"Thanks For Caring!!!"

[FireStarterRN]

Just a minor and trivial rant here. My interim unit manager must have gone to management seminars that teach them to use canned phrases to encourage us lowly and gullible bedside nurses. I wish she could just address us as adults for a change, and could drop the patronizing sounding catch phrases.

I sent her a pertinent article, and she responded that she planned to read it, then concluded her email with "Thanks for caring!". All the emails that management sends us is full of this canned enthusiasism, complete with exclamation marks, that essentially talks down to us as if we are pre-schoolers. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't start handing out happy face stickers.

"Thanks for caring!" "Thanks for being part of a great team!" "You guys are a caring team!"

[bANANA]

Thanks for listening, YOU GUYS ARE GREAT!!!!!!

[/bANANA]

[llg, PhD, RN]

For those of you coming late to this thread ...

The antidote for the management slogans is available at: Despair.com

No, I have no affiliation with that site. I just love their work.

[LydiaNN]

The alternative would be that they don't recognize the efforts of their workers at all. How would that be?

I can't speak for the many other posters in this thread who object to this nonsense, but I say it would be just swell. I do not want or need daily affirmation that just showing up and doing my job makes me an important part of the team. My continued employment is affirmation enough. Thanks just the same for the name calling, though.

I'd rather have meaningful rewards. A couple years ago, I stepped in and saved an important contract. They gave me an extra week's vacation. That was worth more than a thousand attagirls. That was an appropriate reward and the kind you hardly ever get because the "you're so great" stroking is supposed to be motivation enough. Cough cough. I say show me the money or run along.

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Frankly, I get no satisfaction from stunning a cashier into silence. They are (as I have been) people who need the crappy, hard jobs they're doing and are actually forced to freakin' CHEER with their managers in the monring. I say let 'em alone.

As to mgmt substituting stock catch phrases for actual, tangible rewards - pffft. I DO like thank you, but "thanks" suffices. I don't need gushing and a side of bulldinky of the week.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

I can't speak for the many other posters in this thread who object to this nonsense, but I say it would be just swell. I do not want or need daily affirmation that just showing up and doing my job makes me an important part of the team. My continued employment is affirmation enough.

I'd rather have meaningful rewards. A couple years ago, I stepped in and saved an important contract. They gave me an extra week's vacation. That was worth more than a thousand attagirls. That was an appropriate reward and the kind you hardly ever get because the "you're so great" stroking is supposed to be motivation enough. Cough cough. I say show me the money or run along.

:yeahthat:

Obviously these tactics for dealing with underlings is going over like a lead balloon with a lot of us, who feel patronized by them, as evidenced by the chord this thread struck.

For the poster who called me "ignorant" for my feelings, well, feelings aren't good or bad, they are morally neutral. If management wants to evoke a feeling of being respected in me, these types of approaches are ineffective in doing so for many of us.

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

Best thread ever!

Long ago and far away, I was hired at a local hospital. Orientation was general, meaning the janitors and housekeepers had the same first week of orientation as the nurses. I was the only nurse hired that week so it was maintenance people, janitors, housekeepers and me.

On the second day, a woman in a fur coat came sweeping in to the room and announced that she was our motivational speaker. She spent the next 3 hours talking about paradigm shifting. She used the expression paradigm shifting in every single sentence. I lost count at 400 uses of paradigm shifting. I could barely keep from laughing.

The woman sitting next to me was a housekeeping trainee. She leaned to me, crying, saying: "I have no idea what this lady is talking about!". I felt so awful that these people were being frightened by this pointless exercise that I went to the orientation coordinator and said: "you are just scaring these people with this crap". I was fired! Hee, they paid me for 2 weeks when I was only there 2 days. Thanks!

I just loathe management techniques designed to patronize or condescend to the worker. I've been a manager and treating people decently is a lot better than some canned platitude (or paradigm!).

[LydiaNN]

I just loathe management techniques designed to patronize or condescend to the worker. I've been a manager and treating people decently is a lot better than some canned platitude (or paradigm!).

:yeahthat:

[LydiaNN]

You know what I think is minor, trivial and ignorant?

Don't worry, something tells me no one is likely to accuse you of delivering false praise.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Don't worry, something tells me no one is likely to accuse you of delivering false praise.

:chuckle:chuckle:chuckle

:cheers:

[nursemike, ASN, RN]

I told my manager I was trying to be proactive about taking ownership of my documentation.

I also love that despair.com site.

[Agnus]

The woman sitting next to me was a housekeeping trainee. She leaned to me, crying, saying: "I have no idea what this lady is talking about!".

I would have quietly whispered to her. "Neither does she." (the speaker)

[Agnus]

How about being told over and over that it is a privilege to take care of patients. Though I agree with that and I understand the spirit with which it is being said. I am sick and tired of it being shoved down my throat at ever turn. Especially now that our Hospital is under the gun and may be shut down by the state. Maybe management should have thought about that before.

It is starting to sound like "If you are not a good girl you will make us loose this priviledge." The hospitlal was fxxxxxx up before I got there.