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Everyone has something (or someone) that annoys him or her at the hospital. It could be faulty medical equipment or nurses who don’t pull their own weight. But nobody’s complaining about you, right?
Not so fast. Even though your mom, friends, or significant other may worship the ground you walk on, there could be some people you work with who are far from your biggest fans. Your dirty jokes may be a hit at home, but that doesn’t mean they sit well with the Chief of Surgery.
Here are 10 things that you might be doing to annoy your fellow nurses — consider changing your ways before it’s too late!
Annoyance No. 1: (Loud) Personal Calls
It might sound insensitive, but nobody wants to hear about your kids getting sick or how angry you are with your significant other. Nor do they want to be in on your weekend ski trip plans or that embarrassing thing your friend did at the bar last night.
Even innocuous subjects should rarely be discussed at length on the phone within earshot of patients and nurses. Personal information can make others feel uncomfortable, and constant chatting on the phone about non-hospital subjects can make you look like someone who isn’t getting their work done. If you must make a personal call, it’s best to either walk outside, make the call in a deserted corridor, or wait until your shift is over. Leave the hospital phone for work conversations only.
Number 4 is the worst! I can’t stand kiss-ups and tattle tales!!!!
For me number 9 is the worst. I hate hearing gossip and all the guessing that goes along with it. I purposely try to find something good to say about the person/situation…or just quietly leave and go on about my real business for being at work…..that of being a good nurse.
I loathe inordinate amounts of meetings considered,’required.’ Equally, I loathe: slackers who a) look for ways to get time off,especially “sick time”, b) arrive late/leave early everyday (without being repremanded), and c) tattle-tales/busy bodies..There,*dusting hands* that pretty well sums it up.
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Student
Nursing Student (you can change this when you graduate!)
Same here…and I’m not even a nurse yet but I hate it when my class mates come in late and get upset when the instructor won’t allow us to leave early. Either that or they get mad when the instructor takes the time to demonstrate a skill that THEY feel they have already mastered. I’m like, “Why are you even here?!”
i love this post. reminds us to watch our own actions in the workplace.
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I’d like to add one more – people who constantly text on company time. I can understand if you need to text your babysitter that you’re working late or answer one text from your child or spouse but I work with some people who text nonstop all day long. Same goes for getting on facebook, twitter, etc from your smart phone. If it were up to me, I’d ban cell phones from the work place. Too much temptation.
What bothers me is someone who is not flexible enough to see that you can’t always go by turn, things happen that necessitate flexibility in assignment. I cover two units in my hospital and am expected to lend a hand when I’m not busy with my emergency assignment, and I’ve always done so without being asked to help. However, when it’s my turn to go to my area, no one steps up to the plate to help me with my patient even if I’m gone for 7 hours at a time. I am the only RN (nurse) that covers the area and is in charge of the patient. So it’s the folks who say “that’s not my patient” that bother me so much, that I’ve nearly gotten myself in trouble over the years.
If you people have time to do ANY of those things, I want to work where you do. Do you live in TV land or something?. I hit the ground running. I don’t have a “personal space” unless you call it my med cart and if you think I have time to organize it neatly just to suit some anal retentive who is apparently not doing her work if she needs to police MY med cart, you have another thing coming. There is no time for “lengthy personal calls” or “pranks” etc. Also,you must “suck up” to get promoted which is why I’m still on the floor. I have worked all over the country in all kinds of hospitals and it’s still the case, if you are doing your job you will not have time to get annoyed at what everyone else is doing
MIA nurses not only drive other nurses crazy, their recruiters go up the wall. I find it pretty hard to take someone seriously as a professional if they just pick up and leave their job in the middle of a shift…
I have to disagree with a statement made by Katrina…I don’t believe you have to “suck up” to be promoted…I have been a nurse for 15 years and made the gradual transition from floor nursing to management by skill, not by “sucking up.” I rarely called out, showed up on time and filled in as I was able. I was qualified for the positions that I was applying for and was selected based upon my knowledge and skill set…to say that fellow nurses are promoted based upon “sucking up” is an insult to their intelligence…and frankly, quite ignorant.
