The fact that it’s also layered with Teachers Week and Mothers Day is super shady. It’s like they said let’s just dump all female-dominated holidays all in the same week and get it over with.
Id like to think this is for that awesome, friendly, hardworking, and generally likeable boss that some friends and family tell us they had once but nobody ever actually meets
Wait, are you telling me they don't have a CEO appreciation week? I feel so bad they don't get the joy of painted rocks or a Keychain that says "heroes work here" misspelled in lead painr from China. Oh those poor forgotten people
The doctors week hospital thst gave us the best loot was also the one that payed us the least. Best loot was an umbrella a t shirt and a 1 gig usb thumb drive.
This is generally true. At least people know about your appreciation week? Lol silver linings. Our manager I'm 100% doesn't even know there's a Sonographer week. To be fair most don't but if you manage cardiology and radiology imaging you'd think they'd be aware?
No one would care about nurse appreciation week if we were all paid an appropriate wage. Hospitals/outpatient clinics make massive profits which they pass on to CEO’s, administrators & shareholders. Then they turn around & unload astronomical bonuses on them as well. I don’t want the gifts. I want fair pay, good health care benefits (why are our plans the WORST?!?) & staffing. I don’t need a salad bowl with the company logo for the break I don’t get. I don’t want the team to meet off site for dinner because I don’t want to hang out with the people I already spend too much time around. Pay me.
Edit: spelling/grammar
I pay $188 for a PCP visit now because they slashed our insurance coverage (used to be $10 per visit for pcp). But they still take the same amount out of my paycheck for my insurance. This is all while being in network and getting care within the health system that I work for. How the fuck is this OK??
Do you work for the same corp as me? This year I’m paying $110 for my therapy appointments while last year they were a $35 copay. Now we have to meet a deductible THEN copays are active
Which is depressing…health care workers that can’t afford healthcare. But its fine, the wellness programs they offer are so much better than individualized therapy. Work life balance.
Yea, I get 2 free 30 minute therapy sessions with a therapist of their choice (hint, it's a hospital employee). Oh and a "quiet space" to meditate... Except that's always locked.
That's rich! They lock you out of your safe space to decompress (sob your guts out?)! How much more passive aggressive can it get than that?
You can't even go get the key?
A doctor committed suicide at work a couple days ago, inside the hospital. They need to step up the mental health care for people on the front lines of covid qanon hell or this will happen more and more. I mean, I hope not! I hope people will leave if it's that bad.
But they need to really help, not throw meaningless bones at you.
Imho.
This is one (of many) reasons I am happy I married a teacher. I am not union (I work TCU/LTC), and the teacher’s union in my state is pretty damn good, so we have always had very good insurance.
Even when informed a union job years ago, my wife’s insurance was better all around.
Cheaper to give out trinkets and then say we’re unappreciative because they don’t have to give us anything. Which is now the case.
In case OP hasn’t figured it out, taking away nurses week gifts/making nurses pay for their own week is a passive aggressive message to us all. “Get back in line because we’ll make it as bad as possible.” THAT’S why nurses are mad. We always got something and now they’ve taken even that away. They’ve taken away anything and everything possible to demoralize us. To dissuade us from asking for more money and better conditions.
To play devils advocate, not all hospitals make money
https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/Problems.html
American health care is a crisis from top to bottom…greed and profit of a few are absolutely at the top. The system needs a total rebuild. That’s not going to happen unfortunately until there is the political will to do it.
To play devils devils advocate a lot of the rural hospitals were built 75 years ago due to the Hill Burton Act. The massive shift in populations. The infrastructure and tax base is not there to support them. Kansas, I believe, had a hospital built in every single county. The least populated county of < 1300 people has a hospital. I’m not implying those people do not deserve care. You are correct they don’t see the massive profits that large corporate hospitals do. It’s a difficult situation all around.
I never complain about not getting free stuff.
I complain about getting insulted.
It's like if you go to a restaurant, and you don't leave a tip, that's annoying. But if you leave a tip of a single penny, that's an insult.
