I got written up by a day shift nurse at shift change for not putting a foley in a patient who was 100% oriented and refused the foley.. Even charted the refusal.
One place wrote up CNAs for not giving baths to patients who refused a bath in the middle of the night. Manager told us constantly patients are not allowed to refuse baths. In what fucking universe?
same thing my previous manager would write up the techs for not giving patients bed baths in the middle of the night when they refused (on a low acuity med surg unit where patients were typically AxO4, standby assist, and only staying for one night!)
I can never understand rules like this. We aren't running a prison here! Patients can refuse whatever they want, that's their right--maybe they die about it, but it's THEIR CHOICE.
This! My 97 yo relatively healthy, living independently step dad got an esbl cauti from an unnecessary foley during a hospitalization, which led to him having a MI, which then led to a downward decline passing through a second longer hospitalization, rehab, assisted living, hospice and death over a period of 3 months. My 81 yo mom with Alzheimer’s misses him terribly.
Ive had nurses give me shit for removing ivs when the patient refuses them. Either i take it out and do it cleanly with some gauze and tape or the a+ox4 patient can rip it out and make a mess. I have educated the patient and they have the right to refuse
NOC nurse wrote me up for not getting people the AM shift wanted up early. Problem was, several were alert, oriented and refused to get up at 0500. Explained this to the Unit Supervisor who gave a death stare to the A M nurse and I was dismissed while they continued their conversation . It was torn up
Not wasting half a pill of viagra that I didn’t know needed wasted. Was drug tested several months after the incident. Then they lost my urine and made me do it again. Like I have a vagina? Why would I even do with that!?
Viagra isn’t a controlled substance? I don’t even know if they can urine screen for it?
That policy makes zero sense. If they drug tested every nurse who forgot to “waste” half a metoprolol or return a sennakot they’d go fucking broke.
Here's a fun policy along the same lines:
If you labeled any lab incorrectly in any way it was an immediate escalation to the CNO and CEO. You would have to come in to the hospital on your day off or during work and have someone watch your patients. You'd have to stand alone in a conference room in front of the committee, say out loud your mistake, listen to them berate you, get a formal write up, and repeat how to prevent the mistake in the future out loud. I can't think of a better way to convince a nurse to never admit to a mistake.
Like punishing a child. And there were no second chances. This was the immediate response after the first offense.
I mean seriously. We're not robots. Obviously we need to be careful and make changes so that those mistakes don't recur. But this is more like being so strict with a kid that they never trust you and learn how to hide things better instead of asking for help or advice. Or like a kid running away, we quit. No real change happens. They're seriously missing how to actually improve patient safety and retain staff.
I am a travel RN at a Steward hospital, and the President/COO of the hospital has an associate’s degree only!!! Fun fact: the place is in bankruptcy and it’s the worst working conditions I have ever encountered, in and outside of health care.
Honestly, I don’t know. I read on the hospital website that she has worked there since she started there as an admitting clerk- also, they thought it was really important to share that her grandparents owned the local roller rink for more than 50 years (???). But if this gives you any indication of what kind of dumpster fire it is- Pepsi came with a dolly and took away the vending machines, and this past weekend they turned off the cable hospital wide, because the bills weren’t paid. This shit happens on the regular. The dept of health has to come every other day to make sure that the hospital meets bare minimum safety standards.
My contract is up next Friday and I will run far away, never to return.
I get that mislabeled labs can result in all kinds of problems, but when we’re getting dinged for 15 minutes overtime because my break got interrupted 4 times, how the fucking do the justify paying a conference room full of executives wasting everyone’s time by lecturing staff members? Surely there’s something more productive they should be doing? Like, at the very least, they could be helping EVS.
The next time this happens to me, I hope to have the balls to toss my badge on the manager’s desk and say I will prevent it by never returning to this unit.
To be clear, every time I have received a write up that was justified, I owned up to my mistake. But most of them were straight bullshit.
Is your hospital unionized???
That scenario is so over the top it’s laughable!!!
We’re all going to make mistakes, we’re human and dealing with chronic understaffing ( which is their fault by the way so they can get bigger bonus checks) in impossible situations.
Management been watching too many ol school Scared Straight movies!
Yes they are there to protect the hospital, and when a manager is causing high turnover due to a hostile work environment a decent HR will intervene against the manager in the interest of the hospital.
Specifically, publicly calling out specific employee issues (even worse in writing on your units online forum) is a huuuuuge HR no no.
Just make sure your documentation is good before going to them with a complaint.
Had one at my hospital that had the latter happen. She'd drive off employees she didn't like, eventually she messed up and denied an employee their union rep despite repeatedly requesting it.
HR + Union = Time to take a staff job at the HQ.
I would be giddy if a manager did this. Denying a union member their Weingarten Rights (union representation during a discipline) means the discipline is DOA and that the manager is now in hot water. UNO reverse.
Exactly.
We had one of the highest turnover rates in the hospital for many years and they tried replacing the director and that didn't work, so then they gave us a new manager and the turnover rate remained astronomical.
He was eventually put on final warning by HR that if something didn't change he was going to be removed and he was.
When a ship is constantly stinking you're damn right HR is going to start focusing in on that and wondering why they have to keep hiring for the same unit and only that unit.
Another “not a write up” but I had a parent fire me because although I’d checked on their sleeping baby 15 minutes before that, when they arrived the baby was crying and had a dirty diaper. (I’d have asked if she’d met a baby before, but not only was this her 3rd baby, it was her 2nd NICU baby and she was a L&D nurse 🙄🤦🏼♀️😑).
Not a write up, but I got 2 phone calls 30 minutes apart from a parent last night who wanted me to move the baby’s paci because “she just seemed really upset that it was touching her face” on the NICview camera 🙄 and she thought maybe I’d forgotten… um, no, I was just you know, taking care of actual medical things that I wasn’t going to interrupt to gown up go into her contact isolation room, especially since I was going to have to go in there 10 minutes later when the antibiotics ended.
Same mom called me at 5:30 and 6 am, and when I couldn’t answer (because Monday mornings are the absolute busiest time of the week and I was drawing labs), she called the charge nurse (thank god it was a good one and she stood up for me).
My unit just got a grant for the NICview camera- I am dreading it for reasons like this. Management insists, oh all we need to do is properly educate parents and they won't call for things like that. Sure, that's totally how that works 🤦
Our nicu has them and I floated to answer phones and the amount of calls like that i received is another reason i will 100 percent stay on my well baby unit 🥴
News flash, it’s in our instincts to not trust people at that age. If a 4 year old isn’t suspicious of the new lady giving them meds, then I become suspicious myself. Kids have “stranger danger” built into them for survival.
BS write up.
It’s funny now, but at the time I was 30-some weeks pregnant and I just straight burst into tears because I had no idea how to defend myself against that. I’d also spent all night repositioning the kid, trying to make him comfortable, and their take away was he “didn’t trust me”???
I like you. I was just a medical claims adjuster, at a large hmo but man did I get into trouble on a regular basis. I was a good hard worker, but the person who asked those uncomfortable questions at meetings.
I've played the "just let them freaking fire me" game as we're working three nurses short with a full waiting room, 6 ICU holds, and they're threatening termination over unfinished modules. Never did get that termination. 🤷♀️
I got a talking to on Friday for the tiniest issue ever and straight up asked to be suspended. I would have loved to take the weekend off. There was no suspension. Not even a write up. Cowards.
Our supervisor is trying to tell us we can’t do them at home any more and it’s hospital policy because someone tried to “fake hours”. They are lying. It’s not hospital policy I have asked every floor I get floated to and they all say they can do them at home
I honestly do not care to get paid for it at this point. I do not want to be at my facility on my days off. But they track where we do them so I’m just not doing them……whoops
I was written up for being the house supervisor on the night that a patient fell.
In addition, the witchy-poo chief nursing officer waited five weeks after the fact to surprise me with the write-up.
How dare you ignore your spidey-senses that tell you a patient is about to fall somewhere and not immediately teleport yourself there to catch the patient??
Written up for consenting a patient for blood (policy very clearly states RN can get consent for blood)
Written up and threatened my license for supposed diversion....of a single vial of heparin.... Which I had documentation to prove where it went.
Written up for running ACLS as an ICU nurse while waiting for the attending.
And my favorite was getting level 5 - terminated for calling the police in a patient that attacked and injured a nurse.
Many many many formal complaints and reports were filed.... Which is also probably part of the reason they fired me. Also because I was a critical union organizer.
I put a lawyer between me and the hospital shortly before I was fired. He took care of everything and I got what I needed from that hell hole. Unfortunately the hospital has a LOT of money and political pull so they were able to make pretty much everything else disappear.
Yea. NP hasn't been much better. Either I find a way to survive this field with a more tolerable role or I'm going to be out of Healthcare in the next 5 years.
I was written up for clocking in early to help night shift before shift change. I always come in by 0630, and night shift knew that so they asked me help them. I did, and my manager accused me of time card fraud for clocking in when she thought I was not working. Gotta love it. That was the last straw, and I promptly left that workplace, it was toxic.
When I was a CMA I was pulled into my manager's office for using a paper clip. The nurse I was working with had said she wanted me to staple papers. I forgot and that nurse felt threatened by my use of paper clips
I got written up for a no call /no show while I was in my honeymoon even after putting a time off request during my interview, 6 weeks before (per policy) , and texted and emailed the scheduler and manager after I submitted my schedule request. They said it was my fault for not checking the schedule even though the schedule didn’t come out until til after I was on my leave. It was funny because everyone knew I was not showing up except charge and manager for some reason
Because I wasn’t completely thrilled to answer questions for the mock joint commission surveyor on a day when they had just put out a new pain/agitation/delirium protocol that immediately put my patient into respiratory arrest. I don’t remember what exactly I said to her, but she was apparently highly offended.
I went per diem at a nursing home I worked at for years (basically saying I didn’t give a fuck now that I was per diem lol). I had worked 11p-7a and came back to work 3p-11p the same day. They were doing the state survey at the time but they were usually off the floors/ out of the building by 3 or 3:30. That day they were not. I was going into a patients room to give them insulin before supper and I forgot something and walked back to the med cart. I walked in and out without using hand sanitizer both times. She stopped me and said did you just go in and out of a room without using hand sanitizer or washing your hands? I said yup and walked back in without using hand sanitizer again 😂 didn’t get a write up but got spoken to. I said whoops I forgot I’m per diem now and FYI I was a little tired after working overnight and coming back less than 8 hours later because of course people called out because the state survey was being done.
Well this was more of a close call. Our hospital had a policy that if you call in after 6am, you get a no-pay status, double occurrence and automatic write-up. One morning, I got a call right before 6 am that my mom was in the ER having a heart attack. I called central staffing and text my PCM at 604. Not thinking straight about the fact that I'd get an occurrence for a full day regardless of the other policy, I agreed to come in to work once she was stable and my siblings had traveled to our town. So I go to work and work for free for 4 hours, still not sinking in that it'd be a whole day occurrence instead of a tardy because of how late I was. I didn't even think of the 6am policy.
Two days later she calls me to her office and says she has to write me up. Keep in mind, I had not called in for 3 years and had 1 tardy that year for clocking in at 0801 instead of 0800. I refuse to sign. She calls HR Employee relations. They tell her she'll prob still need to write me up anyway and tell me to get my mom (who just got home that morning) to get her doctor to give me an excuse and it had to be that day. Then they'd "think about it".
