What do you hate most about your job?

Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN · May 30, 2016

This doesn't affect me so much, but why can't we go back to 8-hour shifts? I wonder all the time about how people with children manage 12-hour shifts as far as picking up and dropping off at day care, school activities, helping with homework, having meals as a family.

Lisa.fnp · May 30, 2016

Hi Lisa.fnp,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Your post almost clarifies this for me, but what exactly is a traveller? Nurses who travel to another region because of a shortage? Why do people sign up to be a travel nurse since they don't get benefits (it sounds like, from what you wrote).
Thanks for any clarity you can add!

The word traveller in your post is a misspelled word, but that's ok I know what you mean. I got into travel nursing after working many years at the same hospital. I got very tired of management and the lies. I got tired of the mentality of some of the physicians. I got tired of the for profit hospital administration's attitudes and policies. A CNO that told us ICU nurses that we where nothing more then part of the room charge. A Nurse Manager yearly assessment of my job performance just calling it average, when my pts and coworkers considered my skills as superior. A maxed out vacation and sick time and not able to collect any more time or money each week, having to let it blow away in the wind each week. Then when wanting to take a vacation and giving 5 month advance written notice for time off I was told "NO". Then there's the dozens of other issues. You can't fix broken and hospitals are broken. So I quit. I went back to school and worked in state as a travel ICU nurse while attaining my Masters. Those years I put on the car odometer many miles, I have a wonderful supportive husband and mentor that encouraged me. Working as a travel nurse while in school opened up many opportunities and additional clinical sites.

Being a travel nurse I felt free. I was free, free from the nurses group monthly meetings with management that goes nowhere, free from counting the meds, free from being canceled or forced to work other units, though not minding that. Free from feeling if I sneezed wrong I would be written up. Free from being Micro managed from know-it-all co nurses though that problem followed me as a travel nurse. I knew how to put a stop to that, I would bring my Resume my first 2 week working a new assignment if the know-it-all micromanage co nurses wanting to be also in charge of everybody and are more worried about what you are doing then their own patient. Saying do you want to see my resume? I have it, would put a stop to that.

Anyhow I worked a Thur, Fri, Sat night shift or a Fri, Sat, Sun night shift for two years and for the first time as a nurse. I felt free to be a nurse without all the hospital issues and this weight on my shoulders. That is what travel nursing done for me. At times it was lonely, nurses don't want to get close to travel nurse I think it's because of two reasons. 1. They don't want to get close to someone they know they will in a few month it's goodbye. 2. They are very jealous of you because your making more money and maybe the nurse you are now replacing was their best friend. I worked hard to make friends. The money was good for working the bedside. I feel every nurse should go into travel nursing for as least one 13 week assignment, the experience is priceless. If your not happy with your job, try travel nursing. I believe nurses would be a lot more happier with the exciting new opportunities.

Ellekat2 · May 30, 2016

As a therapist, you want to help your clientele deal with perceived problems. Many of the problems--poor administration interaction with the staff, electronic charting systems that are designed for billing rather than nursing, inadequate staffing--aren't easily fixed from the bottom up.

How do you teach your clients to deal with these problems?

I have no problem saying "no" when asked to work extra.

However, I can't talk with administrators who refuse to talk to me. This means that when I go into their office, state what the problem is and what I would like to see as a solution, I am told that I have no input.

I do have a problem with working all of the holidays because the scheduler thinks since my children are grown, I don't need holidays off.

I have a problem with the scheduler scheduling me to work one day in the middle of my vacation because she couldn't find anyone else to work. At the time, my son was living in another state and his wife was dying of cancer and they knew I planned to go there. His children were 1, 3, and 5 and he needed help. I left that position.

I have a problem with being told that I can't go to my brother's wedding because we aren't allowed to use vacation on weekends. I called in sick. Nothing was ever said to me about calling in. But why can't I just arrange my time and be honest?

I have a problem with being told I can't take off to take my daughter to her father's funeral because he and I were divorced, even though I had plenty of vacation time and did not ask for funeral leave. There again, I was told I couldn't take vacation on my scheduled weekend to work. This is a different employer, BTW. An HR employee who went to bat for me lost her job over that one.

This isn't happening to just me. One nurse was allowed off for her wedding, but not her honeymoon. Others have been refused time off after thinking they have time off and buying tickets for events, then having to work.

It's almost impossible to deal with administration that doesn't see the staff as human beings who have families and lives separate from their employment. The same administrative staff gets every holiday off, takes of every Friday at noon, and accrues more vacation time per working hour than the floor staff. This isn't an issue that affects only hospitals, either. People who elect to become administrators seem to feel that they are superior to those who do the actual work and seem to feel that they deserve "more"--more money, more time off, more respect, more of everything--simply because they are administrators.

