Tired of hearing about the kids.

Nurses Relations

Published

I don't know why this bothers me. Probably because I spend five days a week working my butt off in an pediatric emergency room and I am tired! Here is what bothers me.

We started out with full time nurses who worked really hard. Then they all decided at the age of 40 that they wanted to return to school to be FNP's. Fine. Your entitled to enrich your life. Most of them went part time and some PRN. For those who decided to not return to school decided to get pregnant. Every year. Again. Fine. I don't have to take care of them, so have as many kids as you would like. Here in lies the problem. I have kids of my own. I see 200 crying children a day. The ONE day a month you decide to come to work, all you want to do is talk about your kids, show pictures and videos. Try working or picking up patients. I am overloaded with kids and do not want to see your videos. People need to realize, just because YOU enjoy your kids and their every milestone, does not mean your co-workers want to as well. How do you tell your once a month, or 8 hour a week co-worker that you dont want to hear anything about their kids? An occasional picture is OK. But these people are overloading us with pictures and videos. It's so annoying. Can we have some adult conversation?

Specializes in Emergency.

I regularly talk about my kids and husband at work, and have been know to bust out a picture or two, in the break room. I also listen to my co-workers talk about their blind dates, hook-ups, physical training regimes, diets, the movie they saw last week and, yes, pets. I do this with a smile on my face and contentment in my heart, because I value my coworkers and like knowing what they are up too, even if it is boring to me.

It's a problem if it is interfering with work, but if it's during break time I don't see the issue, don't like it? Don't participate.

And for everyone who has been somehow forced into working holidays so a mommy can have them off, I have one word: unionize. That is unheard of where I come from.

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Specializes in RN.
I like hearing about my coworkers lives and seeing pictures to an extent, but I agree when you're swamped and already being pulled in a million directions the last thing you want to do is pretend to listen to a long winded story about their daughters potty training.

It drives me absolutely crazy this time of year though. I'm 23, single, and with no children. Because of this last year I was scheduled Thanksgiving (+ the day before and after), Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. When I complained my boss was like "Well, you don't have children to be home with. New Years was supposed to be my holiday off, but I was still scheduled to work 3-11 PM NYE. Like come on! If we're accommodating employees lifestyles give the young girls the night off lol. I don't mind working the holidays, I'm lucky that my family has been so willing to work around my job. It just annoys me that people feel like because I don't have kids I don't have a reason to be with my loved ones on the holidays.

Another Good reason for UNION representation.

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Not to change the subject but I find the question "what does your husband do?" even more annoying than the talk of kids. I have worked with many nurses who find "what their husband does" to be a status issue, and it is the main topic of their conversation.

Isn't that the truth!

Status issues. One place where I worked, it was so extreme, if you bought a pre-owned house that didn't count.

It only counted if you bought a brand new house never before lived in.

Ridiculous!

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I don't mind co-workers showing me their kids picture but I am more of a "listener" than talker so I enjoyed being on the receiving end of a conversation. I also would show pics of my kids to those who Asks. I even feel bad because I just had a baby and people are like, aren't you going to show pics? Haha.. You are going to regret that request...here comes 5000 pics!

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