This is my first travel assignment and I HATE it. It is so unorganized. But what I hate the most is how the staff is treating me. They treat me like ^TI&YI. The CNA's don't do what I ask of them and when I am assertive about it, they become aggressive.
The Nurses and CNA's are all in a clique. So if I piss one of them off, the whole clique makes my life hell.
They have done away with clerks on 7pm-7 am shift. They now have a charge nurse that is to do a lot of the clerking stuff, like, get papers ready for the next shift, help with admissions, chart checks, etc. The charge nurses dont have any patients. Do they help the travelers out? Hell no. One charge nurse actually sat and did NOTHING the whole 12 hours except read magazines and gossip. She then said to me, as she was walking out the door, "I'm sorry for not helping you last night, I am just soooo tired" Meanwhile, I didn't get out until 1.5 hours after I was suppose to leave because I didn't even get to start my charting until the end of the shift!!! I did everything - I got all the papers done for the next day, filed, answered the phone, answered call lights, worked as the RN, I and O's.........EVERYTHING. Where was my CNA? She was out smoking with the charge nurse, or gossiping with her, or just nowhere to be found.
God forbid if you ask someone a question, they will act as if you are incompetant.
If you delegate to another nurse, you are incompetent.
Excuse me.........but isn't this sort of mentality (abusive nurses) counter productive for the facility? I guess I still have a "business" mind but if you look at the equation..............regular staffing doesn't help+catches an attitude+takes longer breaks=the need for traveler nursing.
I would think that behaviors you see aren't new to the floor, just redirected to you, ensuring the need for traveling nursing to adequately staff the floor. If you take the traveler nurse out of the equation then the formula still exist and just equals something else.
Now if you want to push a few buttons...........document what you encounter on a daily basis. list events, names, dates and time. When you have sufficient data (oh say several weeks) then ask for an appointment with the nurse manager and request that budgeting/appropriations, risk management, and your company rep. be there. Just be ready not to have a re-assignment to that hospital........but you might get offered a permanent position as well.
Mmmmm. Perhaps.
Any time I've ever tried being proactive about situations like this, it has always come back to bite me in the butt.
I have noticed that everywhere I work, somone, or maybe more than one, person will ingratiate themselves to management - suck up, brown nose, whatever you want to call it. Once that person has this position they wield it over everyone else and basically get away with murder.
Look out for that person for they will make your life hell. After getting either fired or kicked sideways for tangling with the teacher's pet, I finally learned to leave him or her alone. The only way to defeat the brown noser is to become a bigger brown noser and replace her.
Of course, some places are worse than others. You just have to size up the situation before deciding how to proceed. But oh yeah, if you try to put the brown noser's butt in a sling, you better have your letter of resignation ready and another job lined up.
I have gotten far better mileage out of keeping my head down, keeping my mouth shut, and listening to them ramble on about their boring lives and make them feel like you live to hear them talk about their problems. Sucks, I know, but it has saved me more hassles in the end.
Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN
872 Posts
Mmmmm. Perhaps.
Any time I've ever tried being proactive about situations like this, it has always come back to bite me in the butt.
I have noticed that everywhere I work, somone, or maybe more than one, person will ingratiate themselves to management - suck up, brown nose, whatever you want to call it. Once that person has this position they wield it over everyone else and basically get away with murder.
Look out for that person for they will make your life hell. After getting either fired or kicked sideways for tangling with the teacher's pet, I finally learned to leave him or her alone. The only way to defeat the brown noser is to become a bigger brown noser and replace her.
Of course, some places are worse than others. You just have to size up the situation before deciding how to proceed. But oh yeah, if you try to put the brown noser's butt in a sling, you better have your letter of resignation ready and another job lined up.
I have gotten far better mileage out of keeping my head down, keeping my mouth shut, and listening to them ramble on about their boring lives and make them feel like you live to hear them talk about their problems. Sucks, I know, but it has saved me more hassles in the end.