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In the merry month of May, there’s a very special week set aside to celebrate the amazing work that nurses do. Hospitals throw extravagant parties with four-course meals and a fat bonus check for every nurse on staff. Local government officials host a ticker tape parade where nurses march arm in arm through the city center between rows of cheering fans. Everyone who has ever been a patient sends a thank you card or a flower arrangement to a nurse who has made a difference in their life. Doctors band together to take complete responsibility for patient care for 24 hours so nurses can have a well-deserved day off.
Okay, back to reality. We asked our readers to describe what Nurses Week is really like at their job. The most common response was “Does any hospital celebrate Nurses Week?” Sadly, many employers and managers don’t even acknowledge this event at all—much less go out of their way to make nursing staff feel appreciated. Nurse Ronna sums it up this way: “I get nothing at my job. I silently wish myself a ‘Happy Nurses Week.’ Sad, isn’t it?” Yes, yes it is.
You might think there’s nothing worse than being ignored during a holiday that’s supposed to celebrate the contributions of your profession. You’d be wrong. We’ve collected tales below about the most insulting Nurses Week “celebration” efforts ever. We think you’ll agree: These are way worse than nothing!
Lousy Presents
“Cheap” doesn’t even begin to describe the types of “gifts” bestowed on nurses to show appreciation for all their hard work. Here are just a few examples of the generosity shown by hospital administrators in the gift selection department:
- Pens, pens and more pens (including those that don’t work and ones with blue ink when only black ink is permitted for workplace use)
- Socks that caused edema and cut off circulation
- Pedometers
- A rubber jar opener
- Key chains
- Coffee mugs (valued at $0.50 each)
- Coin purses (to carry all that sweet cash nurses make)
- Lanyards (given to nurses who worked on a psych ward and couldn’t wear them)
- Navy bath towels that weren’t color fast (leading to a full load of blue laundry)
- A wilted rose in a urinal (don’t ask)
Many of these gifts either boasted the hospital’s own logo or the branding of a supplier who gave the stuff to the hospital as promotional freebies. Even more shocking than the cheap gifts are the ones that are given and then taken away. Nurse Deanna P. describes a bizarre experience at her job: “We had a bench donated to the hospital gardens ‘from the nurses’ with hospital money for Nurses Week. But then were told we aren’t allowed to sit on the bench because it looks bad to the public.”
Celebrate Yourself
Nurses support each other every day at work. If that wasn’t true, no one would make it in this job. But that doesn’t mean nurses should have to pay for their own week of celebration. Sadly, it’s not uncommon for hospitals to ask nurses to fund their own party. For example, nurses can participate in a nice gift basket raffle—if they buy a basket to donate.
Nurse Julie D. says the trend of expecting nurses to foot the bill is an ongoing problem at her workplace: “The nurses were told to bring in their own potluck organization-wide…not once, but two years in a row! Nothing says ‘We appreciate you’ like ‘After work tonight, you need to go out and buy something, then make it and bring it in tomorrow so people on other units whom you don’t even know can eat it!’ So LAME!”
Nurse Joy B. reveals that things are the same where she works: “Our hospital required each department to ‘host a station’ for the other nursing departments to come to. Sounds nice, right? Not when you consider we had to pay for the supplies to promote our station and the goodies that were given out!”
Next: Food Fiascos →
RN
Registered Nurse
i worked at a hospital that did not celebrate Nurses week, because it wasn’t fair to everyone else. We got our pens, t-shirt- tote bag for hospital week.
However, there was always a large, catered luncheon on Doctors appreciation day.
RN
Registered Nurse
Like the other Teresa G said, we had pizza delivered for nurses day and by the time I got lunch at 230, the doctors had eaten it all. The most thoughtful nurses day I have had was a picnic basket filled with a freid chicken meal. The basket was very sweet. The best thing about it was that I worked nights and the hospital did not forget about us as most places do. We all also got a free breakfast before leaving in the morning.
get rid of Nurses week and all of the other stupid special days, I don’t need or expect a hospital or any other employer to do any thing for me. I get paid, I would like a raise, but don’t spend time or money on junk I don’t need. It is embarrassing, is there a “Soldiers” day, a truck drivers day, or a farmers day………its time we get over ourselves and just concentrate on doing our job. A thank you once in a while is enough.
All time worst…I was working 7pm-7am. By the time I got to the buffet all of the food was gone. A very nice lady, a volunteer whom I had never seen before nor since felt bad for me and said ” all ladies like flowers. Here, you can have the centerpiece!” I took the flowers, they were very nice. The next morning my manager wrote me up for stealing hospital property!
RN
Registered Nurse
Small town hospital where I worked used to have the Best: the local Docs ‘put on’ a big banquet complete with wine, entertainment and prizes! The Grand Prize one year was a weekend for 2 at the Historic Hotel on Jekyll Island. The docs served the food (and some of them ‘sampled’ a bit too much wine!) and paid for EVERYTHING!
Then some genius decided that the celebration should be Nurses Only and it turned into a banquet with a SPEAKER at the local University which everyone had to buy a ticket to attend. Everybody’s idea of a Real Good Time, right?
The doctors’ ‘gig’ was MUCH more fun. Plus, we got to see a different side of some of them!
I workded at a Hospital for 4 years that didn’t do anything for the nurses except the ones who worked day shift during the week…Now I work at a lovely little hospital in Calhoun GA and they celebrate every day of nurses week including the weekend…they really appreciate all their employees. Its such a blessing.
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I worked at a hospital that on every holiday they would bring us a meal. It was always the same thing ham and cheese sandwiches and a bag of chips, no drinks. That’s OK but the sandwiches were always still frozen. Most hospitals I worded at gave each nurse and employee a Turkey around Thanksgiving. These were nice but the ham and cheese sandwich hospital just gave the same old still frozen sandwiches. They also gave the worse raises too.