More Work Grumbling.

If you are not yourself, or have never really known a nurse, this little rant may go over your head.  However, you are welcome to read either way.

Scheduling is one of the ongoing battles that rage ceaselessly in the hospital.  Your manager wants you in committees (for whatever reason), and so you are volentold into a committee.  These committee meetings range in time from an hour to 8hrs in length, depending on the topic of debate.  Which means that week, your time working as a floor nurse is subtly (or significantly) altered.

I was most recently volentold into a committee focused on "standardizing" (the word of the year, it would seem, considering the way it's thrown around as if it were the cure to cancer or something) shift-to-shift report. 

This particular meeting was 4hrs in length.  And, so, to not incur overtime on my behalf, I was scheduled an 8hr day.  The 8hr shift happened to be on a Saturday (today, in fact), which you might assume to be something exciting.  A shortened weekend day;  nothing better (save not working the weekend at all).  However, this little "princess" shift in my weekend has reeked havoc on the floor.

Lordy-goodness.  It's ridiculous.



It has meant an entirely new patient assignment for me today.  And will mean an entirely different assignment tomorrow (as all of my new patients discharged today).  Because, as an 8hr nurse, I can't care for the patients I did yesterday or be in charge.  The whole thing is rigged, I swear.

I was a bit miffed when I found this out this morning from the power-hungry charge nurse (especially after my boss arranged a schedule so that I could keep my patients and outlined it carefully yesterday).

I may have stormed around a bit.  May have even seen a bit of red (well, maybe not that hard-core, maybe just pink).

But, what really gets my goat... a text message from my boss saying "I hope you understand the charge nurse's decision. it's a good one."  Are you kidding me?  Not only does this mean that the charge nurse called our boss to whine about my storming, but that he actually thinks this shuffle is good.  Is my boss seriously siding with power-hungry drama king? 

Sometimes I really hate work politics. 

It's a really good thing I only worked 8hrs today.  I think it may be time for me to go to bed and pray for a better tomorrow.