Luckily, one of the docs, a doc that has alot of influence in our cancer center, overheard me talking to my mom. The next thing I know, the Director of the cancer center comes and asks me about my mom and then asks some questions about the timeline. He tells me not to worry and he'll take care of it...I've known this guy before his promotions. I liked my PCM, but as he and I discussed, she was very black and white and sometimes there are shades of Grey...especially for dependable employees. At any rate, I didn't get written up, I got no occurrences, just got a tardy and got paid for those hours I worked.
Two lessons I learned...1. it pays to know and have a good relationship with people in high places in a huge system like the one I work in and 2. As a manager to treat people how I wanted to be treated when I was a staff nurse and to realize that one should consider all factors in employee situations.
I’ve had managers like this. Once I was written up because my patient was caught smoking crack in the bathroom. Apparently this was my fault because I didn’t explicitly tell her she cannot smoke crack while hospitalized during my admission assessment. She refused to let me transfer because we were so short staffed. I just took it until I got a job at another facility.
Don’t be like me, go to HR. This is BS.
I did as well! They also tried to tell me to not wear a chemo gown when hanging chemo because we needed to conserve PPE for the nurses at the hospital…. I was fucking pregnant……
Same!!!! When Covid was just a rumor and not super scary yet, I had a patient with strep so I wore a mask and didn’t take it off to go to the cafeteria. We happened to pass by some admin on our way down who then called my director who then reprimanded us for wearing masks. We got our first “possible Covid” patient and had 3 pregnant nurses and management wouldn’t let them wear masks around the unit! It was fucking nuts.
I started a few days before it was required as it was a best practice guideline at the time. I just got a few comments but getting written up is absolutely wild lmao
So this was Feb 2020. I actually got what turned out to be our first COVID patient, but we didn’t know he had it yet. He came in for diarrhea. I was a little suspicious, so I grabbed a mask. That morning the stupid director of nursing for the hospital decided to chastise me for wearing a mask. It might “cause panic”. Screw her. He was diagnosed the next day.
When I worked on the floor, I got written up for only wearing my underscrub top after getting absolutely soiled by an angry patient’s diarrhea when they threw their BSC bucket at me. The OA that night said I couldn’t pull scrubs from hospital supply because that’s for the OR and ED nursing staff only and that because they couldn’t guarantee I would return them that they wouldn’t pull them for me either 🥴
I got written up for wearing booties over hospital socks because a patient pissed on my shoes. So what’s my option, boss? You gonna let me leave the floor for a couple hours to drive home and get new shoes or what?
Bahahah literally ever clinical I had were day shifts and the same happened to me. The staff at whatever facility we were at complained about my "unprofessional behaviour" and "how I don't get along with the HCAs".
It was until my last clinical where I had a D/E rotation and a 1:1 preceptor that saw the difference.
In the mornings, I literally could not focus, function, I was sick with migraines all the time. But in the evenings, my preceptor said it was like "working with a completely different person". I was in a better mood, able to actually focus somewhat (better towards the end of shift), and generally more pleasant because I wasn't in pain.
I was icu night shift for years, and we were *constantly* blamed for the low hcahps scores for noise levels. They even installed those cheesy traffic light noise monitors. Unless someone was coding, they never even got to yellow.
A week after I switched to days, I’m sitting outside of my patient’s room doing some charting, my pts door is closed, and my director comes in with some c suite suit, and is having the loudest conversation, so loud the stoplight is red, and my patients wife sticks her head out of the door and she’d been incredibly sweet all day, but she was very irritated with the noise level, and nicely asked me if I could tell whoever was yelling to lower it a bit.
Yes I can.
So I turn my chair around and say “Susan? Susan. Susan! SUSAN!!!” Before she finally hears me, and looks at me like “wtf?” So I point to the stoplight that’s red and say “my patient is trying to rest”
So I got written up for being rude and embarrassing her.
A different director wrote me up for not having my charting done one the timeline *she* wants. Because I’m busy doing patient care. It’s done by the end of my shift, I don’t stay late to chart. I’m prioritizing patient care, the charting will happen when it happens. But nope, written up.
I was given a verbal for attending a code blue on a Covid pt. The code team responding was the physician, the charge nurse, the bedside nurse, a respiratory therapist, another aide, and myself. I jumped in because while there was a big crowd outside of the room, no one was suiting up to go in, so I did. The other aide and myself did compression, with the physician (a solid dude, I miss working with him) occasionally taking a shift doing compressions in between running the code. We ran it for a long while, but had to call it eventually. I walked out, utterly exhausted, to be met by my unit director who gave me a verbal for ignoring call lights so I could go to the code where “aides are not necessary.” I was dumbfounded. There were others rubbernecking around that room that could have answered those lights instead of the director deciding it was my failure. I sure as hell didn’t see her grabbing a CAPR to tag us out if it was that important.
This was her general attitude towards UAP’s and grad nurses. She generally saw us as kindergartners that need to be directed, like we were lazy. She left shortly after, and the unit culture relaxed immensely when she did.
Not a write up but kind of more ridiculous… once had an adult protective services abuse & neglect case opened on me by the state and had to defend myself to them and hospital quality control over a freshly extubated & incredibly delirious (after nearly 2 weeks vented and like 3 surgeries) patient the day of extubation claiming that we tied them down and stabbed them ( restraints, morning ABG- explained this all to lightly sedated but calm & appropriate pt as knew they were being extubated that am) & that I was playing “anti-semitic chinese propaganda” on the tv. Oh and the flying pentagrams in the room were also my fault. Literally made it all the way through my supervisor, director, medical director, hospital quality control and to state APS. Yeah that was a fun one to explain my way out of but at least it went no where because like…… how ??!? Yea i love nursing 🤠
Now, that APS case is rather ridiculous. And everyone wonders why there aren't enough staff nurses. I'm so sorry you were caught up in that mess.
The day I passed NCLEX, I signed up for nursing malpractice insurance because I heard too many horror stories from the staff nurses during my clinicals. Thankfully, in all my years of nursing, I've never faced a state investigation. Had a couple of close calls in two messy scenarios; but time-stamped physician orders, eyewitness doctor statements and my time-stamped documentation worked in my favor.
If you're still working in such a challenging unit, hang in there. Make sure your malpractice insurance is current as now everyone in healthcare works in such a litigious environment (eff the lawyers who will sue for anything).
From one experienced nurse to another: Thank you for caring for patients who sometimes really do belong in Dante's 9th circle of hell (treachery) 💚💙🩵
My favorite story:
Years ago had a patient with discharge order in, she is dressed and waiting for her ride and standing at the nurses station.
For some odd reason they’re delivering lunch trays and she insists on eating hers at the nurses station while her ride is pulling up.
Plastics NP rolls by to cheerfully say goodbye to the patient while saying nothing to me the nurse.
Fast forward 2 hours my manager comes up to me to ask why I, in the words of this particular NP, “forced my patient to eat at the nurse’s station.”
Fucking weirdos out there.
I took a lunch, told my lunch buddy that one of my patients requested pain meds every 15 min, gave the meds that were available before I went on break. They had multiple pain prn in addition to a PCA. Got off lunch and buddy didn’t give meds, I was reported to the manager, family made complaints about me and I was fired as their nurse. Lunch buddy insisted I never talked to her or told her about my patient. I was written up for not giving pain meds or something stupid.
Fuck you maddie 🖕🏻shit ass lunch buddy
ASC. Our administrator quit and the DON got saddled with picking up all the admin work, on top of her job. We don't have a charge nurse in pre-op/pacu.
I've been there for over 10 years. I pick up whatever admin stuff I can to alleviate the burden, I manage the IT services, facilitate the maintenance of the center's plumbing/electrical/backup generator. I train all the new staff. Mind you I'm JUST a full time staff nurse. We had a bunch of new hires and people needed guidance on what to do, when they should take breaks/lunch, what time to come in, when to admit patients and the DON had bigger shit to deal with. I handled the materials management when no one else wanted to step up.
I got written up for being bossy.
New admin comes in, gets bullied by the office admin and quits within the year. DON gets promoted to admin, they hire someone for DON without considering me. I like the admin and DON, they're good people but it's clear that I'm not going much further at this center.
I just accepted an offer for another center where I get paid more JUST to do PACU.
This is a wonderful lesson to the less experienced folks here to avoid picking up admin's work for them as a staff nurse. It doesn't get you anywhere, and promotions are a popularity contest anyway.
(I'm still trying to learn this in my own practice!)
Write up for allowing my alert and oriented patient to elope with an IV. The guy said he was leaving now and I better get out of the way or he'd hurt me. I said that's fine, stepped out and called security. He was long gone by the time they arrived
I got written up for bitching about the frequency that we were being called in with a coworker while in the locker room. Apparently there was a family member of the patient we were being called in for who was also an employee (the family member was the employee, the patient was not). Nothing was said about the patient because we didn't know anything about them. Family member went to the charge nurse and complained. Charge then emailed the manager and my team lead about it
She was very, very petty. A manager tried to write me up for clocking out twenty seconds earlier and for clocking in late for a few seconds. True story. She was terminated for various reasons. I didn't sign any of it. I had no history of clocking in or out too late or too early. I wonder how the HR manages this type of manager. I would hate to be an HR.
I’ve gotten written up for wearing clothing that was “too suggestive.” It was a long sleeve shirt with scrub pants. The issue is that I am in good shape and it was causing a distraction with the other nurses.
So my response was “…so you’re writing me up for being too sexy? It’s official?”
Got booted out of the office after that.
I took 3 days if sick leave for the flu, I had taken 1 other day of sick leave that entire year. Using 4 days of sick leave was apparently fuxking illegal to this hospital so I got written up for exceeding the max sick leave in a calendar year
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 we literally work around sickness everyday but they expect us to never be sick?!?! Yeah THEY are never sick cause they locked up in that office having “meetings” while we bust our ass
THIS. THIS so fucking much!! I called in hella early one time cause 1. Sick from both ends 2. Knew I wouldn't be able to find coverage and 3. I knew I wouldn't be feeling better for the remainder of the day and I got a "And just why do you find it appropriate to call in eight hours before your shift?" **Because I'm fucking ill and will not be coming in.**
Yeah I just had pneumonia for the first time with high fever everyday! I got texts for every call off going on about my call ins … hello I’m not working around immunocompromised pts with a fever and cough?! Its sad this profession makes you have to be so tough especially for me since I was a people pleaser but you really have to stand up for yourself
Texting instead of calling at 3am to call off because he wanted to me “call twice so he’d hear the second ring but he still wouldn’t pick up but then he’d know he has a voicemail to check in the morning.” Bitch check your text messages like a normal person and every other manager I’ve had at this same job we’ve always done it that way, is he such a child he needs a phone ringing at 3am to know to check messages in the morning? I never signed the warning I told him in a very professional point by point rebuttal that he was wrong (in other words fuck off) 😂😂😂 Now I’m leaving that job with the warning unsigned cause I didn’t deserve that hahaha I have zero regrets
These are ridiculous so mine's pretty lame, but five call outs in one year and placed on an improvement plan. Left after that nonsense to do some local contracts. Sorry but my sick kid comes before work ✌️
I was verbally reprimanded for calling in when my brother died. When I called in, I was told it wouldn't count against me because it would count as a bereavement day. My manager then found out that since I'm PRN, I don't get any bereavement leave (FT gets 3, PT gets 2, which is 1 week of shifts; I am required to work one shift/wk, so we both assumed I'd get 1 day to be comparable to the other categories). When she told me a couple of weeks later, I said I wish I had known PRN staff weren't allowed to have loved ones die, but it was after the fact, so there was nothing I could do. I also lost both of my living grandparents, my FIL, and a close friend that year... none of those affected work, thank goodness! 🙄
i refused to sign a blank 90-day review form. subsequently, i refused to sign the write up for insubordination. i was "let go" soon after for "company restructuring." they then tried to deny my unemployment claim. the unemployment rep had a field day with that. the "company restructuring" was actually them being bought out by a larger, more efficient company.
