We all have our pet peeves, something that we are SURE is rude whether it bothers others or not. So I'm wondering -- what bothers you?
Things that bother me:
In a nurse's station with four or five unused computers, why does anyone have to sit down at the one I'm using, clearly marked with my scut sheet, my pen, my drink and my charting all pulled up and not finished? They take my spot, log me off (so I have to start over with any charting I didn't sign before the arrhythmia alarm jolted me out of my seat) and log in over me. Then when I return, they tell me "I didn't see your name on it." Why not just use the computer with the screensaver up and no ones stuff there?
People who put their feet up on the chairs in the nurse's station. Not only does it look totally unprofessional to anyone who visits the station, including families, but the C. Diff that that they' we picked up on their shoes is now transferred to the impossible-to-clean fabric chairs in the nurse's station.
Saying "no prob" in response to a thank you.
Taking the nurse's chair. Our rooms has a sofa and two chairs for visitors, a recliner for the patient and a chair at the computer station for the nurse to use when charting. So why do the visitors always have to take the nurse's chair? Clearly, the nurse can't chart from the sofa.
After you've taken the nurse's chair, why give me attitude when I ask you NOT to sit in front of my computer, but to sit in one of the five spots provided for visitors?
Visitors using the patient bathroom.
Staff who let patients use the staff bathroom. I've never been able to figure that one out.
I have no idea what vaxed or devaxed means (and just searched and didn't find the answer) - but with patients or family members like that - the Expecting Way Too Much variety - we'll have to become Barista/Concierge/RN's.
Just to let you know - non-organic and some organic produce, especially fruits, are covered with thin layer of food-grade synthetic vax so that they will not lose water too quickly. It prolongs shelf life. Some people, for some unknown reason, think that this vax causes cancer and everything else; it is not so (it is essentially a paraffin, so it is not digested or absorbed). For those, and also for some kinds of specialized cooking, like zesting, there are special "devaxers" and "fruit washes", sold for ridiculous money. A lot of hot water and a piece of steel wool do just the same.
Anyway, adding any type of lemon in oolong tea doesn't look any clever for anyone with any at all knowledge about the subject. As doesn't treating one's nurse as a waitress with additional option of pill distribution (BTW, tea in question was supposed to wash down prozaic mix of Xanax, Soma and oxymorphone).
I just love it when a sick-as-stink patient's family member repeatedly asks me to get the pt something to drink when I have repeatedly given the reasons that pt is NPO. I love it even more when after the fourth time in 20 minutes that I've explained this, the family member calls me a "******* ******," for not allowing even an ice chip. Yeah. Love that. Especially when I hear that pt died less than 5 hours later.
My other favorite is when I've been in a critical patient's room for hours and hours on end and have only left to go pee and to grab meds and other supplies to keep the patient alive, alarms are blaring from one of the four IV pumps, the vent or the monitor and my room phone is ringing me....there are bougies and blood on the floor...the patient's wife comes up to me and says, "When you get a fresh pot of coffee made, I'll take a cup. Just a little cream and sugah, but not too much, dear."
Yeah. Love that sh!t.
Especially when you run out out of the room to grab yet another bag or something else, and the first thing you see coming back is that relative, wandering aimlessly around and asking everybody and you too to put dear one on the bedpan, right now. Because they already waiting forever and "nobody is near and nobody cares". You were out of the room for maybe 90 seconds, and both pressor pumps are very near empty.
Today I caught one such forever concerned soul and tried to explain her that, despite we all working as a team and blah, it still doesn't make it ok to catch random people in the corridor and expect them to drop everything then and there and hurry up to satisfy her dear one while my other patient, for example, needed those only-30-minutes-alive platelets, for which I was literally counting seconds in my head. On what I got the perfect reasoning: I do not care about anyone else, if he or she was alive and well 5 min before, then another 5 min doesn't matter, right?
Not right, m'dear. Absolutely. Not. Right.
I really though that whining forever about "what, it takes only some few minutes and YOU're not up to help, you lazybone" is one of the stereotypical features of my motherland' folks. Man, what a mistaken impression...
I live in gated apartments where the gate opens with a clicker. What's rude is when I click open the gate to enter and an a-hole decides to exit through the my entrance instead of patiently waiting for their exit hate to open
Driviers that tailgate me in the middle lane when I'm already 5 over the speed limit
A-holes that don't know how to make turns at a median
People on Facebook that have no medial or nursing degree yet act as if they are a health expert
Nursing
When I'm traveling down the hallway with a critically ill patient and A-holes don't move out of the way (typically doctors and other healthcare people) hello people stretchers always have the right of way especially if you see 3 people wheeling a patients. Get out the way or get ran over.
