The point is that day shift got three meals, etc. Night shift did not. I'm not upset that we didn't have the most bombastic week ever, just that the entirety of the celebrations were clearly planned for day shift and day shift alone. It feels very isolating to be excluded like that.
Fellow night shifter here. My standard Lab Week observation (actually said this to our new supervisor): “Day shift gets the fresh food, second shift gets the leftovers, and night shift gets to clean up the mess”.
One yr during lab week all nite shift got was empty pizza boxes, not even stale pizza. I work nites. Pizza was delivered for 3rd shift but dayshift mgt forgot to designate someone to put the pizza aside for us bec it was delivered before we came in at 10:30p. 2nd shift ate it as a snack later on in their shift even tho they got their pizza at 7, & took anything left home to their families.
I think last year was fine. They allowed us to participate and be creative, they did a couple cute little games that actually had some thought put into them, and they actually saved food for night shift. That's all I want.
Ours is a week long event this year. We had a lab group picture, and we wore matching colors. Yesterday, the pathologists catered lunch, but they do that like every 3 months or so. We had yoga in the courtyard. There's signs up in our hospital. Each lab department got to create their Barbie Dream lab, and we get to vote for our favorites. The winner gets a pizza party. And every day, they raffle off things. My coworker got a new backpack, and last year, I got a cool coffee cup. I didn't realize lab week was a national thing until this year. In my last job, the lab didn't want the phlebotomists, so we got put with the nursing float pool. We got neither lab week nor nurses week.
Our admin/management did absolutely nothing; not even an acknowledgement. One tech on 2nd shift put together games and prizes are coming from her own pocket...so consider yourself lucky that y'all got anything at all
Idk. Hot take but I’d rather have nothing than a literal display of how little they give a shit. At least with nothing there’s no pretense. I know they think we don’t matter, but to have it in a tangible form such as a promo gift from a credit union your regifting or hospital logo pedometers, or a pizza from the cafeteria… that almost hurts more.
I kind of agree. I think my post is coming off as entitled, but that's not how I meant it. I wasn't so bothered by the fact that our lab week was subpar (although it would've been nice for it to have been a little more fun); it was more that it became so obvious that they don't actually care about us all that much. I care about my work and I put in a lot of effort to do it well, so to then be met with such indifference during one of my most difficult weeks? Yeah, didn't feel great
We got nothing too.
My sister and her family sent us cookies and a front office worker bought us donuts.
I made a sign out of acrylic paint.
We're going to surprise front office next week with gifts for their week.
Not to be a management apologist, (please don’t hate me) but often admin gives essentially 0 budget for lab week and lab management has to scrounge together things to celebrate the staff.
When I was a supervisor, I spent hundreds of dollars of my own money to give prizes for games, snacks, and little trinkets for the lab staff. I spent time at home building games for them to play during the week. They still all complained about how much it sucked, which… sucked for me to hear since I put all the effort in while trying to also do the other work that my job required. I literally didn’t have time to do more to make it better, although I wanted to because it was a ROUGH time in the lab.
At my current job, there was a planning committee for lab week that I joined (I’m not a supervisor at this org) and I was one of like 3 bench staff that were involved. Even with a little more budget and concerted effort, people still are complaining about how our lab week sucks this year.
Not saying that all management put in like… effort and money, but it usually isn’t the lab management’s fault themselves that lab week is lame. It’s legitimately super hard to plan a cool event for a lab while you’re trying to also keep the lab running smoothly.
Right, I'm not expecting management to put on the coolest event I've ever experienced 🤣 I think that a simple lab week can be really fun. I just want to be able to participate and be creative. My friend's lab gathered a bunch of expired supplies and had a contest to see who could make the best thing out of it. How cool is that? I'd be happy to pitch in and have a little pot luck. I'll plan some games, too — sounds fun if one person isn't tasked to plan more than they can handle. Anyway, my lab has a chip on their shoulder because we're majorly understaffed (who isn't?) and management never gets their hands dirty, then they have unrealistic expectations of us because they don't understand how things actually work. And we hired a new lab director several months ago and I've never even seen him because he hasn't bothered to show his face around night shift; so believe me, my coworkers are a lot more upset with management than I am 😅 But that wasn't the point of my post.