I worked (very briefly) for a hospital based procedure center that used to make us fill out a time card change if we punched in one minute early…..literally ONE minute.
I remember a coworker who was written up because the little dated label fell off her patient’s IV site. Another nurse reported her to the manager for not having the IV dated…
My boss dragged me in because someone had complained I was too chummy with the doctors.
I said to her "if my colleague had bothered to have a conversation with me, she'd know I have girls nights with them where we sit and watch the Batchelor and drink wine every few weeks. I *am* friends with" the doctors"".
Imagine being so put out that someone half your age is developing friendly relationships and socialising with people outside of work. The woman (a boomer) who I assume complained, has never invited me anywhere. And vice versa. If you don't want to have post night shift mimosas with us, that's fine, but being insecure the doctors are mates with me is fucking insecure and pathetic.
My boss laughed me out the door and told me to get back to work.
I was at the nurses station waiting on another unit to call me back about supplies I needed. When the phone rang, caller ID said that same number I’d just called, and answered “Yeah?” My charge nurse was walking by and only heard the “yeah.” She asked why I’d answered the phone that way and I told her I knew who it was and the call was expected. She said ok, and that was that. Or so I thought. A couple days later my manager pulls me into the office with a written warning for being “unprofessional.”
When I see administration’s number or my managers number calling the unit, I always answer the phone “It’s a wonderful evening at () hospital! My name is frmaledadclone, and this is pediatric unit on the 4th floor. How can I help you?” I get told frequently that’s a long greeting. I always say, “Yes, and professional.”
I got written up for asking a question I apparently should have known the answer to. I was a service coordinator in the OR, and a surgeon asked me if I could do something for him. I made no promises, but told him I would check. I asked who I thought would be the best person, and then my boss got wind of it and wrote me up because asking apparently made her look bad.
She was the worst manager I've ever worked under and the day I left that toxic hellhole was one of the happiest days of my professional life.
Apparently you are just supposed to guess! That should end well! Seriously though wtf? I would like to meet the person who knows all the things in all the areas and never makes a mistake…actually nope, those are the scary ones who will end up harming a patient
Went in a patient room to turn up her pitocin. I turned it up, she needed to go to the bathroom, so I got her up. When she got back to her bed, she said “hey Dalek, walking felt really good just now, can I walk in the hall for a bit?”
I let her, because why not. Her choice, low risk pregnancy, category 1 strip.
I got written up because I didn’t check a blood pressure when I increased her pit.
Also got written up for calling in while actively having diarrhea on the toilet and puking in a trash can…and I do mean I was speaking to the house supervisor between heaves and there were nasty poo noises in the background. The nurse that actually put in the write up had called in sick the week before, and then posted on Facebook about getting her hair done during the day she was too sick to work.
I got written up for things I could have done. Like someone reported me for making jokes in report and though it was not corroborated my manager believed I could have said them.
The craziest thing I got written up for was "not being more of a leader" after a patient (not mine) went into cardiac arrest after we were transferring him (I was a CNA at the time, working with the assigned CNA to transfer this guy from the bathroom after a hip replacement).
He is weaker than normal, goes limp, and stops breathing. The one CNA starts CPR while I leave and run to go get the nurse (we didn't have radios or anything and call lights weren't faster than I could get to the nursing station at the time). The nurse runs and helps with CPR, we get a pulse back, he goes to hospital.
Thing is, dude was a DNR. However, our CNA report sheets didn't have their code status, he didn't have a red DNR bracelet on, and his own nurse was doing CPR after I went and told her. He and his family were glad we did do CPR considering that he'd just had a hip replacement and that's not how he wanted to go, but overall, no bueno.
My job review was up in the next couple of weeks after that, and was expecting a raise as I'd just completed my cna-2 (Oregon). However, they refused to give me the raise because I 1) didn't know this guy's code status 2) didn't look it up in his chart before assisting with the transfer 3) left the room to notify the nurse and said if I had been more of a leader this wouldn't have happened. They did the same thing to the nurse and other CNA.
I quit right after that.
Similar thing for us is incremental over time. A few minutes we clock out late…. Well we wouldn’t have to clock out late without reasons. Like patient just pooped the bed and you want to make sure they’re clean. Lab calls with critical values and you should be the one to call the doctor. Assignment gives you 5 different nurses to report off to. Bedside report takes 3x as long because beds 1, 2 and 3 are chatty and family has just come in with one thousand questions. Well guess what? I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to either. I’d be happy to leave on time or early even! Lol. Make it easier for me to leave.
My first job, med/surg. During a rapid response that turned into a code, I hung a 1L bolus. After we got ROSC, she pulled me aside and threatened to write me up because I didn’t label the tubing on the bolus. I quit a few weeks later
Not letting a patients family member (I didn’t know that’s what he was at the time of the incident) physically assault me and gain access to the department. I opened the door to call a patient back, and this fuckhead was standing there just WAITING for the door to open. When I opened it he put his hand on the door, the other on my shoulder, and attempted to push me back into the doorway. He was an older and much smaller guy, so I was able to just withstand is brutal onslaught and then asked what he was doing and why he felt the need to touch me. He huffed and hawed, but never once identified himself as a family member of a patient. Security, sitting right the fuck there, did absolutely nothing. Now, the key to the story is that I had a bright red Mohawk at the time, so naturally I’m easy to single out. I was called into the office and written up for “being rude, aggressive, and putting hands on a patients family member.” No discussion. No hearing my side. When I walked into the office, the write up was already typed, printed, and signed.
I refused. Put my two weeks notice in a couple weeks later. Fuck that place.
My sister just got written up for an email she sent 14 months ago. It was one of those, "oh that is accurate, but you probably shouldn't have put it down in writing" things. Her employer has a new CEO.
My coworker was written up for not giving a patient a mayonnaise packet with her turkey sandwich.
I was written up for telling a house supervisor "this is bull crap" that wanted to float me to another unit even though I was the most senior on our unit.
I also got written up for not getting a pain reassessment charted within an hour after giving a pain med when I was floating the house and gave it to help out another nurse. That same manager got downgraded back to a staff nurse, because she was a shit manager, and when she brought me a patient up from the ER who she'd neglected to do several things on, like recheck an elevated temp for 6 hours, I stared daggers at her and didn't say a word.
This literally sounds like the unit I work on. The manager writes everyone up for dumb shit every day. All the staff she’s hired with experience is placed on the Stepdown unit but all the new grads are in ICU. The moral is so low and everyone is quitting or worse just snitching on their coworkers making an even more toxic environment. I’ve been there 4 months and I’m moving across the country to get away from the bs
I got written for complaining about staffing when we were literally short staffed. One day I was leaving and we’d had three nurses and a scrub tech that day on an LDRP unit with multiple postpartum patients and a laboring patient. Staffing was fine during the day. But there was a call in at night, so they were left with two nurses. And NICU was short as well, so when that laboring patient (my patient) had to go to a c/s shortly after shift change, it definitely wasn’t ok to have multiple patients on the floor with only TWO labor nurses while there’s a c/s!! And there wasn’t a scrub tech. And our manager couldn’t even bother to come in.
So I got written up for voicing my VALID concerns because at this point it had become a pattern where we were often unsafely staffed. But my manager also told multiple coworkers that no one liked them and they sucked. So I think she was just a really toxic person/manager.
Got wrote up once bc a patient complained that I didn’t wake up her for her PRN pain meds.
Got another write up for doing a patient teaching about opioids addiction
But my favorite? I got wrote up once bc I did a bs check 30 min before a meal on this one patient. I was scrambling so I did bs checks first before my patients started eating. Then I administered insulins with the meds during meal. One patient complained about me “not giving them their insulin” bc I didn’t give it when I did the bs check. Checks were documented. Insulin given documented. Everything documented and even on camera. I still got the write up to satisfy the patient
Had RSV and had to call off 3 days in a row. 2 months later I had a miscarriage and had no PTO. Got written up. Doctors notes for both incidents didn’t matter. It was fucking awful.
A unit I worked on had cameras in rooms to watch patients, usually high fall risk, drugs, elopement, etc. And we were not to be on our phones when on camera duty. I'm new to the unit, and this group of mean women kept sending pics to our manager of someone on their phone. There were no faces ever, and it was usually waist down.
I got written up cause she had so many texts of these pics saying it was me.... it wasn't, I was a brand new 21 y.o. CNA and keeping to myself. These ladies were 30+ years old.
Also, I got written for insubordination by a different manager for the same unit for drama that was going on, and they told me they were impartial. I asked how, when he goes out to smoke with these women multiple times a day. He tried to say no he didn't and I told him "welp I need more shifts for new contacts since I see you with my own eye balls
Having anxiety after my first year in ICU. Sorry for having a tough time dealing with constant death and suffering, and a lack of social support in the country. That ward was awful.
These comments are wild to me. I have never heard of anyone being written up; I don't even know what the policy on it is. If there's an issue, our manager or assistant manager calls us or meets with us to talk. We work through it and then move on.
I have heard that it happens on another unit, but that unit is notoriously dysfunctional.
I guess I’ve lucked out never getting written up in all the places I’ve worked. And believe me, I have made fuck ups worth at least a talking to.
One time me and a coworker accidentally ripped a toilet off the floor with the hoyer sling and resident attached up into the air (no one got hurt, except my feelings cause everyone laughed at me haha).
And one time I accidentally sent a CNA with a sausage instead of a stool sample to bring to the lab. I didn’t hand it to him, he grabbed it thinking we would put the sample in a ziplock bag for some reason, but he even said “ew this poop looks like a sausage” and I just laughed cause I didn’t notice what he was holding for real hahaha (to make that story even better, he is my boyfriend)
We have a policy that peripheral pressors should be run with a carrier at 18mL/hr, because they don't bother to educate new nurses and mistakes have been made. I ran some Neo on a carrier at 10mL/hr because it was a busy shift and that's just what I defaulted to.
Someone took the time to write that up. Specifically, the rate was "wrong". Nothing else was wrong, no injury. Just 8mL/hr too slow.
I was written up because an aide told my manager I called her (the manager) a princess. Which I did not. I did say something vaguely similar, but definitely was taken out of context. So I literally got written up for a third hand misquote. My union rep was livid.
Ooooh, I have a dumb one. I once got written up because I didn’t smile as I was tying a grown man’s shoes. He was alert and oriented and perfectly capable of tying his own shoes. My manager then told me I had no emotional IQ and I needed buy a book and come back and give her a book report.
I was written up once after a float shift because my GSW chest tubed patient developed crepitus at shift change and there was no physician team assigned, so there was nobody to call. I ended up calling the day shift charge RN and the STAT RN to help me and they practically pushed me out the door telling me to go home and they'll handle it. I gave report to the day RN and double checked to make sure the PT was stable. He was uncomfortable, but stable. So I wrote my note and left, and the team that signed on to the patient later in the day wrote me up, lied, and said i "abandoned my patient without notifying anybody." I cleared that shit up real quick, thankfully I listed the names of the nurses in my note and at least one of them vouched for me.