When nephrology is at bedside and each of the residents start asking me what the CVP is.
A) Put the patient supine and look @ the monitor and
B) OK fine I'll do it for you but after I announce it once please ALL of you make note and everyone stop asking me over and over. Listen up, yo.
When the anesthesiologist resident comes to take my patient for surgery and asks me three times what the dose is on the levophed. You need a q-tip, sister?
When the night nurses leave the trash overflowing. All the tubing is expired. All the dressing changes are due. Listen at least empty the trash please.
What's rude is when someone posts on allnurses, you respond in a half joking/half advice giving sort of way. And then that person goes bat**** crazy on you!
All of a sudden I'm now "flaunting" the fact that I am an RN with a bachelor's degree, I "haze" people trying to become nurses, I'm cocky, and I'm dyslexic to boot. Yes.....dyslexic.
Ok on the "thanks" etiquette: I happen to have the habit of saying "you bet" after being thanked. Sometimes I say "my pleasure" too. Seems "you're welcome" is so overused, that for many it's just a habit, not a true sentiment of gratitude anymore.....
Is THAT considered rude???
I am not a millenial nor quite a boomer....... I don't think what I am doing is really wrong, but if it sounds rude, maybe I am.
Maybe I am just too literal and say thank you too much. If a student hands me their homework, I say thank you, and they say no problem. In my mind, I think, why would it be a problem?
A serve in a restaurant brings the soda I ordered, refills my water, delivers my food, clears away dishes. Each time, I say thank you, and they say no problem. It my mind, I think again, why would there have been a problem?
I think I shall start to say no problem instead of thank you, just to see if there is a different reply.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
"No problem" is an ANSWER to thank you, not the thank you itself. I see nothing rude about it. Thanking is always called-for when someone does something for you, but the answer back, if there is one, to me, is all good. Acknowledgment is enough for me. I don't get hung up over that stuff.
Chipping a perfect manicure getting ready for work and having to take all the polish off.
Someone at MY vanity at the gym when I need to do my hair and makeup for work. Yes, I know this is irrational. It's NOT MY vanity Still bugs me. Working on getting over it.
Nurses and CNA's hiding dinamaps/glucometers/printers in patients rooms. Intentionally or unintentionally... it needs to stop. I had a patient tell me the other day that he felt like his blood sugar crashed and it took almost 5 minutes to find a glucometer to check him. NOT cool.
Family members taking computer chairs from the hallways into rooms.
Buddy system for lunch and mandated 30 minute breaks. I do NOT want to wait until 2 PM to eat lunch. I'd rather eat now and take my own calls than burden someone else who is likely busy with it. Sure, give someone that demands an uninterrupted break that, make it work. But I don't care. Just want to eat lunch at roughly the same time every day and I can so long as I am left to do my own business and take care of my own patients.
Medical professionals with chipped manicures or unwashed hair. Ick.
Family members who enable their ill loved ones self-destructive life styles. (Bringing a huge meal chock full of carbs to a diabetic patient when the nurse is not looking)
Hehe :) That was fun.
Strangely, though I like staking out my own chair, marking it with my lab coat and leaving my folded clipboard at the desk, I'm not too peeved whenever someone else uses it so long as they move along in 15-20 minutes or so. Even if they log me out. It only takes a second to log into another computer, and all of our charting saves automatically.
Nursing: people who answer the phone without identifying themselves or department, and conversely, people who do not listen as I identify myself and department.
Non-nursing: cashiers who continue their conversation with coworkers while ringing you up, never making eye contact through the whole transaction. And the "no problem" in lieu of "you're welcome." I once almost wrote no problem in the line for a tip at a restaurant instead of a $ amount. The service was fair, but the no problem was grating.
These 2 things for sure. As far as not identifying yourself when answering the phone...
When you say, "Hello. Who am I speaking with?". And they get an attitude.
Cashiers...As I am standing there, waiting....they pause to cont their conversation and then forget where they were in my transaction, and then I wait more...Especially when they pause in their own conversation and can't just quickly say whatever they are saying. They have to stop and think about it...I just want to scream and say..."Please just finish my transaction and get on with your conversation afterwards." There is no one else in the line.
These 2 things for sure. As far as not identifying yourself when answering the phone...
When you say, "Hello. Who am I speaking with?". And they get an attitude.
I once had a doctor answer his phone "What?" I replied "is this Dr. so and so" he lost his mind in anger because "You f*ing call me, you should know who the f* you're calling."
This is really infuriating when calling through an answering service, you don't know if you were connected to the correct person if they refuse to identify themselves. Ugh!
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Still bugs me. Working on getting over it.
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
I don't mind one bit hearing "no problem" after I thank someone. I am just glad to be acknowledged. Another hill I ain't gonna die on.