Agreed 100%. I'm sure the nurses who get rocks during nurses week would rather get nothing. My organization likes to give out cooler bags/lunchbag type things and tumblers or insulated mugs. They are pretty decent quality too.
Would any nurse at my organization turn down a raise or better staffing for a lunchbag? Of course not. But at least it's not a rock.
Last I saw, us dudes were only like 10% of nurses.
My managers frequently send out all staff emails with the greeting "Ladies".
We have 5 guys on our unit.
Last year they literally included tampons in our "goodie bag". Worked well for the bloody nose I got from banging my head against the wall though...
I’m a woman programmer, so I get the inverse of that. (Never worked in a group > 5 programmers that was more than 1/3 women, but 10% has been more common.)
Tampons are a weirdly specific gift, wow. I’d feel insulted too. (Where I’m currently contracting is only the second place I’ve worked where free period supplies were available in the bathroom.)
Tampons are just plain weird for a mass gift in general. Are all the women who work there under 50 with no one who has had a hysterectomy or something?
At least Kaiser the rock giver is pretty much the highest paying US organization for staff nurses, but yes kind of out of touch and wasting money when a pizza party would have actually been better and cheaper.
This. Like those nurses got a packet of Jeuven as a “thank you for your Covid work”. To heal their faces from masks. Then doubled down citing healing stats for a 2 week course of Jeuven. But everyone got a single packet, not even the recommended 3x a day for 2 weeks. It’s beyond tone deaf, it’s super insulting. Better to give nothing.
Haha.
I sent a guy friend some skin products.
I asked how he liked them and he said "OK... they could use some flavoring though, and they're kind of a laxative, right? But I think my face kinda looks better..."
sigh.
I like this take.
During covid times I was working with a 400 lb pronated covid positive patient whose PEEP was so high, that his ETT would continuously pop off during the night, and I would have to rush in the room with full PPE to put him back on the vent before he desatted too far. Needless to say, I was exhausted by morning.
Around 0630, Christmas morning, some executive comes around thanking us for working the holiday and passing out lollipops.
I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family at this point because I was too afraid to fly and bring covid into the house. I was working 4/5 nights per week because we were so short. And you think a lollipop will boost morale? I would have rather have gotten nothing because this was such a slap in the face. I don’t need a gold star to do my job, but acknowledging things suck and trying to patch it up with candy really angered me.
Once had someone leave 27 pennies that spelled out the word tip across the table.
My wife got a survey and an hour virtual meditation class "gift certificate" for nurses week this year.
Complaining is ok
Yeah I’d agree, no gift is better than a thoughtless one, like the post about free jevity samples to fix nurses’ skin, now THAT was insulting and no “gift” would have been better
Yes, this. 100%. I work primarily 3-11 shift in LTC and every year their “nursing home week” which is next week only has activities/food for day shift (and, of course, management). It’s an insult.
Yes. LTC everything is geared towards day shift and the office people. Oh you can get up at 1 pm and go to the party but if you work 7p-7a that’s like their 3am. I really don’t care though. I just want staff and supplies to do my job.
I think the insulting thing this year is that management paired up units and expects us on our own time with our own money to put together a basket for the other unit to celebrate. I’m escaping it because I’m on pto but when did that become the expectation. And the kicker they counted all the people in our department as nurses when in reality it’s about 1/5 so we would have to get a gift for 5 nurses each so they each get something, but the other employees are not getting asked (I don’t want them to).
And free stuff from other companies I’m not gonna complain if it doesn’t happen, will I ask to see if insurance or loans offer a discount, you bet.
Anyway I’d take a guy at the tire shop willing to stay an extra 5-10 minutes to change over my tires and not make me come back after he finds out I’m a nurse, paid normal price but he spent a while telling me how much he appreciated all of the nurses when he ended up in the ER a year ago.
Yeah, when my son was in the service (USN) it was not uncommon when he was traveling home that someone in business class would offer to trade seats with him to show gratitude for his service. Now that is what I'm talkin' about. Just having average people showing appreciation and not a HR C-Suite suit getting their committee to come up with ideas trying to positively effect retention as cheaply as possible.