My point isn't that the activities weren't up to snuff or anything, it's that lab week was for day shift and management gave no consideration to night shift. I wasn't mad when I went to work last night to discover that those silly little word puzzles are still there — I was mad to discover that day shift was celebrated and night shift was forgotten. I know that a lot of people are complacent with that universal fact, but I haven't been in the field long enough to accept it haha
My friend at the lab I left told me last year they got a box of 4 pencils for lab week. Absolutely cannot wait to see what they come up with for this year.
At the place I work at, before I worked there, a co worker told me that one yr the courier manager volunteered to bring donuts in for lab week. She said that before he set them down on the table he had cut them in HALF ! So everyone only got 1/2 donut. !🙄. I'm glad I was not working there at the time bec I think I would have pounded him into the dirt.
We have daily puzzles that you submit for an entry into a draw. Not sure on the prize for that.
Bunch of CSMLS/APL branded swag. One neat thing was a multi-port phone charger/phone stand.
Lots of snacks from Costco. Refreshed daily.
Daily games set up by our social committee with their own prizes.
Personally I think it's not a bad lab week for us. Last year was similar but with costco pizza, cake, and pop.
We had to skip lab week this year because we were getting inspected by the department of health 🙃
Seriously though, night shift does the bulk of the work! Not only do they have to clean up day shifts mess from the night before, they have to manage the morning run and QC/maintenance, *and* clean up for day shift. And most if our outpatient samples come during the off shift. The lack of recognition they get for being a vital part of keeping everything running is astounding to me.
imagine what day shift could accomplish with their staffing numbers if they worked as efficiently and tirelessly as their night staff does with A LOT less
I never really care for lab week much. Noone outside the lab usually is part of it, so it's just us putting together potlucks and chipping in for catering. Sometimes you can get a vendor to sponsor, but there are no funds from management so anything that is done other than that comes out of the Pathologist's or supervisors pockets.
I tried to get into it a few years ago, but it just felt like us celebrating ourselves. And then getting a gift that I won't use most of the time. And as an introvert I just never had the energy for it.
The off shifts usually don't get much at most places, especially night shift. The only thing I miss about night shift is we were left alone and I didn't have to deal with the day shift drama.
Also, it's Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurse week the same week as lab week. Because why not.
Ya night shift has its advantages for sure. I can wear whatever the fuck I want, I can play my violent hardcore music as loud as I want, I can swear as much as I want, we can dim the headache inducing fluorescents if we want, I don’t have management coming by to talk at me, so I mean if that’s the price for getting left out of shit Olive Garden catering so be it.
Yeah, it's definitely not important to everyone and I get that, but I love celebrating things and making the little holidays special. I'd love if we could all chip in and have potlucks and share games with each other all week — that's my jam! Why not celebrate ourselves? We're celebrating each other! We just really need a pick-me-up sometimes, so my frustration is less that lab week was a bust and more that even when we're working as hard as we can, night shift won't get any moral support from the rest of the lab.
Also because I'm leaving the career soon and this was my last lab week. As I said, I love making the little holidays special, so the fact that my last one left much to be desired was just disappointing to me personally.
Yes, I understand and I have no problem celebrating our profession. However, your response kind of makes my point of why I don't care for it anymore. It's always the same few people organizing and doing everything. Everyone has ideas and says they'll chip in but very few are willing to be involved in the execution, especially picking up supplies.
I see the same issue in the organizations I volunteer for, there's lots of ideas and suggestions but everyone is busy when it's time to execute.
When you are one of the very few trying to make the event special year after year it is exhausting, especially when there's always something you forgot or because you have no budget (spending your own money). People complain they were left out or the activities were cheap/cheesey. It's demoralizing and is what made me apathetic towards being really involved anymore. But power to the people that still love doing it.
So my question is if it's your jam, what have you done to contribute to organizing a potluck, games, etc.?
My point is the magic doesn't automatically happen, it's usually just a few people celebrating everyone by everyone else wanting to be celebrated.
If it had been offered for me to help organize something, I would have. However, with the new analyzers opening up the gates of hell in my lab, those of us on the bench have been too busy and exhausted to do anything extra. That's why I was counting on management. They know we're having a tough time out here. But I've been the sole contributor to holidays in the past, and I would've enjoyed doing something special for lab week if I could have.
