Things you would love to tell your management and get away with

Nurses General Nursing

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I love the thread things you would love to tell your pt and get away with.

But to be truthful for me I love the pts and rarely want to be horrid to them. However I do have lots of things I would like to say to the management and get away with my job. So here are a few things

1/ No you take the extra pt and flex up why should I

2/ Stop sitting on that fat bum and come out here and do some real work for a change.

3/ I wouldnt trust you to help me with my pts because you have no skills left so would be useless

4/ Do you even remember what it was like to work as a floor nurse

5/ Why would I ask you how to do anything you are not upto date and never know the answers

6/ In these days of financial crisis why are you getting an extra shift per week?

Want pt satisfaction to go up? Staff us adequately!!!!! :banghead:

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Specializes in Acute Mental Health.
Ahhh....reading these posts has been very therapeutic! I have so many things I could say to my manager and DON -- but would be fired. Heck, I could sue them and WIN -- except I know my career would be ruined.

At the risk of repeating an old joke, I often feel like responding to their fake attempts to act understanding with, "This is like Deja Moo -- you know, the feeling I've heard this bull before!"

OMG! Spewing my soda out right now! Tee Hee

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

1. It's your job, your responsibility to know what is going on around here. So don't tell me you don't know why we can't keep staff.

2. You have 5 written complaints about one of your junior managers. Why is she still carrying out her reign of terror on your staff? Oh, and don't promote to junior management someone who has a history of abandoning a patient. The optics of that are VERY bad.

3. When a nurse comes to you with an issue regarding how a family has treated her and you agree it was unfair, don't tell her that you'll "deal with it" and then not communicate with her as to how you dealt with it. That tells her that you HAVEN'T dealt with it..

4. Don't create unnecessary divisions within the unit by creating "special" teams with responsibility for what could become routine care. The elitist attitude they develop sours quickly when they start burning out and there isn't anyone else to take on those responsibilities. And when the inevitable occurs, don't ask for volunteers then start "voluntelling". The message here is, "You weren't good enough then, but now that we're desperate you're better than nothing."

5. Don't assume that because your unit is the only one of its kind for hundreds of miles that your staff will stay simply because they like the work. If they don't like the job, they can always adapt to a new one.

6. When the fridge in your staff breakroom dies, don't take up a collection from your staff to buy a new one. And when the microwave in there dies, don't wait a week to replace it with a $39 special from WalMart. You know darned well that your staff members don't have time to go to the cafeteria (that isn't even open on nights) for their meals or to take their frozen dinners there to warm them up.

7. Don't take a first-ever complaint from a family about a long-time employee with a spotless record to Human Resources without first speaking to the nurse involved and hearing her view of what happened. It will make her angry and distrustful and it will make you look like a fool in front of the Human Resources person when it turns out to be a spurious complaint and one of many such this family has made.

8. Don't whatever you do tell you nurses to quit if they don't how things are done because they're replaceable when they complain about something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

9. Don't pick on selected staff about their dress and deportment while very blatantly ignoring it in others.

10. Don't send out obviously insincere emails telling staff how much their efforts are appreciated immediately after you've had to come out of the office and stay "late" to take charge of the unit and cover breaks so the charge nurse can take the admission, and then make a huge deal about it being the "worst day on the unit in 18 years" when every day is like that and you don't notice because you're in the office. Everybody will see it for what it is... your own personal pity party.

I could go on and on. I think I need to print this out so that I can share it with my manager when I leave...

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

I did say this to management a few years ago. Keep in mind I had worked a 7p-7a and then came back for a 3-11p then next day. (back then I worked afternoons not nights)

It was busy so so insane on our unit. Medical unit with 5 RN and 3 aides. We were getting admits left and right. An admit was coming up and they kept trying to send more. They wouldn't send them to the 4th or 6th floor since we were to be filled first. Our manager was on her way in to do paperwork with an orientee (Why I don't know just paperwork since she knew in advance what was going on). When she got there I told her things were VERY UNSAFE. She told me that we couldn't refuse admits and wouldn't let us do that. I lost it at the desk, (They sent us a few nurse externs and 2RN's from the inpt rehab unit who refused to help much. I had to beg them to pass meds and do admit papers on some patients). I told the 2 rehab RN's that they could just go back if they didn't get to work and help out NOW! Their excuse was that they didn't work on our unit and were unconfortable passing meds on patients they don't know. I told them they were RN's and to do their job.