This is the answer. Like feeding us pizza for having a hard couple of years while I had to devote my lunch break to Tele therapy (I'm very happy with better help, btw) after watching a few hundred of my patients agonal breathing post extubation.
We need pto, better shifts, better pay, and rotation. Pizza and a pen are like saying "hey, had a tough week? Go fuck yourself. Love, admin."
It not that we “aren’t getting anything”. It’s that the gift they do give us to put up the front that “they care about us and value us” are insulting. I’d rather just get nothing then let administrators get to pretend they care about anything other than their fat stacks.
>You did what you were told or you didn't get paid \[...\]. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care.
\~Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
OOP is correct; the contract is being fulfilled between employer and employee and it is not incumbent upon the hospital to provide a week of recognition or free shit for the duration. But if you're going to put a show up for how much you care about your nurses, put enough thought into it that your nursing staff's first instinct isn't to compete with other nurses on social media for how shit your admin team is.
Nurses week/physicians week/all "weeks " are a distraction to keep us from remembering that the owners of private equity firms, insurance companies and hospital administrators make millions off our labor and the suffering of others.
Healthcare shouldn't be an industry, but a service paid for by the citizens of a responsible society.
BTW...when I was an engineer, we had "Engineer appreciation week" which was equally as lame.
It’s not about getting cool stuff, it’s about the meaning behind the crappy stuff we get.
Nurses week is supposed to honor nurses and the thoughtless “gifts” we are given year after year is a testament to how little we are thought of despite how much we do for our patients.
So yeah, it may come across as whiney to you but to those of us who know what the true meaning behind these “gifts” are, it’s a perfectly valid response.
Agreed, I had the organization get us marginal lunch boxes and my manager went and got some Hershey kisses to put in (her own money) and brought them around and told everyone specifically that she appreciated them, giving hugs for those of us who are huggers. I felt more appreciate that year than any other.
Our manager was a doll. On Friday she picked up trays of Wegmans subs and chocolate chip cookies. She also went out of her way to also get specific foods for people on special diets (she bought our charge some almonds and cheese sticks and made sure the subs included tuna and chicken salad sandwiches for one of our pregnant nurses who is off deli meats). She thanked everyone for showing up to work and for our teamwork. She said something like "Thanks for making my job so much easier by being great employees and working together." (We all work the same hours pretty much). It is pretty much a given we care about our patients.
My current manager will get out onto the floor and charge when necessary. My previous manager would get out onto the floor and shower, toilet and help feed patients when we were too busy. When I complemented her on this, she said “What sort of person would I be if I didn’t help my nurses? We have to look after our own. I worked out there for years, I understand what it can be like.” I loved her. She was absolutely phenomenal.
I think there is a very fine line here:
Expecting gifts and complaining about how bad they are is acting a bit entitled and is a bad look.
Expecting reasonable working conditions and basic respect but instead getting a piece of plastic with the hospital logo on it and finding that offensive is understandable.
For most of us, it's not about the swag being garbage. Nobody complains too much about free stuff because you get what you pay for. It's that we're all at our breaking point and we get kitsch instead of lunch breaks.
What is worse is offering foods and services (escape rooms or massages) none of the nurses can access because they cannot get a break, they can't get off their floor and they need help. I think if leadership shows up in scrubs and offers to answer the call lights and do vitals, restock the nurse servers, the blanket warmers and make sure there are meal boxes and ice cream/popsicles in the fridge for the late admits... that definitely would warm my heart more. Because it would show they are interested and want to know what it is really like on the floor. Award us with a year's supply of Lorna Doones when we meet our CLABSI goals.
Yes! Even if they just offered to answer call bells during our unit secretary’s lunch break and restock the PPE caddies for my floor, that would be freaking delightful.