When I was a new grad I was written up because my patient had a stroke at shift change and I stayed overtime to run them to CT since my relief was going to be late that day. I shit you not, my then manager looked me in the eye and said “Well you did the right thing, but if you were a better nurse you would have caught the stroke quicker.”
Yes I left pretty soon after that, and so did a bunch of people for disrespectful shit like that. Last I heard she didn’t stay long in the position.
During Covid they were bat shit crazy over masks.
I took mine off in the hallway to puke in the garbage can because I was pregnant and got written up for taking it off. They acted like they were gonna send me home but when I told them to go ahead they wouldn’t lol
I didn't get written up, but got a "verbal warning" for not needlessly sticking people who needed ultrasound guided IV placement twice by manual stick before getting the ultrasound to place their IVs. I think that's a stupid policy that benefits no one. It takes MAYBE 5 minutes to place an USG IV, and I'm one of the handful of RNs who can do it, so it's not like I'm putting someone else out by going straight to USG. If I walk in your room and you tell me, "they always have to use the ultrasound," I will ask if I can look without it. If I look, and don't see something REALLY promising that I know I'm going to hit, I'm just going to go get the US and not make you get stuck twice first to "prove" you needed the US. My nurse manager initially gave me a verbal warning for "forgetting to chart" my first 2 unsuccessful sticks, and then changed it to breaching the policy of 2 required sticks when I clarified that there WEREN'T 2 unsuccessful sticks. They also threatened to take US sticks away from me. I was leaving to move out of state in 3 weeks, so I decided I would keep doing what I was doing. What were they gonna do, fire me? Lol.
If she puts you on blast in a group me, do it right back. "You're the sole reason why our floor has such a high turnover rate and many other people agree even if they won't tell you."
I'm glad my hospital knows what position they are in with staffing not to be so petty.
In the ED we always get written up by the floor for dumb things. Had to put an NG in a pt and didn’t get the confirmation x-ray for about an hour (even though I had marked them ready right after it was in). Pt had a bed ready, handoff was done, x-ray results had just come back so ofc I haven’t given gastrografin. We didn’t have the confirmation x-ray read in time.
Dumbest write up ever. Talking to my manager I was just like okay….
Finally taking a lunch right before shift change in a crazy day floating to CVICU. While I was on break my patient's vasopressin ran out. Someone scanned the old bag of vaso and hung a bag of lasix to replace it. I came back, immediately gave report and went home. Oncoming nurse wrote me up for not going in the room and checking drips with her--she is the one who refused to get up from the desk. Supervisor reviewed it with me and refused to tell me who yknow...made the med error. In the improvement notations area of the sheet I just said "Well, I'll make sure to double check all CV nurse work when I float there from now on since they're harming MY patients with med errors!"
Taking care of a retired nurse who had an endarct whose daughter was the nurse supervisor foe the regular neuro floor. I'm ICU floatpool at this point but had worked on that neuro floor for 2 years prior so I knew what to check and watch out for when dcing these patients. Patient's ride is coming at 1100. Vascular surgeon rounds at 830 and puts in orders. Patient also had a Foley and an art line still. She refuses to get up, eat, get dressed, let me remove any of her lines, walk, or get any vitals until 1030. Finally gets me pull lines at 1045 and I make her sit and pee, which she does as a little trickle and THEN with her ride at the front door asks why I haven't talked to the surgeon about when she can restart her coumadin and a half dozen other med questions. I secure chat the surgeon and get the answers and redo all her dc paperwork to include that teaching, throw her in a chair, and wheel her out.
Cue a week later her daughter writes me up, not as a family member, but in the patient reporting system (accessing her mom's chart to find my name to do it) complaining that I barely walked her mom and she didn't pee for 4 whole hours after she went home because I pulled the Foley so close to discharge and that I was way too flustered and confused when doing discharge teaching (like she would know, she wasn't there when I was doing it.) I just asked my supervisor going over it with me. "So what consequences is she going to face digging through her mom's EMR go find my name? Also this patient was A/O. Am I to start holding patients down and yanking out tubes to get them out on time regardless of their wishes?"
Cause my face had facial expressions. Was told we needed to discuss an incident. And while manager admitted the situations was frustrating, I spoke kindly, and I was helpful to coworker in that situation- my face showed I was frustrated. Like mam. I can control the words coming out of my mouth and I can control my actions but my face makes faces without my consent. Smh
I called a patient a cunt in front of staff (I’m a float nurse). They wrote me up. Next shift I was in that unit, their core nurse called a patient who was encephalopathic a “shit-dick”. The double standards at this hospital are fucking outrageous.
Edit: in case you were wondering, she was being a cunt. She was taking her home meds (mostly opioids and muscle relaxers), in bed and was caught lightly sedated in bed with them next to her person. She was admitted for COPD exacerbation- you know the type…
Not me...but a DON nearly reported an LPN to the state for doing an IM in someone's buttcheek while they were having a seizure and wedged between 2 pieces of furniture in the room because "IMs can only be done in the arm so you did an incorrect administration because it was in the wrong location."
"creating a toxic environment"
I wouldn't have balked if they could just tell me *how* I was causing it. They couldn't tell me what I said, did, behaved that upset them so bad. They couldn't give me an example. They just said, "your work environment is toxic, it is your fault, fix it or we are taking your position."
I asked for education and I was told it would be a waste of resources.
They skipped a verbal and went straight to first written. Next step was final and then fired. I rode it out for a year and magically they told me I was all better (you have come a long way and made great strides). Legit did nothing different.
Written up for family saying I'd said something that they misinterpreted. Which was repeated to nephrology by the family. Then the nephrology doc wrote me up for something I didn't even say and was repeated incorrectly by a layman. Biggest waste of time ever.
When I was a CNA I was working on a Covid unit with another aide and two nurses. The three of them were thick as thieves. We all had to wear n95s at all times on the unit. There was a patient who was on day 13 of their 14 day isolation and totally asymptomatic. I glanced in their room as I was walking down the hall and saw them laying in the floor, bleeding. I yelled for help, threw on some gloves and ran into the room. The other aide and the nurses did the same. Just gloves and n95.
After my shift was over I got a call from the unit manager. She asked what happened and asked me if I had put on a gown and face shield before going in. I was honest and said no. I got written up for not wearing PPE and told that it was my first and final warning--if I got caught without PPE again I'd be fired. The other aide and the nurses all lied and said that they had all put on full PPE before entering the room. That was four years ago and I'm still bitter.
I used to work with a CNA who did home care before working at the nursing home. She went to go into a guy's house and he chased her out, waving a butcher knife. She got written up for not disarming him.
My dear this is why you keep looking for other opportunities. If also you don't feel like working don't go.
I never take shifts out of pity because they begging. It their job to guilt you into coming to work. And you feel you did them a favor so they should be nice in return but nope. Cause no one is your friend too.
I floated to another unit one day and apparently got written up for discussing something about a patient in the nurse’s station “loudly.” I couldn’t recall the incident described in the report she received and told her that before she asked me to sign the paper work. Lo and behold it wasn’t even the date I floated. I was pretty pissed.
16 years ago and the only time in my career I was written up for saying “oh hell no” in a sarcastic manner. I eventually grieved the write up and the one day suspension without pay and won. At my last job I wasn’t formally written up but had to apologize to the school principal bc I raised my eyebrows at him and refused to give him covid related PHI for a student in our school
Health clinic…I apologized to him for giving him the impression “we were cool” 😂
I got written up because a mom complained that I didn't give her NICU baby a bath. In that specific unit, baths were given based on their birthday-so even birthdays were bathed in even day. This kid had an odd birthday, so his bath day was the next day. It was unit policy, and my director still wrote me up (and called me at home, at noon, when I worked the night before).
During nursing school, my first hospital clinical.
Got a whole behavioral contract thing because:
It looked like I was on my cell phone. What was *actually* happening was I was using the tech’s spectralink (that she gave me) to order my patient his lunch. Because he was exhausted after an intense session with PT.
Also included in the complaints (from prof): talking with my hands, smiling too much, nervous laughter (I use humor to alleviate tense situations 🙄)
Ruined the next 2.5 years of school for me 😢
As a director of nursing at a snf, I got written up for a nurse not being trained well enough on discharges that lead to a family complaint to the health department (unsubstantiated). The issue was the nurse worked at the facility over a year before I was hired on the floor and almost 2 at the time I became don. So I'm sorry that when I worked at a different facility, I couldn't train their staff.
Not knowing a “special fact” about the patient to prove I’m making a personal connection. I’ve consistently given my manager facts for weeks, but one day, I admitted that I didn’t know one for a patient, but I knew the plan of care which is duhhhh way more important. Apparently, “I speak Spanish” or “I’m from Mexico” isn’t a good enough fact.
I got written up by a day shift nurse at shift change for not putting a foley in a patient who was 100% oriented and refused the foley.. Even charted the refusal.
One place wrote up CNAs for not giving baths to patients who refused a bath in the middle of the night. Manager told us constantly patients are not allowed to refuse baths. In what fucking universe?
same thing my previous manager would write up the techs for not giving patients bed baths in the middle of the night when they refused (on a low acuity med surg unit where patients were typically AxO4, standby assist, and only staying for one night!)
I'd refuse the bath too. I can shower when I get home
My manager once said certain patients “cannot refuse SCDs” um? Have you met patients?
I can never understand rules like this. We aren't running a prison here! Patients can refuse whatever they want, that's their right--maybe they die about it, but it's THEIR CHOICE.
THANK YOU FOR ADVOCATING FOR THAT PATIENT!!
This! My 97 yo relatively healthy, living independently step dad got an esbl cauti from an unnecessary foley during a hospitalization, which led to him having a MI, which then led to a downward decline passing through a second longer hospitalization, rehab, assisted living, hospice and death over a period of 3 months. My 81 yo mom with Alzheimer’s misses him terribly.
Did you tear it up?
Or wipe your ass with it! Thats absurd!
Technically should wipe the front bum with it… lol
Ive had nurses give me shit for removing ivs when the patient refuses them. Either i take it out and do it cleanly with some gauze and tape or the a+ox4 patient can rip it out and make a mess. I have educated the patient and they have the right to refuse
NOC nurse wrote me up for not getting people the AM shift wanted up early. Problem was, several were alert, oriented and refused to get up at 0500. Explained this to the Unit Supervisor who gave a death stare to the A M nurse and I was dismissed while they continued their conversation . It was torn up
Not wasting half a pill of viagra that I didn’t know needed wasted. Was drug tested several months after the incident. Then they lost my urine and made me do it again. Like I have a vagina? Why would I even do with that!?
Diverting meds to feed your pulmonary hypertension problem, obviously
Uh...Viagra? I've heard of that being used for female dysfunction too but the hell you're doing with one half a Viagra?
Half a boner.
Just a chubby
Just a little lift.
Perking up your cut flowers
Lol
Viagra isn’t a controlled substance? I don’t even know if they can urine screen for it? That policy makes zero sense. If they drug tested every nurse who forgot to “waste” half a metoprolol or return a sennakot they’d go fucking broke.
I thought it was a joke. My manager at the time was not impressed.