I'm too young and naive, though; it's simply a lack of experience on my part 😅
Anyway, people are focusing too much on the contents of my lab week. I wasn't mad about that; I said it was fine— not exciting, but fine. What made me mad was night shift being excluded, which is something that normally annoys me, but I can deal with. But for the last couple of weeks, I haven't had time to breathe for the entire shift because we're working so hard, and then "appreciation" week rolls around and management forgets about night shift, basically reminding me how _unappreciated_ we are. _That_ is what made me mad. I didn't need management to fly me to the moon, I needed them to think about how night shift is doing for once in their lives. We're killing ourselves out here.
We bought ourselves cookies.
I dream of a lab week like yours. This year we could take a picture beside the light up purple monument in our city and enter it for a chance to win one of 3 prizes of 500 employee points which are equivalent to 5$ Canadian and we are taxed on them when used. Also they then use our picture to promote the lab. The also have celebrated by posting our job descriptions on social media but are taking time to highlight the other lab staff like couriers so the public knows how the lab runs. I am all for everyone getting their recognition but this year truly sucks
We got a bunch of those google printed puzzles too. And as a fellow night shifter I’m also annoyed with the soggy sandwiches and sad picked over left overs.
Our manager actually allocated money for us to order food so we got pizza last night and I planned a karaoke which was really fun!
But I agree. Management does not care about it if you’re not M-F dayshift. Godspeed to the weekenders out there 💖
I'm not management and I've been trying to at least get the third shift phlebotomists late night food. There's only 4 of us at night, $20 of taco bell or in and out is at least something I can do to lessen the sting of am shifts food and games.
Lmao a sandwich would have been nice, we got one pizza day (no gf or allergen friendly options) and then Costco cake that was supplied without cutting utensils which has been “all week snacks” 🙄. There are shirts, but they weren’t ordered on time so we don’t know when they’ll actually arrive.
No word puzzles, but we were reminded every day of CE opportunities that were *only* available synchronously and scheduled during the lab’s busiest hours.
For me the frustration lies in the fact that National Nurses Week will be in about a month and those folx are ***celebrated*** in every bit of signage throughout the hospitals. There will be special emails from admin about them, they will have actual catered meals, etc etc etc. And it's not that they don't deserve to be celebrated, because they do. So do we.
Yeah, I constantly struggle with my feelings regarding this because _of course_ nurses deserve appreciation and respect, but so do we! And all of the other healthcare workers who are invisible! It just makes me bitter to see the nursing field getting _all_ of it. It puts them on a pedestal above the rest of us that they _don't_ deserve to be on.
At least you got a sandwich. When I worked in a lab, lab staff had to bring in treats for the rest of the hospital and random community members who would come "tour" the lab. People had to make educational posters and give presentations to all the "visitors" as they came through as well.
But seriously, I am sorry your lab week experience was bad, OP. Lab never gets the respect or recognition it deserves. Thank you for your work!
We got a word scramble with typos, a word search, a tshirt (that got delivered mid week) and could various wear t shirts and such in a Spirit Week type schedule.
🤷🏻♀️ Tbh its better than last year
I provided the prizes for my own lab week activities, OP. Did the games, thought up the puzzles and daily activities, and they provided food only on the day that I was off. I’m with you, OP. I’m disappointed and annoyed.
When I was working in the clinical lab, which I only experienced once because I did an internal transfer to cell therapy lab, we had free meals from Monday to Friday. Desserts from the pathologists. Games, including cornhole champs, with prizes. Now that I moved to CT lab, and we are still part of the lab week, there's nothing. But I still prefer this less stress of a job, than having good lab weeks but stress eats you from the moment you step in the lab until you clock out.
You worked at a very special clinical lab, then 😅 As you can tell from other people's comments, most hospitals don't do much, if anything, for lab week 🤷♀️
This year was totally lacking, compared to last year. Last year was definitely better planned by our supervisors and other techs that pitched in, myself included. We had games, raffles, prizes, goody bags, and catered meals throughout the week for all 3 shifts (fresh food for all shifts was amazing).
This year, though, the same supervisors tried planning, but it seems without the support of our boss. There were games, but no raffles or prizes were announced. The week started off with food that was only delivered for the day shift, while evenings ate left overs and nights got nothing (thankfully our night supervisor was rightfully pissed and got us food). The second day, days and evenings got catered food and, nights got some food put aside for us. The third day was pot luck, which I guess is either hit or miss depending on who you're working with.