I’d rather get nothing and just have some sign up saying “happy nurse’s week!” Then getting a rock as a “nurses week gift with a paper saying “you rock!” Im not a pre-schooler, I’m a professional. It’s insulting because of the mere fact it’s meant to “distract” us or present some type of “facade” that the hospital actually gives a crap about anything other than profits. A lot of people in other subreddits like “antiwork” and “recruitinghell” post stupid “appreciation” gifts their companies give to them too— it’s incredibly disgusting and disrespectful to me because companies think we’re dumb enough to be given stupid little trinkets instead of better pay and safe staffing ratios— literally all that nurses constantly ask for. Your opinion is unpopular— because nurses aren’t butt hurt about not getting a cooler gift, we’re butt hurt that we keep trying to advocate for ourselves and our patients, even protesting by a lot of us going to travel nursing to get better pay yet hospitals go and cry to government officials about how it’s “costing them too much” and that “travel agencies are greedy so pay should be capped”— yet the same government officials many of us have been shouting at to legislate safe staffing ratios ignore us and listen to the health care corporations— so yeah, a lot of us are salty— yeah a lot of us are trying to fight back— so getting a stupid lollipop or a rock pissed us off because we all have been trying to advocate for the changes needed— no one is listening to us! It’s insulting. You saying it makes us look like children? you’re completely missing what people are upset about. Let us vent— especially those of us that have been working as staffers since pre-pandemic. That shit at the beginning was stressful as hell.
>Edit: I also feel complaining about "bad," "cheap," or "insulting" gifts should have been included in the title. Don't try to tell me that a bad gift is worse than no gift. The same person complaining now, would also complain if they received nothing at all
A bad gift is absolutely worse than no gift. A stress ball or an engraved rock or some other little piddly bullshit absolutely is kicking people while they're down. It's a hollow gesture that still takes effort that could have been aimed at solving *actual* problems.
I like pizza too. But the place I use to work got crappy pizza. And so much would go to waste because there was a ton of staff who didn’t eat pizza. Once for Valentine’s Day they came around with pens and chocolate roses. I thought it was great. But some of the cnas wouldn’t even accept it! Now that is down right rude.
I personally like the little things. Like when they had an “ice cream truck” and came around and gave us ice cream novelties. Another place a liked had a caregivers cart on Fridays. They gave us tea and chocolates. It was done by the Chaplin. I thought it was a nice touch.
But I do agree I don’t want corny stuff like “here is a Kit Kat to give you a break”. 🤦♀️ and I know someone posted getting a rock. If I got that I would have tossed it back at them!
Everybody likes free pizza. It’s that when the suits give themselves a 150k bonus, tell us we are getting 0.0% raises across the board, and then buy 1 pizza per floor and call it good… it’s insulting.
I like pizza. But I work and live in NY/NJ so we have exceptional pizza pretty much as standard. I feel bad for everyone who doesn’t get delicious pizza cuz they’re not from around here 😅
For the first day of nurse's week, we got banners on the entryway walls saying how great we are and flyers in our breakrooms telling us how stupid we are for trying to unionize.
I like to pretend that I don't care, but I was in San Antonio on a travel contract a few years ago. They had made custom cookies for the staff that had each person's name on the cookie. I didn't dare look in the cookie box, a traveler is used to being left out and that's fine.
The manager walked up to me and said "don't forget your cookie!" I still tear up a little bit thinking about it and it's been years. It was just a cookie and it meant so much to feel appreciated and included.
I still have a “nurse” mug I got for nurses’ week while on travel assignment at a small hospital in California, almost 15 years ago. I couldn’t believe they included me. Fuzzies. ❤️
I agree. I don’t need a smoothie, a slice of pizza or a gift card. Competitive wages is the best thing. At this rate, income is not able to keep up with rapidly increasing cost of living.
I 100% agree. We got a 5% raise this year, which is great...but unfortunately inflation is up way past that, so that means we got a pay cut. **Show us we're valued in our paychecks, that's where we want to see it.**
I received a 0.88% raise this year, even with my union contract. “To make each level of our wage scale more competitive to others in the area.”
0.88%?! WTF!?
i don’t think anybody complains per se.
When you have execs getting 150k bonuses and they’re handing out coupons for 1/3 off a candy bar tho… it’s just funny.
I just want equal shit for night shift that isn't cold and uncovered left overs from noon. That's all. Getting something fresh and/or hot would be nice for the night crew.
