Vent

[TheMoonisMyLantern]

So, I have got to get this off my chest. All day today I was at a mandatory inservice that was provided by non-clinical staff for nursing staff. As I have come to expect from our in person inservices and classes addressed to nursing staff, the day was filled with games and activities complete with cutesy pictures and language. The material was presented as though we were all in kindergarten. I am all for using various tools for education when the material warrants it, but the information we were going over today was very basic and not rocket science. If the topics had been convoluted or difficult to grasp, sure, use an activity or prop to make them more tangible, otherwise just tell me what I need to know and don't make me participate in some infantile game. Yes, I'm being paid, so maybe I shouldn't complain but I would much rather be giving patient care and actually working. I just can't help but wonder if they would have used the same approach with physicians, accounting, or some other department and I say this because my entire career required educational meetings and inservices have always been presented this way as opposed to adhering to a professional or academic format. Have other people experienced this or is it just common in my area?

Another thing, off topic but in the same vein, why do things related to nursing have to feel so demeaning? Pizza parties by management, a pen with the company logo for nurses's week, hell even our award for recognition is called the DAISY award! It sounds like an award a girl scout would get, not a skilled, educated professional.

There, I got it out of my system.

I do realized that I could just be a stick in the mud, and that's entirely possible too, I just prefer to embrace my inner child at home, not at work ?

[Daisy4RN]

4 hours ago, mclifford said:

So here is my vent:

While I realize it is frustrating to you, but sometimes the basics have to be reviewed for others attending. The games are part of using different platforms to help with learning. As a manager, pizza is easy, often I am paying out my pocket for it ( as many other managers do), so you sound a little ungrateful to me. We are trying to show that we value your time, and in a way say thanks. As manager we don't often like to make things mandatory but sometimes it is necessary. By not going you are being disrespectful, in my opinion. Most mandatory meeting are related to patient care, or patient safety, by purposefully not going you are give a message that speaks to professionalism. It does not go unnoticed. How some managers act is not up to par, but I often feel like I have to treat people as they are children, because that is the way they act. I find the thread sad-

My problem with the pizza party mentality is when this is the only time that a manager attempts to show that s/he values an employee's time. There are more meaningful ways to do this. I also understand that sometimes different media are used but it is still important to remember that the participants are adults. One course I took had us all making paper airplanes, we were not amused nor did learn anything from that. I do agree with you that some adults act like children but I dont think that as professionals management should treat them that way, it only makes the situation worse, they should be expected to behave like the adults they are. I would be upset if people were not attendinng the mandatory meetings, falling asleep etc but I would provide adult consequences for their actions bc I agree it is disrespectful, and also insubordination if mandatory. This thread is titled Vent for a reason, I am sure you can understand the employee's point of view (maybe?, just a little?).

[Katillac, RN]

4 hours ago, mclifford said:

So here is my vent:

While I realize it is frustrating to you, but sometimes the basics have to be reviewed for others attending. The games are part of using different platforms to help with learning. As a manager, pizza is easy, often I am paying out my pocket for it ( as many other managers do), so you sound a little ungrateful to me. We are trying to show that we value your time, and in a way say thanks. As manager we don't often like to make things mandatory but sometimes it is necessary. By not going you are being disrespectful, in my opinion. Most mandatory meeting are related to patient care, or patient safety, by purposefully not going you are give a message that speaks to professionalism. It does not go unnoticed. How some managers act is not up to par, but I often feel like I have to treat people as they are children, because that is the way they act. I find the thread sad- 

If you read the OP, you'll remember that the in service she talked about was given to nursing staff. They, as well as the group of RNs shown the hand drawing of a bronchial tree, already have a basic understanding of patient care and patient safety, which you believe most mandatory meetings are about. And even when shown to a group of employees across the levels of all disciplines, cutesey language and pictures are demeaning to people you want to behave like adult professionals, but are being treated like children.

And honestly, the pizza and gratitude thing. . . let me save you some money. If you want me to believe my time is valued, help vet the in services and see to it that we don't get treated like children by the presenters. Stand up before the presentation and say sincerely that you appreciate that people have come in on their day off, or come in early or stayed late. Explain to us what value you hope we'll find in the material being presented. Ask the attendees for their feedback, and then communicate to the attendees what you learned from the comments and how it will help shape future education.

But a slice of pizza because it's cheap - and as you explain, easy - makes me feel NOT valued like an adult professional but rather like the toddler given a cookie to keep him placated and quiet during church.

[James W.]

Yeah, seems like manager mclifford could 'usefully' attend

some extra (mandatory) intensive 'feline-sensitivity' training.

Herding cats/RN's requires a certain finesse, & frustration tolerance.