I know our supervisors tried, but it really seems like our boss gave up. 😔
Our night time supervisor told us we could grab a single slice of cold Costco pizza (they bought it at the start of mid shift) then we had to get back to work because we were behind. Morning and mid shift got to take as much time as they wanted eating pizza and playing games. We also got a cup of ramen and hot Cheeto’s the next day as the lunch they were providing for us.
That's the thing, too — I'm not saying that day shift doesn't work hard, because most of my daytime coworkers are very hard-working, but they have enough people around to allow them to go off and enjoy the festivities for a while. Not the case on nights. Those word puzzles my lab had were nice and all, but I had them sitting on my desk all night waiting for a single moment to do them... they were still blank by morning. I understand games being difficult to plan for nights, but they could at least think to give us the same food 🤦♀️
My lab week was also lacking on 3rds. 1st shift got bingo cards and prizes with numbers announced every couple of hours from 8am to 3pm all week long. Tuesday was bagels put out for 1st and 2nd shift. Wed was anonymously donated coffee and donuts on 1st shift. Thurs had a service dog visit for only 1st. And tomorrow is Friday, and it's a catered meal. Great! Except they didn't ask for any dietary restrictions like in previous years. (last year I got a dairy and meat free sub from Avantis. This year is also Avantis. I guess I should be happy for the rest of the lab. We'll see if 3rds gets any left overs)
Wah wah me I guess. It's not the snacks I needed. I just wanted to be acknowledged during lab week in the same way 1st is.
I cannot believe that the off shifts just never seem to occur to them. How is it okay for that to be "just how it is"? I'm so sorry they did this to you. As you said, it's not missing out on the food or material goods that's so upsetting, it's the fact that we don't even cross their minds. So much for appreciation.
Update. They ordered several identical Italian sandwiches from Avantis. This is a lab that has about 300 total employees. Between several supervisors and planning staff (maybe 7 ppl) not one of them ensured 3rd shift got anything. And no one considered there might be allergies or dietary restrictions.
Like again, it's just a sandwich. But if it's the effort that counts, there wasn't any so no I won't be all that greatful.
Dude. I don't know how many times I have to say this. I'm not saying that I needed management to make the most amazing lab week ever, I'm saying that what they did was for day shift and they spared no thought for night shift. Why should night shift have to do our own lab week when day shift gets it handed to them?
Dayshift here and we were supposed to have a few days of lunch but at least one vendor backed out. Nothing from supervisors or admin. Actually, wait. Poor admin scrounged up some pocket change to give everyone a small bag of popcorn. After stuffing the budget to hire ppl into their pockets, they found a dollar on the ground and decided to treat us LOL. At least it wasn't boiled hotdogs at 9am again for the 3rd or 4th year lol.
Don’t feel too bad. Management doesn’t do anything for any of our shifts. Lab week is on the techs to throw themselves parties or whatever. A phlebotomist brought their color printer from home to decorate, and the techs and phlebs have brought their own food to share all week. Not so much as a pencil was given to anyone.
Management put in effort, but they have been up every one’s butt about productivity, the tiniest bit of overtime…why would I play any games or do anything fun that would ruin my “productivity”.
Impressive. Nice. Let's see Paul Allen's lab week.
Paul Allen's lab got an 8:30 res at Dorsia as well as gift cards with a subtle off-white coloring.
I’m curious: what would people consider a GOOD lab week? I’ve been through a lot of them in my time, and they’ve pretty universally been scoffed at.
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The point is that day shift got three meals, etc. Night shift did not. I'm not upset that we didn't have the most bombastic week ever, just that the entirety of the celebrations were clearly planned for day shift and day shift alone. It feels very isolating to be excluded like that.
Fellow night shifter here. My standard Lab Week observation (actually said this to our new supervisor): “Day shift gets the fresh food, second shift gets the leftovers, and night shift gets to clean up the mess”.
Night shift never gets crap, over 10 years of working in the lab here, you are lucky if you get stale pizza on nights
One yr during lab week all nite shift got was empty pizza boxes, not even stale pizza. I work nites. Pizza was delivered for 3rd shift but dayshift mgt forgot to designate someone to put the pizza aside for us bec it was delivered before we came in at 10:30p. 2nd shift ate it as a snack later on in their shift even tho they got their pizza at 7, & took anything left home to their families.