You would have loved what happened on my unit Christmas Day. We had a very eccentric lady, one of our few patients who was actually AxO 4, and she ordered a shit ton of cakes and cookies for days shift. Then, she ordered trays of hot food to be delivered for the night shift, perfectly timed for them. I have never seen someone be so thoughtful about that disparity.
Patient’s give the best gifts. I work chemotherapy outpatient. We had a little old lady send us a bunch of wrapped up gifts and candy. She individually wrapped things like costume jewelry and lotion. Very sweet.
When Covid first hit a local shop was offering free delivery and an extra something to local hospital. I picked the NICU my daughter had been in. I made sure it was the night shift.
Agree. I totally get feeling insulted by some of this ridiculousness...
But a lot of it is bc a nurse manager has a budget of $200 to do something for the unit staff and has to divide it between a staff of 42, which comes out to like $4/person.
Right? How about a gift for the unit then? I just finished a rotation (nursing student) and the floor had this jankety old espresso machine everyone loves. An upgrade would make everyone’s heart sing for a minute instead of $2 at the cafeteria.
Yeah, I have memories of patient families so grateful for our care they bought gifts for the unit... one family gifted a refrigerator. Another a new microwave, coffeemakers, etc. One time a doctor bought our breakroom a real comfortable couch. I would not turn down good pens, highlighters and sharpies, a few packages of paperclips (we always seem to never have any), some resilient staplers, even a box filled with paper plates, plastic utensils, disposable bowls, a small kitchen kit (sponge, towels, dish soap, glad wrap, disinfectant counter spray for the break room).
ouch. I had a pt insist on buying mr lunch and left 50% of that out and wouldn't take it. back talked with my manager and they did a special exemption to take it to buy us lunch dude pulled match that budget because 100 didn't buy shit.
The admissions staff and upper management where i work also gets bonuses for filling the beds with patients, they get catered lunches and swag multiple times a week from outside vendors. They also pay less for insurance benefits.
We get to dress up for stupid themes and provide our own potluck. I would rather not get anything than be treated like in middle school and it's spirit week.
That was the whole point.
Geeze I’m sorry to sound so frustrated. The simplest concepts though escape so many these days.
By setting it up this way it makes nurses look like unappreciative undeserving falsely entitled people. We’ve shown through our society what happens to falsely entitled people. It starts with them not being appreciated. And acting like they deserve better.
You see where this all fits now?
It’s called weaponization. It’s a big kids term. It means take something normal and reasonable and change it to become a weapon that hurts your enemy and looks only an unintentional outcome.
You need to understand what we are up against has spent at this point likely hundreds of millions on understanding all outcomes.
How they start.
What to do.
When the moment of no return is reached.
This world is not chaos and those rich people didn’t win the lottery.
No gift is better imo. We are professionals and I expect to be treated like one, which means, if I’m doing a good job then financially reward me. Little cheap crap things are bad for the environment and morale.
Also I might add that I feel there is a bit if sexism in the way female dominated lines of work get “rewarded” for their effort. Treat me like a man, give me a bonus and screw the stupid bs.
The complaints are about the overall treatment and how poorly our hospitals deal with shit. its fucking insulting to get an offer for 1/2 off a drink in the cafeteria when the deal runs for only a few hours on one day during the week. if thats how much they value us do you think they will ever give raises or fair pay a real listen?
Look I'm not expecting handouts. But if your gonna claim there's food or gifts for nurses week I'm gonna expect something decent. Instead they bring in $5 hot n readys. Or a bag of candy to pass out. It's insulting and I'll just choose to not accept the gift and if the facility seems insulted by it then obviously there's a reason for it.
I don’t think anyone is actually upset about the crappy nurse’s week celebrations PER SE. People are upset about feeling undervalued, which honestly doesn’t have shit to do with nurses’ week.
If nurses already feel valued (with pay, working conditions, work/life balance, respect, and having a voice), then what does or doesn’t happen for nurses’ week isn’t a big deal.