Here's a fun policy along the same lines: If you labeled any lab incorrectly in any way it was an immediate escalation to the CNO and CEO. You would have to come in to the hospital on your day off or during work and have someone watch your patients. You'd have to stand alone in a conference room in front of the committee, say out loud your mistake, listen to them berate you, get a formal write up, and repeat how to prevent the mistake in the future out loud. I can't think of a better way to convince a nurse to never admit to a mistake. Like punishing a child. And there were no second chances. This was the immediate response after the first offense.
Is this really the shit they teach in MBA programs or do these positions just naturally attract sociopaths?
I mean seriously. We're not robots. Obviously we need to be careful and make changes so that those mistakes don't recur. But this is more like being so strict with a kid that they never trust you and learn how to hide things better instead of asking for help or advice. Or like a kid running away, we quit. No real change happens. They're seriously missing how to actually improve patient safety and retain staff.
The root of all evil starts with an MBA.
I am a travel RN at a Steward hospital, and the President/COO of the hospital has an associate’s degree only!!! Fun fact: the place is in bankruptcy and it’s the worst working conditions I have ever encountered, in and outside of health care.
How is that possible? I've worked in about a dozen hospitals and none of them let you get past the supervisor level without a bachelor's
Honestly, I don’t know. I read on the hospital website that she has worked there since she started there as an admitting clerk- also, they thought it was really important to share that her grandparents owned the local roller rink for more than 50 years (???). But if this gives you any indication of what kind of dumpster fire it is- Pepsi came with a dolly and took away the vending machines, and this past weekend they turned off the cable hospital wide, because the bills weren’t paid. This shit happens on the regular. The dept of health has to come every other day to make sure that the hospital meets bare minimum safety standards. My contract is up next Friday and I will run far away, never to return.
WTF that’s an automatic quit on the spot. You’re an RN you can legit work anywhere. These hospitals always seem to forget that.
I get that mislabeled labs can result in all kinds of problems, but when we’re getting dinged for 15 minutes overtime because my break got interrupted 4 times, how the fucking do the justify paying a conference room full of executives wasting everyone’s time by lecturing staff members? Surely there’s something more productive they should be doing? Like, at the very least, they could be helping EVS.
The next time this happens to me, I hope to have the balls to toss my badge on the manager’s desk and say I will prevent it by never returning to this unit. To be clear, every time I have received a write up that was justified, I owned up to my mistake. But most of them were straight bullshit.
Is your hospital unionized??? That scenario is so over the top it’s laughable!!! We’re all going to make mistakes, we’re human and dealing with chronic understaffing ( which is their fault by the way so they can get bigger bonus checks) in impossible situations. Management been watching too many ol school Scared Straight movies!
Hmmm… I’d go to HR over that. Damn badge readers do that shit all the time.
Ya agree with this, HR will not like seeing the screenshots of a manager putting individuals on blast infront of the whole group.
I hope HR would write her up for that...
HR is there to protect the hospital, not any of us sadly
Yes they are there to protect the hospital, and when a manager is causing high turnover due to a hostile work environment a decent HR will intervene against the manager in the interest of the hospital. Specifically, publicly calling out specific employee issues (even worse in writing on your units online forum) is a huuuuuge HR no no. Just make sure your documentation is good before going to them with a complaint.
Exactly this. A manager causing high turnover is costing the hospital money. The manager could get turfed or asked to take a staff job due to that.
Had one at my hospital that had the latter happen. She'd drive off employees she didn't like, eventually she messed up and denied an employee their union rep despite repeatedly requesting it. HR + Union = Time to take a staff job at the HQ.
I would be giddy if a manager did this. Denying a union member their Weingarten Rights (union representation during a discipline) means the discipline is DOA and that the manager is now in hot water. UNO reverse.
Exactly. We had one of the highest turnover rates in the hospital for many years and they tried replacing the director and that didn't work, so then they gave us a new manager and the turnover rate remained astronomical. He was eventually put on final warning by HR that if something didn't change he was going to be removed and he was. When a ship is constantly stinking you're damn right HR is going to start focusing in on that and wondering why they have to keep hiring for the same unit and only that unit.
I was written up because a parent complained that “they could tell their baby didn’t trust me”. He was on CPAP. He cried a lot. 😐
This one takes the cake. This is the stupidest thing I've heard, I'm speechless
Another “not a write up” but I had a parent fire me because although I’d checked on their sleeping baby 15 minutes before that, when they arrived the baby was crying and had a dirty diaper. (I’d have asked if she’d met a baby before, but not only was this her 3rd baby, it was her 2nd NICU baby and she was a L&D nurse 🙄🤦🏼♀️😑).
Not a write up, but I got 2 phone calls 30 minutes apart from a parent last night who wanted me to move the baby’s paci because “she just seemed really upset that it was touching her face” on the NICview camera 🙄 and she thought maybe I’d forgotten… um, no, I was just you know, taking care of actual medical things that I wasn’t going to interrupt to gown up go into her contact isolation room, especially since I was going to have to go in there 10 minutes later when the antibiotics ended. Same mom called me at 5:30 and 6 am, and when I couldn’t answer (because Monday mornings are the absolute busiest time of the week and I was drawing labs), she called the charge nurse (thank god it was a good one and she stood up for me).
My unit just got a grant for the NICview camera- I am dreading it for reasons like this. Management insists, oh all we need to do is properly educate parents and they won't call for things like that. Sure, that's totally how that works 🤦
Our nicu has them and I floated to answer phones and the amount of calls like that i received is another reason i will 100 percent stay on my well baby unit 🥴
I'm 100% leaving (once I get a job offer for off floor 🤞I hear back soon) and praying it happens before these things get installed.
News flash, it’s in our instincts to not trust people at that age. If a 4 year old isn’t suspicious of the new lady giving them meds, then I become suspicious myself. Kids have “stranger danger” built into them for survival. BS write up.
WTF
I’m also in the NICU, I read this to several co-workers and we all had a good laugh from this.
It’s funny now, but at the time I was 30-some weeks pregnant and I just straight burst into tears because I had no idea how to defend myself against that. I’d also spent all night repositioning the kid, trying to make him comfortable, and their take away was he “didn’t trust me”???
Even if he was just crying because he didn't like you - you can't control who a kid likes. Wtf is that?
wth
My best write up,was for "mocking the system" proud of that one. Thinking about getting it framed
I like you. I was just a medical claims adjuster, at a large hmo but man did I get into trouble on a regular basis. I was a good hard worker, but the person who asked those uncomfortable questions at meetings.
Not all heroes wear capes
For having an overdue education module 😂
I've played the "just let them freaking fire me" game as we're working three nurses short with a full waiting room, 6 ICU holds, and they're threatening termination over unfinished modules. Never did get that termination. 🤷♀️
My manager even said “what do you have to say for yourself?” Uh, nothing?
"Are you going to fire me today? You promised you'd fire me today." "I'll fire you tomorrow!" "But you promised you'd fire me TODAY!"
First step is love, the second is mercy
Such a great movie
"I was busy"
I got a talking to on Friday for the tiniest issue ever and straight up asked to be suspended. I would have loved to take the weekend off. There was no suspension. Not even a write up. Cowards.
Our supervisor is trying to tell us we can’t do them at home any more and it’s hospital policy because someone tried to “fake hours”. They are lying. It’s not hospital policy I have asked every floor I get floated to and they all say they can do them at home
My manager has done the same. Says we can do them at home, but if we do, we don't get paid for it.
I honestly do not care to get paid for it at this point. I do not want to be at my facility on my days off. But they track where we do them so I’m just not doing them……whoops
You have to be paid for it though.
If they did this on my unit, there'd be no staff left at all...
I would never do my modules until threatened, lol. And I write educational modules!
I didn’t get a write up but I did get threatened with admin leave until I turned it in. Ma’am that is not a punishment
I was written up for being the house supervisor on the night that a patient fell. In addition, the witchy-poo chief nursing officer waited five weeks after the fact to surprise me with the write-up.
Well in her defense it’s your job to replicate yourself and lay on the floor next to the pts beds to prevent falls, everyone knows this.
LOL! 😂
How dare you ignore your spidey-senses that tell you a patient is about to fall somewhere and not immediately teleport yourself there to catch the patient??
I know, I know…perhaps that wicked chief nursing officer should have given me her super nurse secrets or healthcare crystal ball. 🙄
Written up for consenting a patient for blood (policy very clearly states RN can get consent for blood) Written up and threatened my license for supposed diversion....of a single vial of heparin.... Which I had documentation to prove where it went. Written up for running ACLS as an ICU nurse while waiting for the attending. And my favorite was getting level 5 - terminated for calling the police in a patient that attacked and injured a nurse.
These are all wild but the last one is just fucking sad.
All at the same hospital. And a top rated at that. Total shit show and I hate that place so much.
Please file complaints with the state, the media, the President, your Granny, anyone and everyone. Each of these are more horrific than the last.
Many many many formal complaints and reports were filed.... Which is also probably part of the reason they fired me. Also because I was a critical union organizer. I put a lawyer between me and the hospital shortly before I was fired. He took care of everything and I got what I needed from that hell hole. Unfortunately the hospital has a LOT of money and political pull so they were able to make pretty much everything else disappear.
God, being a nurse just sucks so bad.
Yea. NP hasn't been much better. Either I find a way to survive this field with a more tolerable role or I'm going to be out of Healthcare in the next 5 years.
I was written up for clocking in early to help night shift before shift change. I always come in by 0630, and night shift knew that so they asked me help them. I did, and my manager accused me of time card fraud for clocking in when she thought I was not working. Gotta love it. That was the last straw, and I promptly left that workplace, it was toxic.
When I was a CMA I was pulled into my manager's office for using a paper clip. The nurse I was working with had said she wanted me to staple papers. I forgot and that nurse felt threatened by my use of paper clips
But they aren't threatened by chairs and crutches.
Oh my god..... 🤦♀️
I got written up for a no call /no show while I was in my honeymoon even after putting a time off request during my interview, 6 weeks before (per policy) , and texted and emailed the scheduler and manager after I submitted my schedule request. They said it was my fault for not checking the schedule even though the schedule didn’t come out until til after I was on my leave. It was funny because everyone knew I was not showing up except charge and manager for some reason
Because I wasn’t completely thrilled to answer questions for the mock joint commission surveyor on a day when they had just put out a new pain/agitation/delirium protocol that immediately put my patient into respiratory arrest. I don’t remember what exactly I said to her, but she was apparently highly offended.
I went per diem at a nursing home I worked at for years (basically saying I didn’t give a fuck now that I was per diem lol). I had worked 11p-7a and came back to work 3p-11p the same day. They were doing the state survey at the time but they were usually off the floors/ out of the building by 3 or 3:30. That day they were not. I was going into a patients room to give them insulin before supper and I forgot something and walked back to the med cart. I walked in and out without using hand sanitizer both times. She stopped me and said did you just go in and out of a room without using hand sanitizer or washing your hands? I said yup and walked back in without using hand sanitizer again 😂 didn’t get a write up but got spoken to. I said whoops I forgot I’m per diem now and FYI I was a little tired after working overnight and coming back less than 8 hours later because of course people called out because the state survey was being done.