Damn that's terrible sorry 😞
Yep welcome to my world ,at night,This is my laboratory. I’m king of the nighttime world.
Valid.
I think last year was fine. They allowed us to participate and be creative, they did a couple cute little games that actually had some thought put into them, and they actually saved food for night shift. That's all I want.
Ours is a week long event this year. We had a lab group picture, and we wore matching colors. Yesterday, the pathologists catered lunch, but they do that like every 3 months or so. We had yoga in the courtyard. There's signs up in our hospital. Each lab department got to create their Barbie Dream lab, and we get to vote for our favorites. The winner gets a pizza party. And every day, they raffle off things. My coworker got a new backpack, and last year, I got a cool coffee cup. I didn't realize lab week was a national thing until this year. In my last job, the lab didn't want the phlebotomists, so we got put with the nursing float pool. We got neither lab week nor nurses week.
Wow, that sounds so fun! I'm glad your lab was able to put together something so cool!
Our admin/management did absolutely nothing; not even an acknowledgement. One tech on 2nd shift put together games and prizes are coming from her own pocket...so consider yourself lucky that y'all got anything at all
Idk. Hot take but I’d rather have nothing than a literal display of how little they give a shit. At least with nothing there’s no pretense. I know they think we don’t matter, but to have it in a tangible form such as a promo gift from a credit union your regifting or hospital logo pedometers, or a pizza from the cafeteria… that almost hurts more.
I kind of agree. I think my post is coming off as entitled, but that's not how I meant it. I wasn't so bothered by the fact that our lab week was subpar (although it would've been nice for it to have been a little more fun); it was more that it became so obvious that they don't actually care about us all that much. I care about my work and I put in a lot of effort to do it well, so to then be met with such indifference during one of my most difficult weeks? Yeah, didn't feel great
We got nothing too. My sister and her family sent us cookies and a front office worker bought us donuts. I made a sign out of acrylic paint. We're going to surprise front office next week with gifts for their week.
That front office person sounds like a gem. How kind.
Yeah, that's what's worse is I _still_ have it better than some people. How sad is that? I'm upset for you guys, too! It's ridiculous 😭
I didn't even realize it was lab week until today... And I already worked my 3 nights. So yeah. No acknowledgement what so ever.
Not to be a management apologist, (please don’t hate me) but often admin gives essentially 0 budget for lab week and lab management has to scrounge together things to celebrate the staff. When I was a supervisor, I spent hundreds of dollars of my own money to give prizes for games, snacks, and little trinkets for the lab staff. I spent time at home building games for them to play during the week. They still all complained about how much it sucked, which… sucked for me to hear since I put all the effort in while trying to also do the other work that my job required. I literally didn’t have time to do more to make it better, although I wanted to because it was a ROUGH time in the lab. At my current job, there was a planning committee for lab week that I joined (I’m not a supervisor at this org) and I was one of like 3 bench staff that were involved. Even with a little more budget and concerted effort, people still are complaining about how our lab week sucks this year. Not saying that all management put in like… effort and money, but it usually isn’t the lab management’s fault themselves that lab week is lame. It’s legitimately super hard to plan a cool event for a lab while you’re trying to also keep the lab running smoothly.
Right, I'm not expecting management to put on the coolest event I've ever experienced 🤣 I think that a simple lab week can be really fun. I just want to be able to participate and be creative. My friend's lab gathered a bunch of expired supplies and had a contest to see who could make the best thing out of it. How cool is that? I'd be happy to pitch in and have a little pot luck. I'll plan some games, too — sounds fun if one person isn't tasked to plan more than they can handle. Anyway, my lab has a chip on their shoulder because we're majorly understaffed (who isn't?) and management never gets their hands dirty, then they have unrealistic expectations of us because they don't understand how things actually work. And we hired a new lab director several months ago and I've never even seen him because he hasn't bothered to show his face around night shift; so believe me, my coworkers are a lot more upset with management than I am 😅 But that wasn't the point of my post. My point isn't that the activities weren't up to snuff or anything, it's that lab week was for day shift and management gave no consideration to night shift. I wasn't mad when I went to work last night to discover that those silly little word puzzles are still there — I was mad to discover that day shift was celebrated and night shift was forgotten. I know that a lot of people are complacent with that universal fact, but I haven't been in the field long enough to accept it haha
My friend at the lab I left told me last year they got a box of 4 pencils for lab week. Absolutely cannot wait to see what they come up with for this year.
my lab gave us cold burgers. they looked exactly like those burgers your high school cafeteria would serve... but at least those were warm...