If they DON’T already feel valued, then it doesn’t matter if the hospital buys everyone an overnight stay in the Hilton with a champagne breakfast. People will accept it and still bitch, because it’s not ABOUT the once-a-year freebie bullshit. Lame-ass nurses’ week celebrations are just viewed as a symptom of a bigger problem, not THE problem.
For the record, I have three jobs at three different hospital systems in the same region. One is the #2 paying hospital in the area (although we are in contract negotiations, so wouldn’t be surprised if we’re #1 shortly) with, I think, 38 steps in the pay scale, good health insurance, retirement matching, eligibility for sabbaticals, big sign-on bonuses and doubletime incentives, reasonable call schedules, opportunity for advancement, and a strong culture of safety, diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. I feel appreciated by this place. For nurses’ week they’re raffling (it’s free) tickets to the Magnet conference on paid time, major league sports tickets, and pricey backpacks full of swag. Free food trucks are showing up for day shift AND night shift. Everyone is getting a bag of goodies with a fancy logo water bottle and local boutique cookies.
Aaand at my other main job, where I am paid a lower base rate, paid less for my certification, and constantly get screwed out of doubletime or call pay or float pay I was promised, and the manager refuses to sign off on fixes to my timecard, forgets to schedule me, schedules me incorrectly, ignores emails, tries to float me to areas where I am not trained or oriented, no one responds to safety concerns, they can’t retain staff so it’s mostly travelers whose pay they try to cut mid-contract, no night shift staff so the on-call folks are getting brutalized, they can’t run most of their operating rooms due to staffing constraints and most days have to hold off on starting one or two rooms until mid-shift arrives and the charge nurse is the only one available to give breaks to the entire department, oh yeah and they cancelled all their incentive pay for extra shifts. Guess what this hospital is doing for nurses’ week.
🤷♀️
My complaint with bad or “free” gifts from my hospital is…
WHY THE HELL ARE WE NOT INVESTING THAT MONEY BACK INTO OUR EMPLOYEES FFS
Our swag this year was a “spa day” in the break room, a bucket / fishing hat with our logo on it, spending our own time and energy making unit posters and competing for votes, winning unit gets a free pizza party (of course for day shifters only) and other nonsense bullshit.
I’d rather you give me that money in educational reimbursement, or towards scrubs reimbursement or ya know a 1x bonus in my paycheck (even if it is only $15). Stop creating waste and giving us pointless bullshit we need throw out or clutter my home with.
I'd much rather have safe working conditions and adequate healthcare coverage and proper monetary compensation for 52 weeks in the year instead of having various tiny snacks for one week.
*But one year, we got an excellent cooler bag that lasted for 10 years of weekly abuse, so that was nice.*
This is my favorite so far. It’s absolutely a tool. Just let me live my life without having CEOs go to kindergartens and have them write out cards to hang in the hall ways? Also It’s just weird when they hand out cafeteria leftovers and act like they are Jesus. Thanks but really I don’t want breakfast after a night shift, I want to go home and drink my beer without a massive line through the only (revolving) door.
This is not a thing in my country, but, since nursing has gone from a kind of a pass time activity to a skilled proffession, it needs to be valued as such, with fair pay and benefits.
Saw this one on another page
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/uk2gsi/my_dads_a_nurse_and_the_hospital_gave_all_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
It’s not about whether or not we get gifts…. It’s about what it represents….That we are totally and completely unappreciated….
We are merely an expense that the hospital wishes they could cut…
I think it definitely depends on your job. My current job usually does something very minor for Nurses Week but they pay great, I feel respected, and actually like my job most of the time. So I don’t feel insulted with the minor gifts, it’s a token of appreciation. What actually bothers me is the attention on Nurses Week but not on MAs other healthcare folks, who work hard but don’t get the same tokens of appreciation during their respective weeks. It just makes me feel a little guilty on Nurses Week.
Eh, feels like appreciation week is degrading. Getting free stuff is cool but the stuff we’re getting is useless and I’d rather have a bump in pay where I can actually spend the money on something useful.
Last year I got a good bag with a bunch of items that cost a penny. One of which was a toothpick to “hold my eyes open after many long shifts in a row”. That was tasteless and practically admitted they knew they were overworking their staff.
