We Don't Monkey Around In SICU

[SICU Queen]

That is our unit's NEW motto. Can you believe it?

Our manager (who is over MICU, SICU, Telemetry, and Respiratory), in her infinite wisdom and experience, has decided that we need a bulletin board in each unit's waiting area that has pictures and names of each staff member so that the families will know who is caring for their loved ones.

In general, I don't have a problem with that. However, the manager and one of the clinical coordinators went to our local "Education Station", where they sell all kinds of school supplies and whatnot, and proceeded to buy little animal cutouts of monkeys and fish, and also some hearts, to put our pictures on.

MICU will be on the fish, Telemetry will be on the hearts, and WE (SICU) will have our faces on CUTOUT MONKEYS with the title of the board being "We Don't Monkey Around In SICU!" God only knows what kind of bullsh*t they have thought up for the fish.:chuckle

Now, can you just IMAGINE what these family members are going to be thinking of us when they see our faces on monkey bodies? After they laugh themselves sick, they're going to be highly concerned about the quality of care their loved ones are going to get "in the jungle with the apes."

After protesting loudly, I told the clinical coordinator that I was going to tape up some baboon pictures and write the motto "We Have The REDASS 'cause We're So Understaffed!" and let the families see that. They might as well, it looks like there's elementary school students caring for their post CABGs.

I'm just disgusted.

[mattsmom81]

Good Lord. Sounds like an idea on a pediatric unit...maybe it would be a fun and useful plan with KIDS but.....how demeaning.

My last facility came up with reversible 'smiley and frowny faces' and put them on every patient's bedrail, next to 'smiley buck' award forms. The nurses nominated for keeping the most smiley faces up would receive a smiley buck from management ---redeeemable for a coke or saved up for cash award. It was a fiasco and people were sucking up and teaming up to accumulate the bucks and split the cash award.

Disgusting what management comes up with next to 'deprofessionalize' us, isn't it?

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

:roll :roll :roll :roll

OMG!!!!!

I'm sorry. I know this peeves you off, but this is just too STRANGE!!

Baboon butts! ROFL!!!!!:chuckle

[Stargazer]

Wow. This is just...wow. I was trying to think of something clever to say, but I'm having a hard time bringing the funny. I have literally been staring at the computer screen slack-jawed for the last five minutes.

Yes this is demeaning, yes this is unprofessional, and yes, it is completely inappropriate for an adult critical-care unit. What a great way to shake that "nurses are trained monkeys" image. Except, not.

I would get a petition together and get as many in-house signatures--from your unit and elsewhere--as you can and take it above your manager's head. As a family member of a SICU patient, I can't imagine I would find it at all reassuring to see a picture of my loved one's nurse taped above a dancing monkey body.

Geeze. Just when you think you've heard everything.....

[mario_ragucci]

I'd create a periodic table of elements, but, instead of the elements, I'd put peoples faces in place of the atomic weights and numbers. We are all made of elements, so this would have a literal application. Some people are inert, and others are reactive, depending on their outer shells, and how full those shells are.

Mario (the sub-atomic druid)

[Q.]

I'm confused because, if the motto is "we don't monkey around in SICU," why are monkeys used to frame your faces?

I mean, on top of being humiliating, it's contradictory anyway. I would refuse to have my picture on there and would find a new job. This is getting ridiculous.

[SharonH, RN]

That's awful! You have my condolences.

[Level2Trauma]

You could always put up a BB for administration and use a picture of a Jackass and a picture of a hole in the ground with the motto...."Our Administration doesn't Know Their A$$ from a hole in the Ground" Sounds like it might fit. Seriously though, In this day and time I disagree with anyone knowing our full names much less having it on a BB for the lunatics and psychotics to gloat over. This is pathetic but merely a reflection of what the organizations we work for think of us. JMO.

[Stargazer]

You could always put up a BB for administration and use a picture of a Jackass and a picture of a hole in the ground with the motto...."Our Administration doesn't Know Their A$$ from a hole in the Ground"

BWAH ha ha ha haaa!! That is perfect. I would SO do this, if it were me.

[zumalong]

Not only is this soooo unprofessional that I am speechless, but as level2trauma said--it is dangerous. Our Hospital doesn't even have last names on our badges, let alone personal info about each nurse. Too many crazies out there.

I would keep pulling names down and anonymously substitute management's name for each monkey. How do others in your unit feel????

[P_RN, ADN, RN]

report this to the grievance committee as harrassment. make the report in writing and have it put in your file and the manager's file. as always keep a copy.

refuse to allow your picture there and pull it down if you see it there.

get up the petition.

write the newspaper.

maybe a "free" consultation and a letter from a lawyer...they usually will write one for free.

then if all else fails.......do the jacka$$ and hole and have the newspaper come take a picture of it.

and the fish...for pete's sake would probably be

"we are your nurses!we swim, poop and eat at the same place. we are your nurses!"

[sharann, BSN, RN]

I'm with zumalong 100%! Your nurses must not stand for this crap. Either take your pictures down (they have no right to use your image against your will) or try acting collectively AS A UNIFIED front. If nurses can't stick together to abolish this petty, demeaning utter nonsense , then you may as well start eating bananas in the hallway and dragging your knuckles on the ground. (Maybe admin will install vines in the hall so the nurses can swing from room to room easily?)

Good luck. You have my sympathies, but I urge you all to stop this insanity NOW!