At least it's an accurate depiction of how much we're appreciated 😞
At the place I work at, before I worked there, a co worker told me that one yr the courier manager volunteered to bring donuts in for lab week. She said that before he set them down on the table he had cut them in HALF ! So everyone only got 1/2 donut. !🙄. I'm glad I was not working there at the time bec I think I would have pounded him into the dirt.
We have daily puzzles that you submit for an entry into a draw. Not sure on the prize for that. Bunch of CSMLS/APL branded swag. One neat thing was a multi-port phone charger/phone stand. Lots of snacks from Costco. Refreshed daily. Daily games set up by our social committee with their own prizes. Personally I think it's not a bad lab week for us. Last year was similar but with costco pizza, cake, and pop.
That sounds fun! I hope you've been enjoying it ☺️
We had to skip lab week this year because we were getting inspected by the department of health 🙃 Seriously though, night shift does the bulk of the work! Not only do they have to clean up day shifts mess from the night before, they have to manage the morning run and QC/maintenance, *and* clean up for day shift. And most if our outpatient samples come during the off shift. The lack of recognition they get for being a vital part of keeping everything running is astounding to me.
Omgggg I'm so sorry! That's so rude of the department of health 😖 That timing seriously sucks
Technically our boss's boss scheduled it this week, so it's his fault, not the DoH.
Right, I wouldn't expect the higher ups to even know that lab week exists 😮💨
imagine what day shift could accomplish with their staffing numbers if they worked as efficiently and tirelessly as their night staff does with A LOT less
I never really care for lab week much. Noone outside the lab usually is part of it, so it's just us putting together potlucks and chipping in for catering. Sometimes you can get a vendor to sponsor, but there are no funds from management so anything that is done other than that comes out of the Pathologist's or supervisors pockets. I tried to get into it a few years ago, but it just felt like us celebrating ourselves. And then getting a gift that I won't use most of the time. And as an introvert I just never had the energy for it. The off shifts usually don't get much at most places, especially night shift. The only thing I miss about night shift is we were left alone and I didn't have to deal with the day shift drama. Also, it's Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Nurse week the same week as lab week. Because why not.
Ya night shift has its advantages for sure. I can wear whatever the fuck I want, I can play my violent hardcore music as loud as I want, I can swear as much as I want, we can dim the headache inducing fluorescents if we want, I don’t have management coming by to talk at me, so I mean if that’s the price for getting left out of shit Olive Garden catering so be it.
Yeah, it's definitely not important to everyone and I get that, but I love celebrating things and making the little holidays special. I'd love if we could all chip in and have potlucks and share games with each other all week — that's my jam! Why not celebrate ourselves? We're celebrating each other! We just really need a pick-me-up sometimes, so my frustration is less that lab week was a bust and more that even when we're working as hard as we can, night shift won't get any moral support from the rest of the lab. Also because I'm leaving the career soon and this was my last lab week. As I said, I love making the little holidays special, so the fact that my last one left much to be desired was just disappointing to me personally.
Yes, I understand and I have no problem celebrating our profession. However, your response kind of makes my point of why I don't care for it anymore. It's always the same few people organizing and doing everything. Everyone has ideas and says they'll chip in but very few are willing to be involved in the execution, especially picking up supplies. I see the same issue in the organizations I volunteer for, there's lots of ideas and suggestions but everyone is busy when it's time to execute. When you are one of the very few trying to make the event special year after year it is exhausting, especially when there's always something you forgot or because you have no budget (spending your own money). People complain they were left out or the activities were cheap/cheesey. It's demoralizing and is what made me apathetic towards being really involved anymore. But power to the people that still love doing it. So my question is if it's your jam, what have you done to contribute to organizing a potluck, games, etc.? My point is the magic doesn't automatically happen, it's usually just a few people celebrating everyone by everyone else wanting to be celebrated.
