these people that expect to be paid for just showing up. those are the people i'm talking about. those are the people i dont understand. no matter how hard i try, i cant understand them. i cant understand not wanting to do a job to be proud of. i dont understand "barely getting by" on the job.
i dont understand the people that want to talk/text/whatever on their darned cell phones the whole shift. when i pull in the parking lot, i turn my cell phone off. my whole family has my work number if their is an emergency. i dont understand some women i work with that receive phone calls from every single family member they have 2-3 times a day. if my family called me like that at work, they'd sure hear about it when i got home. and dont even get me started talking about the boyfriends calling people all the time. and i sure dont understand how a staff member feels so entitled that they get angry at me when i refuse to call them from a patient's room while they are performing patient care to answer the darn phone so they can argue with said boyfriend.
i dont understand the people that read a book half the shift or play on the internet and then complain that staffing levels are so bad they cant get their work done. i dont understand the mentality that it is even ok to read a book at work unless i'm at lunch.
these are some of the examples i mean when i say 'no work ethic'. i dont mean to offend anyone when i say "these young people" but in my experience, 99% of the time...it IS the younger employees that act this way.
and i sure dont mean to sound like i am perfect. i like to goof off with the best of them. but when there is work to be done, i get it done and THEN i can goof off.
i'm talking about the people that will enter a room and say "what do you want NOW?".
I am an unemployed nurse who got fired from her first job as nurse . When I was working, I focused on providing patient care and doing all the things that i needed to get done during my shift. My manager even told me when asked about my patients I always knew what was going on with them. I guess what I was bringing to the table wasn't enough, because I got terminated. I have to wonder to myself would I have gotten fired if I just loft around and did the bare minuium, because based on my experience and the post, those types of nurses seem to be able to keep a nursing job.
Thanks Ruby for you story...I am a nursing student pursuing my BSN. I am taking a year off from obtaining my gen eds before starting the actually nursing program.
At the school I am studying I have no idea what to expect in the actual nursing program.
I am a little scared though by your story. I understood immediately about the Coumadin, though. I guess I don't know what a registered nurse is authorized to do. Could this decision not to give the Coumadin be made by her without getting a Dr approval??
I guess what scares me the most is this nurse passed the NCLEX, and graduated from the program with so little knowledge??
I have to admit I have an advantage given I was a medic in the Army. I have done clinicals in an ICU. My scope of practice was not limited to a title. My scope of practice was whatever I felt comfortable with and as long as I had done it before supervised.
We all were authorized to start IV's without question (just usually a bag of lactated ringers (burn pts), or NS)
We all were able to work as a Phlebotomist in the lab.
We knew how to use tourniqets, and quick clot (no longer use).
We were allowed to "prescribe OTC's" to our soldiers
We were allowed to "prescribe Prescription drugs if our Dr or PA approved"
(didn't need to get permission everytime just a one time "I trust your knowledge of this prescription drug"
Anything after that we learned we were forever authorized to do.
Small surgeries (cyst removal), suturing, and more.
I guess my biggest issue is do they really send out nurses that uneducated. I understand she is an extreme example??
I mean that is stuff you learn before nursing school I thought. Knowing normal levels No but see a PT bleeding out of orifices and your not going to question giving them a blood thinner.
Seeing lab results with abnormal K+ level, and then observe the pt cramping??
Hear a pt gurgling, are they not going to listen to their lungs, order a chest x-ray, suction???
Wow, I don't think you'll have trouble understanding or becoming a nurse based on your experience! The biggest problem you will have is with the limitations of the nursing scope of practice. Unless you pursue advance practice you will never do some of things you did in the Army, on the other your experiences in time management and patient care will bring you to the head of the class!
When you graduate from school you are qualified to be a novice, your license may say nurse but until you can practice on your own you really aren't more than a degree and license. No one is prepared for the real world.
Good luck to you, and know your conscientious nature is obvious. You will never be Fired for NO Reason!