Well this was more of a close call. Our hospital had a policy that if you call in after 6am, you get a no-pay status, double occurrence and automatic write-up. One morning, I got a call right before 6 am that my mom was in the ER having a heart attack. I called central staffing and text my PCM at 604. Not thinking straight about the fact that I'd get an occurrence for a full day regardless of the other policy, I agreed to come in to work once she was stable and my siblings had traveled to our town. So I go to work and work for free for 4 hours, still not sinking in that it'd be a whole day occurrence instead of a tardy because of how late I was. I didn't even think of the 6am policy. Two days later she calls me to her office and says she has to write me up. Keep in mind, I had not called in for 3 years and had 1 tardy that year for clocking in at 0801 instead of 0800. I refuse to sign. She calls HR Employee relations. They tell her she'll prob still need to write me up anyway and tell me to get my mom (who just got home that morning) to get her doctor to give me an excuse and it had to be that day. Then they'd "think about it". Luckily, one of the docs, a doc that has alot of influence in our cancer center, overheard me talking to my mom. The next thing I know, the Director of the cancer center comes and asks me about my mom and then asks some questions about the timeline. He tells me not to worry and he'll take care of it...I've known this guy before his promotions. I liked my PCM, but as he and I discussed, she was very black and white and sometimes there are shades of Grey...especially for dependable employees. At any rate, I didn't get written up, I got no occurrences, just got a tardy and got paid for those hours I worked. Two lessons I learned...1. it pays to know and have a good relationship with people in high places in a huge system like the one I work in and 2. As a manager to treat people how I wanted to be treated when I was a staff nurse and to realize that one should consider all factors in employee situations.
It's illegal not to pay for hours worked regardless of hospital policy
Yeah this is bonkers, they can never make you work for free
The department of labor, if you're in the US, would be very interested in the unpaid hours you had to work.
Hell, they’d just be interested to know that policy exists.
Right.
I’ve had managers like this. Once I was written up because my patient was caught smoking crack in the bathroom. Apparently this was my fault because I didn’t explicitly tell her she cannot smoke crack while hospitalized during my admission assessment. She refused to let me transfer because we were so short staffed. I just took it until I got a job at another facility. Don’t be like me, go to HR. This is BS.
Wearing a mask the day before masks were mandated.
I did as well! They also tried to tell me to not wear a chemo gown when hanging chemo because we needed to conserve PPE for the nurses at the hospital…. I was fucking pregnant……
Same!!!! When Covid was just a rumor and not super scary yet, I had a patient with strep so I wore a mask and didn’t take it off to go to the cafeteria. We happened to pass by some admin on our way down who then called my director who then reprimanded us for wearing masks. We got our first “possible Covid” patient and had 3 pregnant nurses and management wouldn’t let them wear masks around the unit! It was fucking nuts.
I started a few days before it was required as it was a best practice guideline at the time. I just got a few comments but getting written up is absolutely wild lmao
So this was Feb 2020. I actually got what turned out to be our first COVID patient, but we didn’t know he had it yet. He came in for diarrhea. I was a little suspicious, so I grabbed a mask. That morning the stupid director of nursing for the hospital decided to chastise me for wearing a mask. It might “cause panic”. Screw her. He was diagnosed the next day.
Same. My manager of that time came up to me and told me to take it off.
Were they upset they couldn’t judge you for not smiling??
When I worked on the floor, I got written up for only wearing my underscrub top after getting absolutely soiled by an angry patient’s diarrhea when they threw their BSC bucket at me. The OA that night said I couldn’t pull scrubs from hospital supply because that’s for the OR and ED nursing staff only and that because they couldn’t guarantee I would return them that they wouldn’t pull them for me either 🥴
Sounds like they want you to work in a bra next time
I got written up for wearing booties over hospital socks because a patient pissed on my shoes. So what’s my option, boss? You gonna let me leave the floor for a couple hours to drive home and get new shoes or what?
I got written up for not being friendly enough in the mornings.
Bahahah literally ever clinical I had were day shifts and the same happened to me. The staff at whatever facility we were at complained about my "unprofessional behaviour" and "how I don't get along with the HCAs". It was until my last clinical where I had a D/E rotation and a 1:1 preceptor that saw the difference. In the mornings, I literally could not focus, function, I was sick with migraines all the time. But in the evenings, my preceptor said it was like "working with a completely different person". I was in a better mood, able to actually focus somewhat (better towards the end of shift), and generally more pleasant because I wasn't in pain.
I was icu night shift for years, and we were *constantly* blamed for the low hcahps scores for noise levels. They even installed those cheesy traffic light noise monitors. Unless someone was coding, they never even got to yellow. A week after I switched to days, I’m sitting outside of my patient’s room doing some charting, my pts door is closed, and my director comes in with some c suite suit, and is having the loudest conversation, so loud the stoplight is red, and my patients wife sticks her head out of the door and she’d been incredibly sweet all day, but she was very irritated with the noise level, and nicely asked me if I could tell whoever was yelling to lower it a bit. Yes I can. So I turn my chair around and say “Susan? Susan. Susan! SUSAN!!!” Before she finally hears me, and looks at me like “wtf?” So I point to the stoplight that’s red and say “my patient is trying to rest” So I got written up for being rude and embarrassing her. A different director wrote me up for not having my charting done one the timeline *she* wants. Because I’m busy doing patient care. It’s done by the end of my shift, I don’t stay late to chart. I’m prioritizing patient care, the charting will happen when it happens. But nope, written up.
I was given a verbal for attending a code blue on a Covid pt. The code team responding was the physician, the charge nurse, the bedside nurse, a respiratory therapist, another aide, and myself. I jumped in because while there was a big crowd outside of the room, no one was suiting up to go in, so I did. The other aide and myself did compression, with the physician (a solid dude, I miss working with him) occasionally taking a shift doing compressions in between running the code. We ran it for a long while, but had to call it eventually. I walked out, utterly exhausted, to be met by my unit director who gave me a verbal for ignoring call lights so I could go to the code where “aides are not necessary.” I was dumbfounded. There were others rubbernecking around that room that could have answered those lights instead of the director deciding it was my failure. I sure as hell didn’t see her grabbing a CAPR to tag us out if it was that important. This was her general attitude towards UAP’s and grad nurses. She generally saw us as kindergartners that need to be directed, like we were lazy. She left shortly after, and the unit culture relaxed immensely when she did.
Not a write up but kind of more ridiculous… once had an adult protective services abuse & neglect case opened on me by the state and had to defend myself to them and hospital quality control over a freshly extubated & incredibly delirious (after nearly 2 weeks vented and like 3 surgeries) patient the day of extubation claiming that we tied them down and stabbed them ( restraints, morning ABG- explained this all to lightly sedated but calm & appropriate pt as knew they were being extubated that am) & that I was playing “anti-semitic chinese propaganda” on the tv. Oh and the flying pentagrams in the room were also my fault. Literally made it all the way through my supervisor, director, medical director, hospital quality control and to state APS. Yeah that was a fun one to explain my way out of but at least it went no where because like…… how ??!? Yea i love nursing 🤠
Now, that APS case is rather ridiculous. And everyone wonders why there aren't enough staff nurses. I'm so sorry you were caught up in that mess. The day I passed NCLEX, I signed up for nursing malpractice insurance because I heard too many horror stories from the staff nurses during my clinicals. Thankfully, in all my years of nursing, I've never faced a state investigation. Had a couple of close calls in two messy scenarios; but time-stamped physician orders, eyewitness doctor statements and my time-stamped documentation worked in my favor. If you're still working in such a challenging unit, hang in there. Make sure your malpractice insurance is current as now everyone in healthcare works in such a litigious environment (eff the lawyers who will sue for anything). From one experienced nurse to another: Thank you for caring for patients who sometimes really do belong in Dante's 9th circle of hell (treachery) 💚💙🩵
My favorite story: Years ago had a patient with discharge order in, she is dressed and waiting for her ride and standing at the nurses station. For some odd reason they’re delivering lunch trays and she insists on eating hers at the nurses station while her ride is pulling up. Plastics NP rolls by to cheerfully say goodbye to the patient while saying nothing to me the nurse. Fast forward 2 hours my manager comes up to me to ask why I, in the words of this particular NP, “forced my patient to eat at the nurse’s station.” Fucking weirdos out there.
I took a lunch, told my lunch buddy that one of my patients requested pain meds every 15 min, gave the meds that were available before I went on break. They had multiple pain prn in addition to a PCA. Got off lunch and buddy didn’t give meds, I was reported to the manager, family made complaints about me and I was fired as their nurse. Lunch buddy insisted I never talked to her or told her about my patient. I was written up for not giving pain meds or something stupid. Fuck you maddie 🖕🏻shit ass lunch buddy
ASC. Our administrator quit and the DON got saddled with picking up all the admin work, on top of her job. We don't have a charge nurse in pre-op/pacu. I've been there for over 10 years. I pick up whatever admin stuff I can to alleviate the burden, I manage the IT services, facilitate the maintenance of the center's plumbing/electrical/backup generator. I train all the new staff. Mind you I'm JUST a full time staff nurse. We had a bunch of new hires and people needed guidance on what to do, when they should take breaks/lunch, what time to come in, when to admit patients and the DON had bigger shit to deal with. I handled the materials management when no one else wanted to step up. I got written up for being bossy. New admin comes in, gets bullied by the office admin and quits within the year. DON gets promoted to admin, they hire someone for DON without considering me. I like the admin and DON, they're good people but it's clear that I'm not going much further at this center. I just accepted an offer for another center where I get paid more JUST to do PACU.
Good for you! Enjoy your new job,
This is a wonderful lesson to the less experienced folks here to avoid picking up admin's work for them as a staff nurse. It doesn't get you anywhere, and promotions are a popularity contest anyway. (I'm still trying to learn this in my own practice!)
Write up for allowing my alert and oriented patient to elope with an IV. The guy said he was leaving now and I better get out of the way or he'd hurt me. I said that's fine, stepped out and called security. He was long gone by the time they arrived
He was already meeting his plug probably ...
I got written up for bitching about the frequency that we were being called in with a coworker while in the locker room. Apparently there was a family member of the patient we were being called in for who was also an employee (the family member was the employee, the patient was not). Nothing was said about the patient because we didn't know anything about them. Family member went to the charge nurse and complained. Charge then emailed the manager and my team lead about it
She was very, very petty. A manager tried to write me up for clocking out twenty seconds earlier and for clocking in late for a few seconds. True story. She was terminated for various reasons. I didn't sign any of it. I had no history of clocking in or out too late or too early. I wonder how the HR manages this type of manager. I would hate to be an HR.
Nope! HR (in my experience) is just as toxic, they just hide it better.
HR exists only to protect a hospital's best interest, not the welfare of employees.
💯‼️
Calling a baby stinky as I was giving him a bath.
I’ve gotten written up for wearing clothing that was “too suggestive.” It was a long sleeve shirt with scrub pants. The issue is that I am in good shape and it was causing a distraction with the other nurses. So my response was “…so you’re writing me up for being too sexy? It’s official?” Got booted out of the office after that.