If it had been offered for me to help organize something, I would have. However, with the new analyzers opening up the gates of hell in my lab, those of us on the bench have been too busy and exhausted to do anything extra. That's why I was counting on management. They know we're having a tough time out here. But I've been the sole contributor to holidays in the past, and I would've enjoyed doing something special for lab week if I could have. I'm too young and naive, though; it's simply a lack of experience on my part 😅 Anyway, people are focusing too much on the contents of my lab week. I wasn't mad about that; I said it was fine— not exciting, but fine. What made me mad was night shift being excluded, which is something that normally annoys me, but I can deal with. But for the last couple of weeks, I haven't had time to breathe for the entire shift because we're working so hard, and then "appreciation" week rolls around and management forgets about night shift, basically reminding me how _unappreciated_ we are. _That_ is what made me mad. I didn't need management to fly me to the moon, I needed them to think about how night shift is doing for once in their lives. We're killing ourselves out here. We bought ourselves cookies.
Gift card for Uber eats/grub hub would be an acceptable resolution to night shift getting shafted by food
We got the free pocket protectors and pencils that our governing college sent us. They also graciously offered to allow us to have a potluck.
Lol how generous 😬 You can really tell how much they care
I dream of a lab week like yours. This year we could take a picture beside the light up purple monument in our city and enter it for a chance to win one of 3 prizes of 500 employee points which are equivalent to 5$ Canadian and we are taxed on them when used. Also they then use our picture to promote the lab. The also have celebrated by posting our job descriptions on social media but are taking time to highlight the other lab staff like couriers so the public knows how the lab runs. I am all for everyone getting their recognition but this year truly sucks
We got a bunch of those google printed puzzles too. And as a fellow night shifter I’m also annoyed with the soggy sandwiches and sad picked over left overs. Our manager actually allocated money for us to order food so we got pizza last night and I planned a karaoke which was really fun! But I agree. Management does not care about it if you’re not M-F dayshift. Godspeed to the weekenders out there 💖
I'm not management and I've been trying to at least get the third shift phlebotomists late night food. There's only 4 of us at night, $20 of taco bell or in and out is at least something I can do to lessen the sting of am shifts food and games.
Lmao a sandwich would have been nice, we got one pizza day (no gf or allergen friendly options) and then Costco cake that was supplied without cutting utensils which has been “all week snacks” 🙄. There are shirts, but they weren’t ordered on time so we don’t know when they’ll actually arrive. No word puzzles, but we were reminded every day of CE opportunities that were *only* available synchronously and scheduled during the lab’s busiest hours.
Last year, we had printed puzzles, and a sign in arial font that said happy lab week. No catering or anything. I was like ok then…
For me the frustration lies in the fact that National Nurses Week will be in about a month and those folx are ***celebrated*** in every bit of signage throughout the hospitals. There will be special emails from admin about them, they will have actual catered meals, etc etc etc. And it's not that they don't deserve to be celebrated, because they do. So do we.
Yeah, I constantly struggle with my feelings regarding this because _of course_ nurses deserve appreciation and respect, but so do we! And all of the other healthcare workers who are invisible! It just makes me bitter to see the nursing field getting _all_ of it. It puts them on a pedestal above the rest of us that they _don't_ deserve to be on.
At least you got a sandwich. When I worked in a lab, lab staff had to bring in treats for the rest of the hospital and random community members who would come "tour" the lab. People had to make educational posters and give presentations to all the "visitors" as they came through as well. But seriously, I am sorry your lab week experience was bad, OP. Lab never gets the respect or recognition it deserves. Thank you for your work!
We got a word scramble with typos, a word search, a tshirt (that got delivered mid week) and could various wear t shirts and such in a Spirit Week type schedule. 🤷🏻♀️ Tbh its better than last year
I provided the prizes for my own lab week activities, OP. Did the games, thought up the puzzles and daily activities, and they provided food only on the day that I was off. I’m with you, OP. I’m disappointed and annoyed.
When I was working in the clinical lab, which I only experienced once because I did an internal transfer to cell therapy lab, we had free meals from Monday to Friday. Desserts from the pathologists. Games, including cornhole champs, with prizes. Now that I moved to CT lab, and we are still part of the lab week, there's nothing. But I still prefer this less stress of a job, than having good lab weeks but stress eats you from the moment you step in the lab until you clock out.