I ended up talking to the mgr in private and told her that we needed her help for awhile. She told me that she couldn't stay to help she promised her daughter that she would be home soon and the had a plan. I was LIVID. I looked her square in the eye and told her to "GO down to the ER and get some scrubs on and HELP NOW! WE ARE DOWNDING ARE YOU BLIND!". It felt good and I didn't exactly get away with it. But she did let me transfer to where I am now and gave me a good review.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.
I did say this to management a few years ago. Keep in mind I had worked a 7p-7a and then came back for a 3-11p then next day. (back then I worked afternoons not nights)

It was busy so so insane on our unit. Medical unit with 5 RN and 3 aides. We were getting admits left and right. An admit was coming up and they kept trying to send more. They wouldn't send them to the 4th or 6th floor since we were to be filled first. Our manager was on her way in to do paperwork with an orientee (Why I don't know just paperwork since she knew in advance what was going on). When she got there I told her things were VERY UNSAFE. She told me that we couldn't refuse admits and wouldn't let us do that. I lost it at the desk, (They sent us a few nurse externs and 2RN's from the inpt rehab unit who refused to help much. I had to beg them to pass meds and do admit papers on some patients). I told the 2 rehab RN's that they could just go back if they didn't get to work and help out NOW! Their excuse was that they didn't work on our unit and were unconfortable passing meds on patients they don't know. I told them they were RN's and to do their job.

I ended up talking to the mgr in private and told her that we needed her help for awhile. She told me that she couldn't stay to help she promised her daughter that she would be home soon and the had a plan. I was LIVID. I looked her square in the eye and told her to "GO down to the ER and get some scrubs on and HELP NOW! WE ARE DOWNDING ARE YOU BLIND!". It felt good and I didn't exactly get away with it. But she did let me transfer to where I am now and gave me a good review.

You didn't finish your story. You left out the part about whether she helped or not. Did she?

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

Sorry I thought the post was lost. I having issues while trying to edit it.

No she didn't stay and help. I was pulled into the office a few days later and told that I was having attitude issues. I wasn't allowed to be in charge on the weekends for awhile. (Fine with me).

The 2 rehab RN's did decide to finally help with meds too. I couldn't believe what I was dealing with that day. That made my decision to start looking for a transfer to an ICU along with many other factors.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

deleted.

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Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

How about

How many emails do you have to answer in one day???

How many times are you going to paper shuffle to try and make yourself look busy

Remind me about team playing one more time, whilst you watch me running around like a wild woman

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I am not a mind reader. If I were a mind reader, I would not be working here.

Fuzzy

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Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

We've been short staffed on the floor for a long time now. So why don't you do your job and hire another administrator who can look into the matter and analyze it for the next six months.

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Specializes in Rehab, Infection, LTC.

oh how i would love to say....

"if i hear you say one more time how YOU ran this unit when there were more patients, higher acuity and you did it with one hand behind your back, i'm going to drown you in the river! i've seen you sit at the desk pretending to help all the while saying 'this is fun!' like you are in kindergarden! just shut up for a change! especially when you seem to forget that there are quite a few nurses still here who remember when you worked here before you got your RN and they talk about how awful and stupid you were!"

"for 5 years i have done your dirty work. i have been the one to talk to staff because you 'dont like conflict'. i've been the one taking call and spending hours off the clock staffing the units because you dont do anything with people who constantly call in. and now i'm your scapegoat! you think i dont know that you are blaming everything bad about you on me to the new owners?? but if you think they arent beginning to realize what an idiot you are...then it's going to be one hell of a show when you find out! you gave all the other RNs a 5% raise and gave me a 3% after all ive done for you and then blame it on the VP??? take that 3% and stick it up your butt!"

ooh, im really starting to like this thread....

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1. Please do not invent anymore paperwork or checklists for floor nurses to do. Why not try to streamline the paperwork and charting that floor nurses do instead of bowing to other departments and telling them "I'll have my nurses fill out a form/do a checklist" That way nurses aren't replicating data in three different spots because you want to make two other departments happy.

2. Before you haul another nurse into your office on grounds of a patient complaint, please make sure the patient doesn't have a long psych/criminal history and then don't go off on the nurse because you believed every word of the complaint.

3. Because I work a weekend baylor shift where you can't see me, it does not mean I spend the entire weekend drinking martinis and playing cards with the CNA's. We work just as much as the staff you can see.

4. The circumference of one of your thighs is more than both of mine. Stop wearing stretch pants.

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