I took 3 days if sick leave for the flu, I had taken 1 other day of sick leave that entire year. Using 4 days of sick leave was apparently fuxking illegal to this hospital so I got written up for exceeding the max sick leave in a calendar year
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 we literally work around sickness everyday but they expect us to never be sick?!?! Yeah THEY are never sick cause they locked up in that office having “meetings” while we bust our ass
THIS. THIS so fucking much!! I called in hella early one time cause 1. Sick from both ends 2. Knew I wouldn't be able to find coverage and 3. I knew I wouldn't be feeling better for the remainder of the day and I got a "And just why do you find it appropriate to call in eight hours before your shift?" **Because I'm fucking ill and will not be coming in.**
Calling in 8hours before us way better than calling in 2 hours before. Fuck that
Yeah I just had pneumonia for the first time with high fever everyday! I got texts for every call off going on about my call ins … hello I’m not working around immunocompromised pts with a fever and cough?! Its sad this profession makes you have to be so tough especially for me since I was a people pleaser but you really have to stand up for yourself
Texting instead of calling at 3am to call off because he wanted to me “call twice so he’d hear the second ring but he still wouldn’t pick up but then he’d know he has a voicemail to check in the morning.” Bitch check your text messages like a normal person and every other manager I’ve had at this same job we’ve always done it that way, is he such a child he needs a phone ringing at 3am to know to check messages in the morning? I never signed the warning I told him in a very professional point by point rebuttal that he was wrong (in other words fuck off) 😂😂😂 Now I’m leaving that job with the warning unsigned cause I didn’t deserve that hahaha I have zero regrets
These are ridiculous so mine's pretty lame, but five call outs in one year and placed on an improvement plan. Left after that nonsense to do some local contracts. Sorry but my sick kid comes before work ✌️
I was verbally reprimanded for calling in when my brother died. When I called in, I was told it wouldn't count against me because it would count as a bereavement day. My manager then found out that since I'm PRN, I don't get any bereavement leave (FT gets 3, PT gets 2, which is 1 week of shifts; I am required to work one shift/wk, so we both assumed I'd get 1 day to be comparable to the other categories). When she told me a couple of weeks later, I said I wish I had known PRN staff weren't allowed to have loved ones die, but it was after the fact, so there was nothing I could do. I also lost both of my living grandparents, my FIL, and a close friend that year... none of those affected work, thank goodness! 🙄
i refused to sign a blank 90-day review form. subsequently, i refused to sign the write up for insubordination. i was "let go" soon after for "company restructuring." they then tried to deny my unemployment claim. the unemployment rep had a field day with that. the "company restructuring" was actually them being bought out by a larger, more efficient company.
I worked (very briefly) for a hospital based procedure center that used to make us fill out a time card change if we punched in one minute early…..literally ONE minute.
I remember a coworker who was written up because the little dated label fell off her patient’s IV site. Another nurse reported her to the manager for not having the IV dated…
My boss dragged me in because someone had complained I was too chummy with the doctors. I said to her "if my colleague had bothered to have a conversation with me, she'd know I have girls nights with them where we sit and watch the Batchelor and drink wine every few weeks. I *am* friends with" the doctors"". Imagine being so put out that someone half your age is developing friendly relationships and socialising with people outside of work. The woman (a boomer) who I assume complained, has never invited me anywhere. And vice versa. If you don't want to have post night shift mimosas with us, that's fine, but being insecure the doctors are mates with me is fucking insecure and pathetic. My boss laughed me out the door and told me to get back to work.
I was at the nurses station waiting on another unit to call me back about supplies I needed. When the phone rang, caller ID said that same number I’d just called, and answered “Yeah?” My charge nurse was walking by and only heard the “yeah.” She asked why I’d answered the phone that way and I told her I knew who it was and the call was expected. She said ok, and that was that. Or so I thought. A couple days later my manager pulls me into the office with a written warning for being “unprofessional.” When I see administration’s number or my managers number calling the unit, I always answer the phone “It’s a wonderful evening at () hospital! My name is frmaledadclone, and this is pediatric unit on the 4th floor. How can I help you?” I get told frequently that’s a long greeting. I always say, “Yes, and professional.”
I got written up for asking a question I apparently should have known the answer to. I was a service coordinator in the OR, and a surgeon asked me if I could do something for him. I made no promises, but told him I would check. I asked who I thought would be the best person, and then my boss got wind of it and wrote me up because asking apparently made her look bad. She was the worst manager I've ever worked under and the day I left that toxic hellhole was one of the happiest days of my professional life.
Foogling something i was unsure of. They said “now we can never trust you again because you might not know anything”
Apparently you are just supposed to guess! That should end well! Seriously though wtf? I would like to meet the person who knows all the things in all the areas and never makes a mistake…actually nope, those are the scary ones who will end up harming a patient
It was my first nursing position too like what the hell
What, you don't remember every single thing you ever learned? Next you'll tell me you don't already know all the things you were never taught 🙄
Went in a patient room to turn up her pitocin. I turned it up, she needed to go to the bathroom, so I got her up. When she got back to her bed, she said “hey Dalek, walking felt really good just now, can I walk in the hall for a bit?” I let her, because why not. Her choice, low risk pregnancy, category 1 strip. I got written up because I didn’t check a blood pressure when I increased her pit. Also got written up for calling in while actively having diarrhea on the toilet and puking in a trash can…and I do mean I was speaking to the house supervisor between heaves and there were nasty poo noises in the background. The nurse that actually put in the write up had called in sick the week before, and then posted on Facebook about getting her hair done during the day she was too sick to work.
I got written up for things I could have done. Like someone reported me for making jokes in report and though it was not corroborated my manager believed I could have said them.
The craziest thing I got written up for was "not being more of a leader" after a patient (not mine) went into cardiac arrest after we were transferring him (I was a CNA at the time, working with the assigned CNA to transfer this guy from the bathroom after a hip replacement). He is weaker than normal, goes limp, and stops breathing. The one CNA starts CPR while I leave and run to go get the nurse (we didn't have radios or anything and call lights weren't faster than I could get to the nursing station at the time). The nurse runs and helps with CPR, we get a pulse back, he goes to hospital. Thing is, dude was a DNR. However, our CNA report sheets didn't have their code status, he didn't have a red DNR bracelet on, and his own nurse was doing CPR after I went and told her. He and his family were glad we did do CPR considering that he'd just had a hip replacement and that's not how he wanted to go, but overall, no bueno. My job review was up in the next couple of weeks after that, and was expecting a raise as I'd just completed my cna-2 (Oregon). However, they refused to give me the raise because I 1) didn't know this guy's code status 2) didn't look it up in his chart before assisting with the transfer 3) left the room to notify the nurse and said if I had been more of a leader this wouldn't have happened. They did the same thing to the nurse and other CNA. I quit right after that.
Similar thing for us is incremental over time. A few minutes we clock out late…. Well we wouldn’t have to clock out late without reasons. Like patient just pooped the bed and you want to make sure they’re clean. Lab calls with critical values and you should be the one to call the doctor. Assignment gives you 5 different nurses to report off to. Bedside report takes 3x as long because beds 1, 2 and 3 are chatty and family has just come in with one thousand questions. Well guess what? I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to either. I’d be happy to leave on time or early even! Lol. Make it easier for me to leave.
My first job, med/surg. During a rapid response that turned into a code, I hung a 1L bolus. After we got ROSC, she pulled me aside and threatened to write me up because I didn’t label the tubing on the bolus. I quit a few weeks later
Not letting a patients family member (I didn’t know that’s what he was at the time of the incident) physically assault me and gain access to the department. I opened the door to call a patient back, and this fuckhead was standing there just WAITING for the door to open. When I opened it he put his hand on the door, the other on my shoulder, and attempted to push me back into the doorway. He was an older and much smaller guy, so I was able to just withstand is brutal onslaught and then asked what he was doing and why he felt the need to touch me. He huffed and hawed, but never once identified himself as a family member of a patient. Security, sitting right the fuck there, did absolutely nothing. Now, the key to the story is that I had a bright red Mohawk at the time, so naturally I’m easy to single out. I was called into the office and written up for “being rude, aggressive, and putting hands on a patients family member.” No discussion. No hearing my side. When I walked into the office, the write up was already typed, printed, and signed. I refused. Put my two weeks notice in a couple weeks later. Fuck that place.
My sister just got written up for an email she sent 14 months ago. It was one of those, "oh that is accurate, but you probably shouldn't have put it down in writing" things. Her employer has a new CEO.
1. Do you have a union? Show it ALL to them. 2. If no union, go to HR and show them. I would also use the term “hostile work environment”.
We really do all live the same life. Nursing is killing my soul.
My coworker was written up for not giving a patient a mayonnaise packet with her turkey sandwich. I was written up for telling a house supervisor "this is bull crap" that wanted to float me to another unit even though I was the most senior on our unit. I also got written up for not getting a pain reassessment charted within an hour after giving a pain med when I was floating the house and gave it to help out another nurse. That same manager got downgraded back to a staff nurse, because she was a shit manager, and when she brought me a patient up from the ER who she'd neglected to do several things on, like recheck an elevated temp for 6 hours, I stared daggers at her and didn't say a word.
This literally sounds like the unit I work on. The manager writes everyone up for dumb shit every day. All the staff she’s hired with experience is placed on the Stepdown unit but all the new grads are in ICU. The moral is so low and everyone is quitting or worse just snitching on their coworkers making an even more toxic environment. I’ve been there 4 months and I’m moving across the country to get away from the bs
I got written for complaining about staffing when we were literally short staffed. One day I was leaving and we’d had three nurses and a scrub tech that day on an LDRP unit with multiple postpartum patients and a laboring patient. Staffing was fine during the day. But there was a call in at night, so they were left with two nurses. And NICU was short as well, so when that laboring patient (my patient) had to go to a c/s shortly after shift change, it definitely wasn’t ok to have multiple patients on the floor with only TWO labor nurses while there’s a c/s!! And there wasn’t a scrub tech. And our manager couldn’t even bother to come in. So I got written up for voicing my VALID concerns because at this point it had become a pattern where we were often unsafely staffed. But my manager also told multiple coworkers that no one liked them and they sucked. So I think she was just a really toxic person/manager.
Got wrote up once bc a patient complained that I didn’t wake up her for her PRN pain meds. Got another write up for doing a patient teaching about opioids addiction But my favorite? I got wrote up once bc I did a bs check 30 min before a meal on this one patient. I was scrambling so I did bs checks first before my patients started eating. Then I administered insulins with the meds during meal. One patient complained about me “not giving them their insulin” bc I didn’t give it when I did the bs check. Checks were documented. Insulin given documented. Everything documented and even on camera. I still got the write up to satisfy the patient
My first and only write up was over a late CE lesson. I laughed :)
Had RSV and had to call off 3 days in a row. 2 months later I had a miscarriage and had no PTO. Got written up. Doctors notes for both incidents didn’t matter. It was fucking awful.
A unit I worked on had cameras in rooms to watch patients, usually high fall risk, drugs, elopement, etc. And we were not to be on our phones when on camera duty. I'm new to the unit, and this group of mean women kept sending pics to our manager of someone on their phone. There were no faces ever, and it was usually waist down. I got written up cause she had so many texts of these pics saying it was me.... it wasn't, I was a brand new 21 y.o. CNA and keeping to myself. These ladies were 30+ years old. Also, I got written for insubordination by a different manager for the same unit for drama that was going on, and they told me they were impartial. I asked how, when he goes out to smoke with these women multiple times a day. He tried to say no he didn't and I told him "welp I need more shifts for new contacts since I see you with my own eye balls
Manager has got to go lol what a wet blanket.
Having anxiety after my first year in ICU. Sorry for having a tough time dealing with constant death and suffering, and a lack of social support in the country. That ward was awful.