I am an unemployed nurse who got fired from her first job as nurse . When I was working, I focused on providing patient care and doing all the things that i needed to get done during my shift. My manager even told me when asked about my patients I always knew what was going on with them. I guess what I was bringing to the table wasn't enough, because I got terminated. I have to wonder to myself would I have gotten fired if I just loft around and did the bare minuium, because based on my experience and the post, those types of nurses seem to be able to keep a nursing job.
i got fired from my first nursing job too. my best advice is to look deep inside yourself and take an honest inventory and consider the reasons they gave you. and then learn from that experience and move on. dont stay in it and "waller" around in it as my papaw would say.
when i was fired, the administrator told me that when i "grew up" as a nurse that he would gladly hire me back. i had no idea what he meant and it took me years to figure it out.
just remember...everything that happens, good or bad, is a learning experience for us. it's just up to us what we do with it :)
Employees have no loyalty to their company because companies have no loyalty to their employees. When you can be replaced at the drop of a hat for any reason, or no reason, why should you be loyal?
Case in point: Many of you may be aware of the recent illnesses of my sister and BIL. My sister was hospitalized in early April with a life-threatening flesh-eating bacterial infection. I asked for (and received) permission to take off two days to be with her. While she was hospitalized, my BIL, who has been undergoing treatment for kidney and bladder cancer during the past year, was told by his Urologist that the tumors in his bladder had returned with a vengeance, invading the wall and he was going to require radical cancer surgery.....ASAP. Knowing this and how sick my sister was, I immediately went to my supervisor and told her I would need to take off two more days (May 1st and 4th), to be with her the day of his surgery and those first two critical days afterwards. This request was also approved by my supervisor....and without question.
Fast forward to today. My BIL is home from the hospital and is having a slow and difficult recovery. My sister, who still has not completely recovered from her own illness is exhausted and overwhelmed with the demands of his care. I am at work,
and get summoned to my supervisor's office. It is there that I am told by her boss that if I continue on FT status and have to be out one more day to take care of my family (or whatever the reason), "I (and I am quoting her verbatim):
am going to lose my job".
I could not believe what I was hearing.
She then demanded that I guarantee that I would not miss one more day of work "to be out with my family" during the next six months. I told her that I could not. I knew I was being set up like a lamb for the slaughter, and that's when she told me I was going on PRN status effective next Monday.
My son was incredulous, when I told him what had happened. "I don't understand that, Mom", he said, upset. "That was like making you promise that a meteor is not going to hit the earth tomorrow".
My BIL (God bless him...and I am crying, now), said: "Sis, you got your hours cut on account of me". My sister was equally devastated: "This is all my fault".
Loyalty? HA! (ugly laugh). That is Corporate America's war cry for total and unquestioned obedience. They want to
control and own you....in return for a measly paycheck.
I would contact an Employment Attorney ASAP. There is NO reason for their conduct! JMHO and my NY $0.02.
Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN
Spokane, Washington
i agree completely on this!
i was thinking after i posted that maybe it is BECAUSE of her 39 yrs of experience. corporate is always trying to find ways to weed out the veteran nurses with all the experience that make the most monies. i wonder if that couldnt be a factor as well?
.thumb.jpg.755b83f43c9f3860c778e2fcb2022ecb.jpg){kind=small}
. When I was working, I focused on providing patient care and doing all the things that i needed to get done during my shift. My manager even told me when asked about my patients I always knew what was going on with them. I guess what I was bringing to the table wasn't enough, because I got terminated. I have to wonder to myself would I have gotten fired if I just loft around and did the bare minuium, because based on my experience and the post, those types of nurses seem to be able to keep a nursing job.
MAISY, RN-ER, BSN, RN
1,082 Posts
Also worked with my dad, like the others professionalism began with punctuality and procedeeded to hard work and keeping one's word. HOWEVER, my mother was always late and disdained authority. How did these two ever get together?
Anyway, although I always did my best and worked hard, he would always say if you weren't my daughter I'd fire you for lateness. Meanwhile, as the only girl I was abused by the guys who worked for him. I was paid alot, but pulled my weight and then some! Late to him meant not onsite and ready to work at start time. It was your responsibility to show up early, drink your coffee, read your paper-BUT BE READY at start TO GO!
I have always worked hard, but haven't always been ontime. That changed when I was a boss and I saw first hand the way it disrupts the planned work day. Then, like him I was always early.
I think you learn by those around you and the expectations placed upon you in childhood, however sometimes it's just maturity.
But habits can be changed, an inability to comprehend why something is done when patient safety is involved goes way beyond that! Some people were not meant to be in healthcare or other jobs. Just because I liked to build with erector sets and legos, didn't mean I could be an engineer without a base knowledge of physics and calculus. It's nice to want....but not always realistic.
M