Your med cart should always be organized and clean to provide quality care to patients, we won’t even touch upon the infection control issues here.
Maybe you are still on the floor because of your disposition? Just goes to show, mutual respect within the nursing field is sadly lacking.
You couldn’t be MORE WRONG! Miss goody 2 shoes! Katrina is right. I don’t know what world your workin in!
1. Nurses who don’t change out the tubing when it’s due or don’t date the tubing
2. Nurses who don’t change the dressings on picc lines when they are due
3. Nurses who don’t get out of the way when it’s time for me to start doing my job. It’s common courtesy to move to a computer someplace else so that the next shift can get busy.
4. Leaving a mess at the work station.
5. Leaving a mess in the med room
6. Not getting rid of equipment that is no longer needed.
LPN
Licensed Practical Nurse
Nothing makes me more upset than to open the med cart and there are no insulin syringes in there. Or neb tx, tape, any of the millions of things we use daily. When I finish my shift, I add more spoons, cups, souffle cups, straws, ice water, and empty the trash. Nobody ever does that when I am coming on shift. I like to say to myself its the young new nurses that don’t know. but I realize that any nurse can be this way. I had a nursing instructor 20 years ago, that harped over and over and over about “clean up after yourself, put things back, “
Relatively new nurse here…and must say that I have always been one to clean up after myself, restock, etc. Also drives me crazy if someone before me does not do these things (understanding, of course, that on a very busy shift, it can’t always get done.) I do agree that some of my peers in school did not seem to deem these tasks as important, but do think it is more individual than simply “young new nurses”.
I agree with Kris on her lists of things. Those six things drive me nuts.
I agree with all 6 things also.. but I just thought maybe I was too much of a perfectionistand been in nursing too long …I am getting cranky alot..
I have been in nursing for 30 years. Med carts should be kept clean and organized period. It just makes it easier to work. MIA nurses scare me and I wonder how they get away with it. Climbing the ladder should be via smart work and higher education. I have seen many people get manager positions without the back up they needed and were quickly demoted. Hardwork, knowledge, and attitude are what really help us to stay focused. My love of nursing has always been at the bedside. But above all we must take care of ourselves first so we can be our best and do our best at work. When we leave at the end of the day leave the job at the door. Take it off like a jacket and focus on home once you leave.
The problem I have noticed in nursing is the lack of support we give each other. We no longer have the post clinical conference to hash out what just happened. We do need a place to vent, to make sence of what just happened. Be supportive of each other and be honest. Help each other grow and love each other for the individuals we all are. If you go home miserable every night then you are probably in the wrong spot for you. Nursing is demanding we all agree on that. Attitude is everything.
I have to agree with KATRINA. “10 ways you’re annoying fellow workers” sounds like something from TV Land. I too have never worked in any place who has time to do any of these “annoying things” Who ever made this list up is no “floor nurse” at any hospital!!!! Also who gives a “blank” about her med. cart except the anal retentive – if it’s her cart then let her do what she needs to do to do her job!! Just because you don’t function that way – your problem. As far as “sucking up”, it depends on the facility.
I would like to add a couple of items:
1. Don’t be a know it all. Don’t brag about your experience and what you did at your other job. If you are good at your job and an expert in your area, people will know. You won’t have to tell them.
2. Mind your own business. Unless the patient is at risk of harm, leave people alone and let them deal with their work and their patients the way they want to. If a patient makes a complaint about another staff member, give them the name a phone number of the manager.
3. Keep your cool. If a situation is not life threatening and you are upset, walk away.
4. Remember, EVERYONE, no matter what their job title can be replaced. Be a person who works for solutions… not a person who complains all the time. If you become more trouble that you are worth, it does not matter how good you are at your job. You will be replaced.
I’d like to add : nurse who cant finish an admission in 8 but stay on the clock for an extra 4 hours
Nurse’s who leave 100cc of tube feeding in ALL of the bottles at the end of their shift
Nurse who dont know that you call the doctor when the accucheck machine is reading HI or LOW!!! And last but not least DONT START CPR ON A BREATHING PERSON WITH A HEARTBEAT!!!!!