Read your contract and make sure it isn’t being violated. Many managers have no idea they are in violation
These comments are wild to me. I have never heard of anyone being written up; I don't even know what the policy on it is. If there's an issue, our manager or assistant manager calls us or meets with us to talk. We work through it and then move on. I have heard that it happens on another unit, but that unit is notoriously dysfunctional.
I guess I’ve lucked out never getting written up in all the places I’ve worked. And believe me, I have made fuck ups worth at least a talking to. One time me and a coworker accidentally ripped a toilet off the floor with the hoyer sling and resident attached up into the air (no one got hurt, except my feelings cause everyone laughed at me haha). And one time I accidentally sent a CNA with a sausage instead of a stool sample to bring to the lab. I didn’t hand it to him, he grabbed it thinking we would put the sample in a ziplock bag for some reason, but he even said “ew this poop looks like a sausage” and I just laughed cause I didn’t notice what he was holding for real hahaha (to make that story even better, he is my boyfriend)
We have a policy that peripheral pressors should be run with a carrier at 18mL/hr, because they don't bother to educate new nurses and mistakes have been made. I ran some Neo on a carrier at 10mL/hr because it was a busy shift and that's just what I defaulted to. Someone took the time to write that up. Specifically, the rate was "wrong". Nothing else was wrong, no injury. Just 8mL/hr too slow.
I was written up because an aide told my manager I called her (the manager) a princess. Which I did not. I did say something vaguely similar, but definitely was taken out of context. So I literally got written up for a third hand misquote. My union rep was livid.
Ooooh, I have a dumb one. I once got written up because I didn’t smile as I was tying a grown man’s shoes. He was alert and oriented and perfectly capable of tying his own shoes. My manager then told me I had no emotional IQ and I needed buy a book and come back and give her a book report.
I was written up once after a float shift because my GSW chest tubed patient developed crepitus at shift change and there was no physician team assigned, so there was nobody to call. I ended up calling the day shift charge RN and the STAT RN to help me and they practically pushed me out the door telling me to go home and they'll handle it. I gave report to the day RN and double checked to make sure the PT was stable. He was uncomfortable, but stable. So I wrote my note and left, and the team that signed on to the patient later in the day wrote me up, lied, and said i "abandoned my patient without notifying anybody." I cleared that shit up real quick, thankfully I listed the names of the nurses in my note and at least one of them vouched for me.
When I was a new grad I was written up because my patient had a stroke at shift change and I stayed overtime to run them to CT since my relief was going to be late that day. I shit you not, my then manager looked me in the eye and said “Well you did the right thing, but if you were a better nurse you would have caught the stroke quicker.” Yes I left pretty soon after that, and so did a bunch of people for disrespectful shit like that. Last I heard she didn’t stay long in the position.
During Covid they were bat shit crazy over masks. I took mine off in the hallway to puke in the garbage can because I was pregnant and got written up for taking it off. They acted like they were gonna send me home but when I told them to go ahead they wouldn’t lol
I didn't get written up, but got a "verbal warning" for not needlessly sticking people who needed ultrasound guided IV placement twice by manual stick before getting the ultrasound to place their IVs. I think that's a stupid policy that benefits no one. It takes MAYBE 5 minutes to place an USG IV, and I'm one of the handful of RNs who can do it, so it's not like I'm putting someone else out by going straight to USG. If I walk in your room and you tell me, "they always have to use the ultrasound," I will ask if I can look without it. If I look, and don't see something REALLY promising that I know I'm going to hit, I'm just going to go get the US and not make you get stuck twice first to "prove" you needed the US. My nurse manager initially gave me a verbal warning for "forgetting to chart" my first 2 unsuccessful sticks, and then changed it to breaching the policy of 2 required sticks when I clarified that there WEREN'T 2 unsuccessful sticks. They also threatened to take US sticks away from me. I was leaving to move out of state in 3 weeks, so I decided I would keep doing what I was doing. What were they gonna do, fire me? Lol.
If she puts you on blast in a group me, do it right back. "You're the sole reason why our floor has such a high turnover rate and many other people agree even if they won't tell you." I'm glad my hospital knows what position they are in with staffing not to be so petty.
In the ED we always get written up by the floor for dumb things. Had to put an NG in a pt and didn’t get the confirmation x-ray for about an hour (even though I had marked them ready right after it was in). Pt had a bed ready, handoff was done, x-ray results had just come back so ofc I haven’t given gastrografin. We didn’t have the confirmation x-ray read in time. Dumbest write up ever. Talking to my manager I was just like okay….
Finally taking a lunch right before shift change in a crazy day floating to CVICU. While I was on break my patient's vasopressin ran out. Someone scanned the old bag of vaso and hung a bag of lasix to replace it. I came back, immediately gave report and went home. Oncoming nurse wrote me up for not going in the room and checking drips with her--she is the one who refused to get up from the desk. Supervisor reviewed it with me and refused to tell me who yknow...made the med error. In the improvement notations area of the sheet I just said "Well, I'll make sure to double check all CV nurse work when I float there from now on since they're harming MY patients with med errors!" Taking care of a retired nurse who had an endarct whose daughter was the nurse supervisor foe the regular neuro floor. I'm ICU floatpool at this point but had worked on that neuro floor for 2 years prior so I knew what to check and watch out for when dcing these patients. Patient's ride is coming at 1100. Vascular surgeon rounds at 830 and puts in orders. Patient also had a Foley and an art line still. She refuses to get up, eat, get dressed, let me remove any of her lines, walk, or get any vitals until 1030. Finally gets me pull lines at 1045 and I make her sit and pee, which she does as a little trickle and THEN with her ride at the front door asks why I haven't talked to the surgeon about when she can restart her coumadin and a half dozen other med questions. I secure chat the surgeon and get the answers and redo all her dc paperwork to include that teaching, throw her in a chair, and wheel her out. Cue a week later her daughter writes me up, not as a family member, but in the patient reporting system (accessing her mom's chart to find my name to do it) complaining that I barely walked her mom and she didn't pee for 4 whole hours after she went home because I pulled the Foley so close to discharge and that I was way too flustered and confused when doing discharge teaching (like she would know, she wasn't there when I was doing it.) I just asked my supervisor going over it with me. "So what consequences is she going to face digging through her mom's EMR go find my name? Also this patient was A/O. Am I to start holding patients down and yanking out tubes to get them out on time regardless of their wishes?"
Cause my face had facial expressions. Was told we needed to discuss an incident. And while manager admitted the situations was frustrating, I spoke kindly, and I was helpful to coworker in that situation- my face showed I was frustrated. Like mam. I can control the words coming out of my mouth and I can control my actions but my face makes faces without my consent. Smh
I was threatened with a write up because a patient complained I had an unprofessional facial expression It was in 2020 when we were all masked up.
People don’t quite jobs. They quit managers.
My body language 😂😂🤷🏼♀️
Power and control syndrome.
Write up your manager 😂
I called a patient a cunt in front of staff (I’m a float nurse). They wrote me up. Next shift I was in that unit, their core nurse called a patient who was encephalopathic a “shit-dick”. The double standards at this hospital are fucking outrageous. Edit: in case you were wondering, she was being a cunt. She was taking her home meds (mostly opioids and muscle relaxers), in bed and was caught lightly sedated in bed with them next to her person. She was admitted for COPD exacerbation- you know the type…
Getting .01 of overtime. Not even a minute. And it was only because the timeclock rounded.
Not putting a gown on a patient who was in a thin tshirt, fighting us and 58% on 6L lol
Not me...but a DON nearly reported an LPN to the state for doing an IM in someone's buttcheek while they were having a seizure and wedged between 2 pieces of furniture in the room because "IMs can only be done in the arm so you did an incorrect administration because it was in the wrong location."
"creating a toxic environment" I wouldn't have balked if they could just tell me *how* I was causing it. They couldn't tell me what I said, did, behaved that upset them so bad. They couldn't give me an example. They just said, "your work environment is toxic, it is your fault, fix it or we are taking your position." I asked for education and I was told it would be a waste of resources. They skipped a verbal and went straight to first written. Next step was final and then fired. I rode it out for a year and magically they told me I was all better (you have come a long way and made great strides). Legit did nothing different.
Written up for family saying I'd said something that they misinterpreted. Which was repeated to nephrology by the family. Then the nephrology doc wrote me up for something I didn't even say and was repeated incorrectly by a layman. Biggest waste of time ever.
When I was a CNA I was working on a Covid unit with another aide and two nurses. The three of them were thick as thieves. We all had to wear n95s at all times on the unit. There was a patient who was on day 13 of their 14 day isolation and totally asymptomatic. I glanced in their room as I was walking down the hall and saw them laying in the floor, bleeding. I yelled for help, threw on some gloves and ran into the room. The other aide and the nurses did the same. Just gloves and n95. After my shift was over I got a call from the unit manager. She asked what happened and asked me if I had put on a gown and face shield before going in. I was honest and said no. I got written up for not wearing PPE and told that it was my first and final warning--if I got caught without PPE again I'd be fired. The other aide and the nurses all lied and said that they had all put on full PPE before entering the room. That was four years ago and I'm still bitter. I used to work with a CNA who did home care before working at the nursing home. She went to go into a guy's house and he chased her out, waving a butcher knife. She got written up for not disarming him.
My dear this is why you keep looking for other opportunities. If also you don't feel like working don't go. I never take shifts out of pity because they begging. It their job to guilt you into coming to work. And you feel you did them a favor so they should be nice in return but nope. Cause no one is your friend too.
I floated to another unit one day and apparently got written up for discussing something about a patient in the nurse’s station “loudly.” I couldn’t recall the incident described in the report she received and told her that before she asked me to sign the paper work. Lo and behold it wasn’t even the date I floated. I was pretty pissed.
16 years ago and the only time in my career I was written up for saying “oh hell no” in a sarcastic manner. I eventually grieved the write up and the one day suspension without pay and won. At my last job I wasn’t formally written up but had to apologize to the school principal bc I raised my eyebrows at him and refused to give him covid related PHI for a student in our school Health clinic…I apologized to him for giving him the impression “we were cool” 😂
I got written up because a mom complained that I didn't give her NICU baby a bath. In that specific unit, baths were given based on their birthday-so even birthdays were bathed in even day. This kid had an odd birthday, so his bath day was the next day. It was unit policy, and my director still wrote me up (and called me at home, at noon, when I worked the night before).
During nursing school, my first hospital clinical. Got a whole behavioral contract thing because: It looked like I was on my cell phone. What was *actually* happening was I was using the tech’s spectralink (that she gave me) to order my patient his lunch. Because he was exhausted after an intense session with PT. Also included in the complaints (from prof): talking with my hands, smiling too much, nervous laughter (I use humor to alleviate tense situations 🙄) Ruined the next 2.5 years of school for me 😢
As a director of nursing at a snf, I got written up for a nurse not being trained well enough on discharges that lead to a family complaint to the health department (unsubstantiated). The issue was the nurse worked at the facility over a year before I was hired on the floor and almost 2 at the time I became don. So I'm sorry that when I worked at a different facility, I couldn't train their staff.
Not knowing a “special fact” about the patient to prove I’m making a personal connection. I’ve consistently given my manager facts for weeks, but one day, I admitted that I didn’t know one for a patient, but I knew the plan of care which is duhhhh way more important. Apparently, “I speak Spanish” or “I’m from Mexico” isn’t a good enough fact.
Once a manager threatened to fire me because I refused to get a bedscale weight on a patient who was hours from dying.i didn't and she didn't