Black Hole

Management Complaint List of the Day

Daily Complaint List; choose your favorite Staff reminder

1. Why did you guys work so late last night? (more than an hour after patients departed)

It could be that we needed to catch up on charting for the patients we took care of over the past 8 hours (the charting we didn’t have time for); we cleaned all the beds and placed new linen; restocked the IV trays; made sure there were enough IV pumps; made sure that all the charts for tomorrow were present and accounted for; set-up the white-board with the clients names for tomorrow; did the billing; turned off the monitors to reboot; and left the joint tidy and neat for the 5am folks.

2. Why didn’t you get your breaks…...we assigned them to you at certain times?

Could it be that if I took my break when you assigned it, the fact that I couldn’t get my patient ready on time (and work wasn’t done while I was gone), upset the flow in the Cath Lab? Or maybe, I found myself watching 4 patients in the room, and I knew that you the Charge Nurse could not be my break nurse buddy, because you would not stay in the room while I was gone;

or I’m in EP with one other nurse and you won’t send a third nurse to cover for our breaks, and some how, you want to lay the blame on me for not taking my break, when you assigned it, but couldn’t cover it.

3. You can’t take your breaks at the end of the shift; why didn’t you take it earlier?

Well, I’m thinking that this violates Labor Law, because I can’t forfeit my breaks, merely because you, Charge Nurse, can’t figure out when we are truly understaffed, and/or, you don’t care to do anything about it.

4. Our HPPD hours were only_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _; what were you guys doing yesterday?

Why not ask the Elephant in the room…..Big E, do you give a rats ass about HPPD hours? No, says Big E, because I come to work to do what is best for the client….and Mr. Public doesn’t even care about your idiotic transmogrification of patient-care hours into some gobbledygook formula that tells Management whether or not the Nurses are working their asses off in a safe manner or not (make that a “responsible fiscal approach to Nursing).

5. Your shift starts at time X; you must be in the unit, exactly at that time, and working!

Wait a minute…..find me any other Nursing floor where the Nurses are expected to be doing patient-care at the very minute they walk in the door. Not likely…..and how about the issue where our breakroom, time-clock and lockers are two floors away. You say I can’t clock in more than 7 minutes early, but then you want me here on time to work instantly. Oh, and I can’t have any food or drink for me, while I’m in the unit (remember the break room? it is 2 floors distant). Nuts!

6. Why are you looking that way when I talk to you; are you reacting to something I said? You know, Billy-Bob, that is why people don’t like addressing (confronting) you when they need to talk about something important; did you know how you appear to others?

Uh, you’re kidding, right? Here is where Billy-Bob feels at a loss for words. There is no safe way out of this management confrontation; any response is a potential land-mine. Because the accuser is already convinced that you did something wrong, your response will be interpreted as being aggressive and excessive, particularly, because in reality, you are being attacked by your “leader”. Your best action is to spray some Holy Water, pull out the Crucifix, throw the garlic garland over their head and start chanting obscure Latin phrases.

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7. Although improbable, wouldn’t it be fantastic if we came in tomorrow, and our Charge Nurse said the following:

Billy Bob and Mary Lou, thanks for taking the time last night to spiff up our humble Unit. Also, you guys are incredible, because I know how much junk you have to deal with at the end of your shift, making it ready for morning. You are so good to our late clients, because they are anxious to go home, but they need some high quality TLC and excellent discharge teaching. I’m sure that is one of the reasons we continue to receive all the “high five” Patient Satisfaction scores, you know, our whole team here totally ROCKS!

Hot Damn, we’re good!

Now, that truly would reflect DIGNITY.

But it will never happen in this universe; it got washed out 4000 rinse-cycles ago.

All that Human Kindness sucked into a black hole.