I have worked bad hours, been short-staffed, been frustrated by poor electronic systems and generally had my bad times, but what I hate about my job is the total lack of basic respect for the staff as human beings from those who make decisions that affect both our work and personal lives.

lavenderskies, BSN · May 30, 2016

I work at a pretty great place so I can't say I "hate" anything. But annoying things are an older facility that is bursting at the seams and often breaking. A filthy and too small changing room. Too much time looking at a computer vs patient care. But again....over all a great job.

Maevish, ASN, RN · May 30, 2016

When someone picks on someone else's bad spelling and they themselves misspell things in their critique of said person:D

That being said, there have been things in these responses that either make me feel grateful for my experiences at the bedside or a bit jealous, depending on the issue. Great thread!

xo

NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN · May 30, 2016

I love travelers :). I just don't want 3 on one shift for our small unit. They have to be treated differently, cant take call, can't/won't do certain things that the regulars have to do. When we may only need 2-3 nurses for any night, they get priority to fulfill that contract.

I need to come there!!! Just the other night, I literally had one foot off the elevator at the beginning of my shift when the charge nurse called my name!! I wanted to fake a faint and have the MET TEAM respond to my distress. Needless to say, the shift was a nightmare from start to finish...medication errors and the whole nine!!

NotMyProblem MSN, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN · May 30, 2016

How about you explain exactly what you're informally researching about the needs of nurses?
We've given you a lot of info, so quid pro quo Clarice.

One thing about those tables: they will definitely turn!

GGirll22 · May 30, 2016

People that just assume you know everything in the patient chart....without reading it themselves. PICK it up and read it yourself.......

Jensmom7, BSN, RN · May 30, 2016

Lady? What does Lady mean?

Typo and/or whackadoodle spell check.

I'm guessing the sentence was meant to read "Techs who are lazy..."

Maevish, ASN, RN · May 31, 2016

Being a ICU traveler for many years I wanted to share a thought. When I was a Traveler I had a beautiful home with a mortgage, taxes, electric bill and everything that comes with owning a home including having the grass cut and paying $200.00 a month. I would close it up and I live in a box (figure of speech) with very few personal items many many miles from home. I gave up paid vacations paid sick time paid Health insurance. Friends and family. Had to pay for my own renewals for BLS, ACLS, Tdap test besides yearly physicals and Health Care insurance. Nurses week? What's that. Then when having non paid time off, the expense of driving or flying home and getting a rental car only to be sadden all over again when I left home.
So yes travelers don't count the meds or go to mandatory unit meetings and do some other things that employees would perform. And yes, Travelers are guaranteed hours but after all what they gave up wouldn't they have to be? But in the end all of this is to help your hospital, your place of employment because of a shortage of qualified health care personal in your Community. I'm glad you like many others love travelers and please continue. Maybe you and others can step it up a notch and embrace Travelers as friends and do things with travelers outside work, after all they are always looking for to build friendships. I made the greatest friendships in my years of traveling.

Thank you for that post! As a traveler who's been trying to get out for the last year-and-a-half it was nice to see that someone felt the way I feel now and that someone was sticking up for us. I count meds where I go because they usually end up making me a resource nurse at some point, but I'd go to staff meetings any day to have good insurance and a union again!

xo

Maevish, ASN, RN · May 31, 2016

I have an update for today.

1) Hospitals that are short staffed. And "not hiring" or they "don't have the resources to train a new person". Do you need help or not? I've been applying for over a year, multiple times per month, to different departments as well. Pick a hole.

2) Hospitals that don't follow the nurse:pt ratio laws. Isn't one of the benefits of being in a ratio mandated state the knowledge that you'll be as safe as possible at work?

3) Bosses who expect you to clock out if you're catching up on charting because things were so batsh*t crazy during the shift that you didn't get a chance to. I like my job, but I don't drive 1-2.5 hours each way for fun and I will clock out if a) I was ever screwing around that shift, had plenty of time to chart, but I chose not to, or b) when I'm done charting even if it's OT because the shift was so crazy I couldn't do it in the moment. Too many nurses clock in and just chit chat or stay clocked in after they're done working and that's made it harder for those of us who don't.

4) Recently, when I had asked for 2 nights off at the beginning of this contract and got mucho grief about it (and had to call in one of those nights because the boss went back on his word and I'd had this even planned for 5 months prior), while a fellow traveler didn't have to work any weekends on that same schedule:bored:

5) Fellow nurses who ask if I need help with something and, when I say "That's ok, but I've got it. Thanks", proceed to do said task anyway, then only do it half way. Listen to me when I say I've got it and if you're not going to, do the whole job and not part of it. :grumpy:

xo

lifelearningrn, BSN, RN · May 31, 2016

Lice.