Working the evening and overnight shifts in the ER is a lot like being the unfavored child.
The darlings of the day shift enjoy things like adequate staffing. A call out for the day shift? Immediate urgent ping to all staff! Come in and work for double time! Crazy busy! Boarding 6!
They have a charge nurse and a manager on the floor in addition to the department nurse director. None of them take patients. Day staff enjoys perks like breaks, and many free drug-rep sponsored lunches. Baked goods, candy, treats all arrive on day shift. Recipients of various "awards" (photo ops) devised by clipboard commandoes are all day shift divas. They have transport volunteers so they never have to lift a finger to transport their patients. The urgent care part of the ER opens at 9 AM, so they stack potentials in the waiting room starting about an hour prior, then fill those beds up all at once. Heaven forbid they see urgent care patients.
Which brings me to Nurses' Week, the favored Hallmark holiday for administrators with plenty of time on their hands. This year, there were no shitty water bottles. No umbrellas, pens, or other 35 cent items for mass distribution. No "lottery" for a beach basket with everything a person needs to have a fun day by the ocean. No wine basket. No reiki in the break room.
There was a giant cake, courtesy of our buds at the local ambulance service. Very delicious.
Some of the docs were cool, springing for pizzas, a favorite meal from a local chicken place, ice cream with all the fixings, much appreciated and meant more to those of us working the off-shifts than the formal annual pomp and ceremony photo-op "gathering" for nurses week. A selection of ice cream (chocolate and vanilla, from what I heard) and some sprinkles to announce the Big Kahuna's pick for the nurse of the year award, who was a non-clinical administrative Quality darling. Everyone knows Quality is Satan. The sundae bar soiree was held in the middle of the afternoon in the hospital cafe. Bear in mind most staff work 12 hour shifts. Floor nurses are busy with patients, meds, and discharges in addition to the mid-afternoon admission rush. These guys hardly get a pee break and rarely get to lunch, let alone leave the floor en masse to listen to know- nothing admins make speeches. I boycott these "celebrations" on principle, and ya'll can stick your ice cream buffet.
You want happy employees? Send us some damn help on the off-shifts.
3 comments:
Nurse's day celebrations came near the end of my working days, but I vividly recall one "gift." We all received long cardboard tubes that we guessed were some sort of self defense device like MACE or a blackjack since our designated parking area was high crime known for unsavory activity.
The unveiling of the tubes revealed a black and white poster illustrating a beat up pair of nurse's Clinic shoes with a lame caption. Something like, "We appreciate how hard all OUR nurses work." The posters were all tossed into the garbage can in the dirty utility room.
That's some lame gift, I gotta tell ya.
This year they got pizza for nurses day -but all the admin staff came in after 15 minutes, assuming the field nurses would have all been in kitchen at 12N to get pizza. As I walked into the kitchen at 12:20, the last 2 pieces of pizza sailed out of the room, carried by a clerk in fiscal. I got bupkus - other than a few giggles at the face I made when I realized what had just happened....and then I had to put on my happy face and assure our 2 nurse managers that of course I wasn't upset, wasn't really that hungry, and, thanks, no, but I don't want your banana! We see our patients where they live.....so can't just rush out to get in the lunch line. Next year I won't even bother.
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