Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Tips for Everybody:



There's nothing like coming in to work, feelin' all efficient and enthusiastic, to find that you're two nurses short in a three-nurse unit. Unless it's finding out that a different department expects your unit to staff theirs for some undetermined amount of time in the morning and again in the afternoon.

Dear Doctors: Please don't wear your ID tags on your belts. Especially please don't do this if you're an observant Muslim, a conservative Coptic Christian, or a member of some other staunchly upright religious group. See, if you've got both a name with eighteen syllables and a strong moral sense, it's gonna be embarassing for both of us if it looks like I'm starin' at your junk while trying to read your ID.

Tip for myself: Next time it seems like a patient is globally aphasic, shaking her head and smiling gently whenever you try to get her to do something, make sure it's not because she speaks only Romanian.

A gentle note to Manglement: top-down initiatives, like locator chips in ID cards, timers in employee bathrooms, and noise-and-motion sensors in nurses' stations and common areas, can and will be hacked.

Many, many thanks to the elevator inspector who sang loudly in the elevator shaft as he was doing a routine inspection of that elevator's braking system.

Also many thanks to whoever it was that joked up a pile of mattresses sitting in a storage room by sticking a can of peas in there, so it peeked out one side.




13 comments:

Silliyak said...

Pls continue to wear your name tags on your chest so us guys have an excuse to stare at your chests. (Just trying to memorize your name ma'm)

Susan - Nurse on the Run said...

Timers in the employees bathrooms?? I'd get rid of it myself...that's the only place you can get some quiet seomtimes!

bobbie said...

I SO hear you on the proper placement of ID tags!!
And love the peas!

Comrade Physioprof said...

noise-and-motion sensors in nurses' stations and common areas, can and will be hacked

If you mean the sensors that turn the motherfucken lights off while you are sitting there quietly working, and you have to jump up and down to get them to turn the fucken fucke backe on, TELL ME HOW TO DO ITTE!

Mama D said...

Love the peas!! Somebody has a good sense of humor...

Jennifer Thorson said...

Motion sensors in the employee bathrooms?

Because nothing says "You're a valued and trusted member of the team." like "You can't decide how long you need to finish peeing on your own."

Stefanie Graves said...

Timers in bathrooms?? what the hey???

Contingent Cassandra said...

Second Comrade P on the light-connected motion-sensors. They're a good idea in theory, but professors apparently show too few signs of life while working at a desk to convince them that life is present. I periodically have to wave at mine rather dramatically to convince it to turn the lights back on.

Rosanna said...

In addition to elevator inspectors *singing* while they work, maintenance men who happily *whistle* while they work also............ almost restore one's faith in The FUTURE Of Mankind, too!!

k8 said...

I love it when management turns to technology to solve their 'problems' instead of developing better management skills.

florid nightingale said...

Whoa....timers in bathrooms? Manglement is doing its job....for sure.

And, yes, the peas were brilliant! On Thanksgiving (today) I'm grateful for coworkers with a sense of humor!

- Teresa RN,PhD
(Although I've got a PhD, I still know how to be a nurse.)

Enid Mueller said...

Loved the way you put it- two nurses short on a three nurse unit.

Elyse said...

A poor soul of my aquaintance had manglement install hand sanitizer dispensers with little cameras to track infection-control policy compliance. The kind of thing that makes rage boil up inside.