So many of you are amazing people and nurses. The time you put in responding to posts on Allnurses really does make a difference.
BUT.
When people come here asking for advice on a situation, they are not looking for your opinion of them as a person or their behavior. You all know what threads I'm talking about.
It's one thing to point out that their behavior could potentially be dangerous to patients.
It's one thing to be honest and tell them that their future doesn't look too bright.
It's one thing to suggest they may find seeing a therapist very helpful.
It's another to tell them they are mentally ill, mock them RELENTLESSLY, or judge them. When you do this to your fellow nurses (that have just come to you for advice), you're worse than that poor, scared soul you FLAMED for thinking a drug abuser may have a bloodborne illness.
These posters are often simply desperate, scared, or just plain curious!
I know it's important to have a thick skin when you work in healthcare, and I sure as heck am not busting out the trigger-words bully†or NETY.†It's just that even in my CNA class, it was emphasized over and over that it's not our place to judge patients. Can't you afford the same courtesy to other nurses?
I'm generally a pretty quiet person, but I believe in standing up for other people. So I just had to put this out there.
I joined allnurses.com LONG ago, like 13 years. I was super-duper addicted to this site and had 10s of thousands of posts---- (I am NOT exaggerating)----- in just a couple of years. There used to be a form of recognition for the sheer number of posts people had here. I was in the top 2 or 3. Quantity I had down; quality, well IMO that is another story.
Then, something happened to me that I did not like. I got "too into it". I started to take offense at people and things they said, when I would say now, they were rather innocuous and meant no offense at all. I began to get tense and annoyed when people expressed disagreement with me, and often they really seemed "too abrasive" for my liking. I spent WY too much time discussing politics and other hot-button topics and began to develop an attitude that I now am not proud of.
Then I did something I think was wise, in retrospect. I took a LONG break from this site. I am talking YEARS. I was just that annoyed and keyed-up. I stopped seeing the good in what others had to say and saw things so negatively. I was in disagreements to WIN, not to HEAR anything anyone had to say.
I used my brain and realized what I had on my hands was a full-on addiction to conflict and disagreeable behavior. When I look back I feel a bit ashamed and embarassed. Most of the 10s of thousands of my posts were NOT helpful, useful or positive.
That break was a long breath of fresh air. I am glad I took it. I only recently (in the past few months) came back with a new attitude and the promise I would spend no more than 30 minutes, to an hour on the outside, each day here---- and would stay as much away from politics and other hot-button issues as I could.
It's worked. I rarely find anything annoying or offensive. You see, I realized when one takes offense often and with different people, she has to look at the COMMON DENOMINATOR; in this case it was ME.
You can't change others or what they say, but you have within your complete control, HOW you perceive and react to it.
If you ever find yourself becoming increasingly tense, annoyed or frustrated, I suggest a break. Not necessarily long like I had, but a few days to re-took the brain and change your attitude.
It certainly worked for me.
Now some are gonna take offense at anything I say. I am ok with that, as long as I am clear I did not SET OUT to annoy or offend anyone.
I am good with that.
:) Very well said! Is there a way to tag posts so you can revisit them in the future?? I wish I could double like this.
I guess since I liked it I can just visit my liked list. Duh.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
I had something of a parallel experience as SBE. We both joined around the same time and were mods at the same time. We also had similar experiences in becoming easily offended, snippy, argumentative, and spending way too much time on the blue side debating political issues. She finally did the smart thing and bowed out, while I continued to struggle.
It took losing my job as a moderator and being assigned points at one time to get it through my head that my behavior was not compatible with TOS. I knew better, but I wasn't doing better. So I began to rebuild, mindful of my manners, and over time was able to redeem myself. I'm proud of that. To this day I stay away from the political threads (for the most part) because they trigger that old desire to be snarky. And here on the yellow side, I do my best to stay out of the threads that I know are getting ridiculous so I don't feel compelled to respond with sarcasm. I'm not perfect, but I try.