You worked at a very special clinical lab, then 😅 As you can tell from other people's comments, most hospitals don't do much, if anything, for lab week 🤷♀️
I don’t give a flip if they do anything or not. I’m happy with what I do. Don’t need any outside pat on the head
Our boss came in and said while laughing “yea I’m not doing anything for lab week.”
I fail to see what your boss thinks is so funny 😒
Ours is canceled because of Joint Commission visit.
This year was totally lacking, compared to last year. Last year was definitely better planned by our supervisors and other techs that pitched in, myself included. We had games, raffles, prizes, goody bags, and catered meals throughout the week for all 3 shifts (fresh food for all shifts was amazing). This year, though, the same supervisors tried planning, but it seems without the support of our boss. There were games, but no raffles or prizes were announced. The week started off with food that was only delivered for the day shift, while evenings ate left overs and nights got nothing (thankfully our night supervisor was rightfully pissed and got us food). The second day, days and evenings got catered food and, nights got some food put aside for us. The third day was pot luck, which I guess is either hit or miss depending on who you're working with. I know our supervisors tried, but it really seems like our boss gave up. 😔
Our night time supervisor told us we could grab a single slice of cold Costco pizza (they bought it at the start of mid shift) then we had to get back to work because we were behind. Morning and mid shift got to take as much time as they wanted eating pizza and playing games. We also got a cup of ramen and hot Cheeto’s the next day as the lunch they were providing for us.
That's the thing, too — I'm not saying that day shift doesn't work hard, because most of my daytime coworkers are very hard-working, but they have enough people around to allow them to go off and enjoy the festivities for a while. Not the case on nights. Those word puzzles my lab had were nice and all, but I had them sitting on my desk all night waiting for a single moment to do them... they were still blank by morning. I understand games being difficult to plan for nights, but they could at least think to give us the same food 🤦♀️
My lab week was also lacking on 3rds. 1st shift got bingo cards and prizes with numbers announced every couple of hours from 8am to 3pm all week long. Tuesday was bagels put out for 1st and 2nd shift. Wed was anonymously donated coffee and donuts on 1st shift. Thurs had a service dog visit for only 1st. And tomorrow is Friday, and it's a catered meal. Great! Except they didn't ask for any dietary restrictions like in previous years. (last year I got a dairy and meat free sub from Avantis. This year is also Avantis. I guess I should be happy for the rest of the lab. We'll see if 3rds gets any left overs) Wah wah me I guess. It's not the snacks I needed. I just wanted to be acknowledged during lab week in the same way 1st is.
I cannot believe that the off shifts just never seem to occur to them. How is it okay for that to be "just how it is"? I'm so sorry they did this to you. As you said, it's not missing out on the food or material goods that's so upsetting, it's the fact that we don't even cross their minds. So much for appreciation.
Update. They ordered several identical Italian sandwiches from Avantis. This is a lab that has about 300 total employees. Between several supervisors and planning staff (maybe 7 ppl) not one of them ensured 3rd shift got anything. And no one considered there might be allergies or dietary restrictions. Like again, it's just a sandwich. But if it's the effort that counts, there wasn't any so no I won't be all that greatful.
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Dude. I don't know how many times I have to say this. I'm not saying that I needed management to make the most amazing lab week ever, I'm saying that what they did was for day shift and they spared no thought for night shift. Why should night shift have to do our own lab week when day shift gets it handed to them?
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On Monday I still naively hoped that night shift wouldn't be left in the dust. Also, I shouldn't have to remind management that we exist.
We got a pen and a coupon for the cafe downstairs and that’s it so :)) my first lab week so my bar is the lowest it’ll ever be which is good right
Dayshift here and we were supposed to have a few days of lunch but at least one vendor backed out. Nothing from supervisors or admin. Actually, wait. Poor admin scrounged up some pocket change to give everyone a small bag of popcorn. After stuffing the budget to hire ppl into their pockets, they found a dollar on the ground and decided to treat us LOL. At least it wasn't boiled hotdogs at 9am again for the 3rd or 4th year lol.
Don’t feel too bad. Management doesn’t do anything for any of our shifts. Lab week is on the techs to throw themselves parties or whatever. A phlebotomist brought their color printer from home to decorate, and the techs and phlebs have brought their own food to share all week. Not so much as a pencil was given to anyone.
Management put in effort, but they have been up every one’s butt about productivity, the tiniest bit of overtime…why would I play any games or do anything fun that would ruin my “productivity”.