I have been slightly irritated with my job for the past 8 months or so. When my employer started eliminated positions and reducing workforce as a result of financial difficulties, I started looking elsewhere - but nothing entirely aggressive or serious - until recently.
This past Friday I think was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
I am a Clinical Education Coordinator in a "centralized" education department, that requires an MSN or enrollment in a MSN program. My responsibilities entail running alot of orientation programs, but also consulting to the entire hospital - including non-nursing areas, on education and practice issues. In other words, we're not truly a nursing staff development department at all.
We have a tumultous relationship with the Med/Surg departments. They are the most vocal of the nursing areas and their leadership is probably one of the more unprofessional I have ever seen. I've been in meetings where the leadership will throw papers, roll eyes, and other inappropriate gestures. And we honor all of their demands. All of them. Regardless of our own professional recommendations, regardless of best practice, regardless of finances, resources - anything. We give in to all of it. Why? Because every quarter we are rated on our "customer service" to them. They habitually mark us low, even though all of my and my colleague's time could be billed to them, and even though we honor every single request. And even though our department was slashed in half with the layoffs in Spring. So much so, we often ignore other areas like ER, OB and ICU.
The leadership in that department now has, on at least 6 occasions, contacted us, the coordinators, to do secretarial support for them: run off copies, find and reserve meeting rooms, and design flyers. I got another such request this past Thursday that my boss forwarded me. It came from a nurse in the med/surg area who is in a CNS role (but not a CNS yet) and she wanted me to contact a vendor she was working with and find and reserve meeting rooms and design flyers for an inservice. I asked our assistant to handle the request, and she couldn't. My other two colleagues couldn't, and neither could I, as we're ALL swamped, buried, drowning in work, especially since we lost 2 full time coordinators in June. We have requests up the ying-yang and this one is not top priority, especially since it entails essentially administrative support functions.
So I asked the med/surg secretary if she could do this for this CNS. She said she could. Great.
On my way out of the office on Friday, my boss calls me into her office to explain my actions. Apparently the DIRECTOR of the med/surg areas got wind of this, saw my email to the med/surg secretary, and then forwarded it to my boss and said this was inappropriate and the secretary will do no such thing as she is too busy and this is not top priority. I tried to explain to my boss that we couldn't accomodate this as we're busy, people on FMLA, etc and she just said I'm just going to have to do it. She emailed the director back and told her we'll handle it. And she told me just that - you'll handle it on Monday, and how long could it possibly take to design a flyer, etc? :angryfire Well if it's so insignificant why can't the secretary do it? :angryfire
I left without saying a word; I was so livid. I am tired of acting like the support staff to med/surg. Each time I voice this, my boss replies that I'm paid either way so who cares. Well you know what, I care! If I wanted to be a secretary I would go be one, but I'm a nurse educator and would like to function as one! I can't function in this type of environment. Anymore. I have had it. I was so angry on Friday I could hardly speak.
I have applied for a job with the Humane Society a couple weeks ago and am anxiously awaiting a call - the job is training all the volunteers on animal handling, infection control, etc and staff development. If they offer it to me I am *so* gone.