I do not like tattle tales either! When I was a new nurse and I did something wrong, I appreciated the nurse who followed behind me, pulling me to the side and educating me on something I did wrong, instead of running to the charge nurse to have me written up, it was very educational, and I learned from my mistakes. Yet, some nurses just seem to want to see you get written up! I am currently following a new nurse, and I found after following her that she hung an IV antibiotic piggyback but it never unclamped the tubing, so I educated her, what do you guys think, right or wrong? This was NOT life threatening, or I would have taken a different course of action, and I think she will really pay close attention the next time she hangs a piggback!
I also agree with Shirley! I came from a hospital in FL and I worked with a great group of nurses and we supported one another. After the midnight meds were administer, most nurses were able to start documenting and working on chart checks. If there was a nurse that was slammed, we new about it, and offered to help! And in the morning, all of us checked to see before we left the floor that every nurse was caught up, if not we asked what we needed to do so we could help her get out on time! Sometimes all it takes, is little things, like this room want water, I need a missing med from pharmacy, etc. But no nurse was left behind! Now, where I work NO ONE helps! It is crazy! I will be running my behind off, and the nurses are sitting at the nurses station, texting, on the internet, on phone calls, taking smoke breaks, they know I am busy, How? Cause I will say, Man I am so behind tonight, I have not done one chart check, documented on one patient yet, etc…And come on, they have eyes….they just do NOT care. I can’t believe it! They will just leave in the morning when they are done, no matter that I have two hours ahead of me of documenting, and if they would have just helped a little, I could have been out on time, and I have never once heard in any meeting, the manager encourage teamwork, yet she does not want anyone working OT! Frustrated in TX!
LPN
Licensed Practical Nurse
I agree. I’ve been an LPN for 20 years, and have worked in many places. Probably three our of 10 or 12 places I have worked have a good teamwork and nice nurses that are helpful. the other places, there is backstabbing, writing each other up, trying to get the best shifts, holidays off and no sharing. I am in a place now where all of the nurses get along, we have excellent teamwork and even tho we work hard, we work together. Nobody likes the DON much but we just stay out of her way. I will stay here and retire, if possible.
The complainers are the worse. It is like if they don’t complain, nobody thinks they are working!
I agree that team work, real team work is lacking these days. The focus seems to shift to punching the clock on time and away from making sure the patient is recieving the care they deserve. I have experienced the uneven assignments where one nurse is piled with every difficult case and others with simple loads all because “it is unfair to make RN blah blah walk so far in between patient rooms” Hello exercise is good and total frustration can make a great nurse leave her job. I can only hope communication open and honest will make a change for the better, for patients and nurses alike
My complaint is, I am always so busy I don’t have enough time with my patients..(nursing home)..They need to be able to share in conversation and I am constantly cutting them off due to time constraints. I have 43 patients on the 3-11 shift to take care of..Not enough help,but enough according to state regs…????
After being in the profession for over 25 yrs. it is hard to believe that fellow co-workers are so petty. gossip runs rampant and no good deed goes unpunished…I believe in returning favors, sharing your energy and time so all of us on our shift get to leave at a reasonable time and no one is left hanging. Be flexible and be kind.
I also hate the nurses that just sit there reading a book all shift. They never offer to help anyone and get bent outta shape if u offer to help them. I believe we should work as a team and help each other out, we’re there for the patients and if one of us is slammed it affects the care we give to our patients. I pride myself on giving good patient care, These days its all about the money and how much the hospital can squeeze outta the insurance. they cut back on staffing and increase the patient to nurse ratio to such a extent that there’s no way u can give good quality care. This makes me sad because the patient care is what brought me to nursing.
Ah, the MIA nurse. What gets me is also the nurses who not only MIA but reappears and continue to do what they were doing while MIA, e.g. texting, on the phone (WHILE TURNING A PATIENT NO LESS!), or, worse, sleeping on the damn job.