The analogy was not to say that kid and adults are the same. It was to show that arguing that things are how they are and so they shouldn't change for that reason alone is ridiculous. That entire commetn, RNsRWE is a good example of someone taking what one person has said and turning it into something completely different. I didn't intend what I said to be taken in any of the ways you took them. But, in your words: "Like it. Don't like it. Stay. Go. Them's your choices."
Isn't that exactly what BOTH sides of this keep saying? You say I mistook what you said and turned it into something completely different (by the way, the school analogy was yours, but the rest was a composite of other people...not just you, so not directed toward you entirely).
Which proves my point PRECISELY: people can and should be permitted to say exactly what they want, within the boundaries of the TOS of this website, without someone else berating them for their style of writing, because someone is ALWAYS going to mistake it, misunderstand, interpret it differently.
EXACTLY my point!
I personally don't find believing that liking things the way they are and believing that they SHOULD stay the same ridiculous in the slightest. Ok, someone says "hey, maybe we could make this a kind, gentle, nurturing site". Fine, that's reasonable to ask that....and it's JUST as reasonable for someone else to say "nope, I like it the way it is, and it IS the way it is because enough people do like it that way, so it's unlikely to change".
What makes that position ridiculous? Perhaps what IS ridiculous is when a few ask the many to change and expect that asking alone is enough to sway them...?
Hey, here's my nutshell of a bottom line: I don't ever set out to be rude or disrespectful. Could I be seen that way sometimes? Sure. And yet others will read the very same words and thank me for having said them, finding nothing rude or disrespectful in them. Someone's offense isn't my problem in those situations, it's theirs.
At the end of the day, it's ME I have to live with, just like any of the rest of the people here. If at the end of the day someone feels they said something they shouldn't have, they always have the option of coming back and apologizing. I, personally, have done so when I felt something I said was out of line. More often than not, though, I don't feel that such latter-day editing is warranted (speaking for myself alone, of course).
And at the end of the day, if I feel I would say whatever it was I said to that person's face.....then I have no problem with having said it in the first place, on a message board.
The problem I see with berating or complaining about a post because it is "rude"is that the word "rude" is very subjective. Why do YOU get to define it instead of someone else? Why is YOUR definition the correct one rather than someone else's definition?
The mods have the ultimate say. Use your triangle when you believe it's appropriate. If the post stays, then it behooves YOU to evaluate your trigger finger.
The problem I see with berating or complaining about a post because it is "rude"is that the word "rude" is very subjective. Why do YOU get to define it instead of someone else? Why is YOUR definition the correct one rather than someone else's definition?
The mods have the ultimate say. Use your triangle when you believe it's appropriate. If the post stays, then it behooves YOU to evaluate your trigger finger.
I don't know why but I love the word "behooves". It sounds like such a goofy word to me.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
The problem I see with berating or complaining about a post because it is "rude"is that the word "rude" is very subjective. Why do YOU get to define it instead of someone else? Why is YOUR definition the correct one rather than someone else's definition?
I really wish I could 'Like' this a few dozen times. The whole thread could be summed up in this nutshell: Why do YOU get to define "rude" instead of someone else?
Most people -- myself included -- who take the time to type up 500 word answers to someone's questions are doing it with the intent of being helpful. Then the OP (or someone else whose dilemma closely resembles the OP's) takes offense and calls the post "rude". And we then go into debating whether the poster who took the time to answer the question is "always rude", "eats their young", "is a mean old biter nurse" or a "crusty old bat." And the helpful nuggets in the 500 word post get lost.
Not only do I know those words, I USE them! With one exception: I have never heard of "cattywampus". I will now have to toddle off and learn what the heck that is....
ETA: I followed the link, but no cattywampus to be found! I Googled it and learned that I have, at times, had frames on my wall that were indeed cattywampus
"Picky-picky-picky!" Not as an opinion, but just to be obnoxious.
"Shut-
brandiep1982
236 Posts
:) Very well said! Is there a way to tag posts so you can revisit them in the future?? I wish I could double like this.
I guess since I liked it I can just visit my liked list. Duh.