Mere junk/comfort-food incentives only go so far, y'know.

It likely will not fully compensate for the compulsory egg-sucking

routines so blithely imposed - as an employment condition.

I mean, we all know that the 'mandatory sign-off' stuff drips down

from well 'above' clinical management level, due to 'Corporate/Legal'

set 'requirements' that must absolve said organisation from any kind of

malconduct by (potential) 'loose cannon' clinicians, who might later claim:

' No, I hadn't been duly advised of that particular (dumb-***)policy implementation.

The longheld expectation that the likes of adminstration/HR are there to 'support' the efficacious functions of clinical staff - in the needful peformance of their essential patient care duties - has it seems, (sadly), now been fully subverted by the overweeningly self-important, pay-grade based, top-down, heirarchical structure (through the 'profitable industrial-complex model') however bad it actually is, in the context of intensive healthcare provision*.

Well, so it seems to me, anyhow - having lived through this insidiously creeping 'make work' pressure instigated/promulgated by excessive growth of non-productive mittel-Mx in health settings - seen over recent decades.

* Florence Nightingale had of course, duly, (& painfully) reflected on this awful truth herself, despite her own huge ideological investment, way back when.

[pixierose, BSN, RN]

8 hours ago, mclifford said:

So here is my vent:

While I realize it is frustrating to you, but sometimes the basics have to be reviewed for others attending. The games are part of using different platforms to help with learning. As a manager, pizza is easy, often I am paying out my pocket for it ( as many other managers do), so you sound a little ungrateful to me. We are trying to show that we value your time, and in a way say thanks. As manager we don't often like to make things mandatory but sometimes it is necessary. By not going you are being disrespectful, in my opinion. Most mandatory meeting are related to patient care, or patient safety, by purposefully not going you are give a message that speaks to professionalism. It does not go unnoticed. How some managers act is not up to par, but I often feel like I have to treat people as they are children, because that is the way they act. I find the thread sad-

So just to confirm, I had a talk with a very good friend of mine since my teen years. She’s now a physician at a busy ED in a nearby state.

They don’t review “the basics.” There are no cutesy games being played, no team building. Their in-services are discussion based, using their contributions to lead the way.

This is all I’m asking. For crying out loud, some of the nurses I work with (and are attending) have been RNs for 40 years. Many have advanced degrees. And we learn and work hard. If we are sitting there drooling, it’s because we are either so exhausted we’re sleeping with our eyes open or we’re bored out of our minds.

I used to be a teacher. I’m all for various learning methodologies and the like. But dumbing down the material, preaching or otherwise making me fall backward into the arms of a coworker is not treating me like the professional that I am.

[TheMoonisMyLantern, ADN, LPN, RN]

18 hours ago, mclifford said:

So here is my vent:

While I realize it is frustrating to you, but sometimes the basics have to be reviewed for others attending. The games are part of using different platforms to help with learning. As a manager, pizza is easy, often I am paying out my pocket for it ( as many other managers do), so you sound a little ungrateful to me. We are trying to show that we value your time, and in a way say thanks. As manager we don't often like to make things mandatory but sometimes it is necessary. By not going you are being disrespectful, in my opinion. Most mandatory meeting are related to patient care, or patient safety, by purposefully not going you are give a message that speaks to professionalism. It does not go unnoticed. How some managers act is not up to par, but I often feel like I have to treat people as they are children, because that is the way they act. I find the thread sad-

The level of my gratitude reflects the amount of effort put forward by management. Per your own words pizza is "easy." I don't require positive affirmation to do my job, what I do require are adequate working conditions, a raise more frequently than every 5 years, health insurance that doesn't dramatically increase in price and decrease in coverage every year, adequate PTO for work life balance, and retirement that isn't laughable. You know, things that most professionals expect in return for their services.

What I find sad is that you find employees wanting to be treated with respect for being the professionals they are the same as acting as children.

18 hours ago, mclifford said:

[TriciaJ, RN]

On 2/21/2019 at 8:53 PM, Wuzzie said:

I have three words that should strike fear in the hearts of nurses everywhere...

Relationship Based Care.

Since I'm retired, I had to look this up and I'm sorry I did. Same old crap, re-sliced, re-diced and repackaged. I'm off to lobotomize myself with an ice pick.

[Daisy4RN]

2 hours ago, TriciaJ said:

Since I'm retired, I had to look this up and I'm sorry I did. Same old crap, re-sliced, re-diced and repackaged. I'm off to lobotomize myself with an ice pick.

I am semiretired and had to look it up also. I completely agree with your description of it being the same tired old crap.

I love your response ("lobotomized myself with an ice pick").

You literally made me LOL, thx for the laugh of the day!!