As for tattle tales… Well, I would like to believe I don’t tattle tale unnecessarily. I have, however, “tattled” quite a bit in the 2 years that I have worked – mostly because I am on the receiving end of some, what I believe as, terribly practise. While under training, I have got RNs who do not know what diastolic or systolic is, who would not write up paperwork about patients who have got massive falls complete with massive gashes to their heads, or who would not call the doctors when someone is literally dying of high blood pressure infront of her.
I have worked in other industries and my aunt worked as a nurse for the last 40 years or so of her life. I have heard and experienced great teamwork myself, but so far, there seems to be a dearth of it in my current workplace, not to mention the scary lack of ethics.
I have been a nurse in mi. for 23 years. I have seen the changes in our technology, and tons of documentation and state regulations, and it has become quite the business for all companies, namely Pharmaceuticals. What is really sad, is to see the heart of nursing forced to change by all the pressure put on us. WE are mostly and hopefully in nursing for the true compassion we have for human beings. Unfortunately, allot of people are getting into it for the “job security and supply and demand” and for the steady income. The “Policies” our companies implement are a set up for failure for nurses, as we are seen as expendable, easily replaced ect. Worries about “being written up” which leads to doom and possible termination! Team support in nursing is a rare quality, that is burdened to those FEW of us who still TRY to influence our other nurses to be thoughtful and kind and try to trust each other, as we are all in the same boat. Because of all these micro-sub-management positions being created, it leads to nurses becoming cruel and competitive, for more hours, positions, work stations, schedules, ect. Its exhausting, but I stay faithful it will get better!
Some ways my fellow nurses annoy me:
1: Change of shift, your tired and you want to go home. Your ‘relief’ does their usual by showing up late and then stops to catch up on the latest gossip long before you can give report (which now has you 15 minutes past the time when your pay was accruing) and then complains to the supervisor when you’ve had it and leave with her getting nothing more than a note that says “read the charts”.
2: If I ask for help than darn it, HELP! I don’t miss a beat when asked for the hundredth time a day to help with a pt because I’m a male so when the occasion does arise that I ask for assistance, don’t roll your eyes as if I asked you to do something I wasn’t fully willing to do for you in return.
3: Ladies, please, please, please, save the gossip for somewhere else. Hard enough being an RN by itself but to have to also avoid the lounge because this person is talking about what that person did or didn’t do or was rumored to be doing blah blah blah, is just too much. We’re supposed to be a team and the little behind the back cat fights are just childish.
4. As much as some people complain about the patients treating them like a maid it never ceases to amaze me as to how many times I have had to clean the med cart, the work station, no paper in the printer, etc. etc.. Your relief isn’t a maid either and it says RN on my license just like yours, not janitor.
5. And my final complaint, supervisors who get a kick out of calling meetings of course at the end of a night shift. For once I would love to see them call a darn staff meeting at 8:00PM and keep the day shift there after having done 12 hours already.
I have been a nurse in long term & skilled care for 17 years. I am tired of seeing the smokers get a break no matter what & the non smokers rarely if ever getting a break. I’m also tired of the gossips, the loafers on Facebook & long personal phone calls & those who successfully suck up to get a job they want. This makes the ones they are sucking up to look like idiots & causes resentment among coworkers. In my last job I rarely got a break while the loafers always got breaks & left on time if not early. I’m therre to do a job but even when I’m busy it still isn’t hard to see who is working and who is loafing. I got into nursing for the love of careing for others. I wouldn’t want anyone taking care of me who was just there for the money.
I can’t stand the whiners and comlainers, if you are that miserable at a job, LEAVE, life is to short to always be complaining, the grass isn’t usually any greener on the other side, just another shade of green, those type of co workers are real morale busters
LPN
Licensed Practical Nurse
Our nurses have all been wonderful team players, there is no problem among us, we get along great. Got a new LPN just out of school, and she will jump at the chance to come over to my hall to do something, so the boss knows she is just working so hard. Then she brags it up at the nurses station. She isn’t throwing anybody under the bus, but she is tooting her own horn all the time. I realize she is new, (and I heard she flunked the NCLEX twice before passing), so she is probably nervous and wanting to not fail again. but she needs to calm down and do her work, and relax. I bet she’s a nervous wreck after work.