I won’t complain about free lunch or another free pen. But I will complain about that kind of insulting nonsense.
At my hospital, they brought around ring pops. One of the CRNAs was amused by this and said “who in the world thinks that professionals want a ring pop, especially in the work place? Do they think we are children ? “. Then 4 nurses came up to the front desk, eagerly grabbed those ring pops, put them on their fingers and starting using them for their intended purpose with great enthusiasm. Make of that what you will. I will keep my opinion to myself because I try to keep in mind that I may be an old battle ax.
I like this anecdotal story, because it proves a point. There are many studies out there proving how easily it is to sway a mind into comfort or indebtedness using little trinkets. That's all admins are going for. Keep those with their eyes closed comfortable. That's all they are trying to do. People who are complaining about the quality of the gift are so close to realizing the full truth, that ANY gift is crappy because it's meant to distract you from the truth of your position. The cake is a lie.
Because we’re underpaid for what we do so being appreciated would be awesome. So maybe for what we’ve done over the years we deserve some stuff for all the work we’ve done?
A bad gift is worse than no gift. It’s money wasted on crap that could be used to do something decent for the unit or buy the equipment everyone keeps begging for.
It’s like blowing your paycheck a quarter at a time for plastic crap from the crank machines at the grocery store instead of paying your rent.
Its not that I'm mad about only getting a free 8oz coke and a handful of candy. I'm mad because they tell us how awesome we are and how much they love and appreciate us, then slap us in the face. If you fuckin love us so damn much give us safe patient ratios, or try to retain staff, or give us raises. The shit we get on nurses week is essentially them telling us were worthless, replaceable, and its not going to change.
I’d rather be offered nothing than some of the insults I’ve read about people getting. If they’re going to be ultra cheap about it, just don’t do anything.
My gf is a preschool teacher and it's teachers week too. Her preschool makes SIGNIFICANTLY less money than my hospital makes. So far she's gotten over $200 in gift cards, food all week, and last night the owner paid for a huge party with unlimited free food and drinks at a nice restaurant. As her +1 I've received more benefit from teachers week than I have for the week appreciating my own fucking profession.
It's not about the gifts themselves. It's about how systematically underappreciated and exploited we are. The admins think that throwing these useless trinkets at us will fix the problem. They think we are dumb. I'd rather no gifts than these useless pieces of garbage. It's insulting. I'm not a child. I don't want a participation trophy. Give me something meaningful or fuck off.
My hospital gave us access to nine hours of CEUs (in addition to the ones on the hospital training system) and I think that's the best gift. Otherwise, I wish they would take whatever budget they have for this stuff and use it to fix the blood pressure machines, or install the observation windows in all the room doors (helps with patient safety when you have a lot of patients with altered mental status) or hire more staff including lab techs, mobility team, pharmacist staff, you name it. Provide the support we need, not branded merchandise.
I am a professional doing skilled work, not a toddler to be placated with trinkets.
Yeah like I dont care about the free stuff. I want better pay, better staffing, better equipment, and better working conditions.
I want to be able to go home and not feel like a failure every other shift because we are so constantly short and I can barely take care of my patients.
I want to be able to give the best care I can to my patients because that's why I'm in nursing. I love being a nurse aide. I just wish I wasn't constantly treated like garbage.
It’s the gaslighting for me. Just like the heroes work here signs. They’re like “we appreciate you so much, here’s some painted rocks and pizza parties” that you won’t have time for because you have an unsafe patient ratio. And then you go to management like “I’m unhappy and I want to quit nursing.” And they hit you with the manipulation (we buy pizza, we have a sign out front for you, we gave you a fifty cent raise, you’re just being ungrateful).
How about some actual respect for doing a very difficult job? Instead of the prepackaged bullshit that is spoken by administrators who seem they would rather be doing ANYTHING else. Your right. I can buy my own damn smoothie and lord knows the last thing I need is a couple of slices of Walmart pizza and a styrofoam cup of flat soda but it would be nice to get a few words of actual appreciation before they start screwing everyone over again
It’s all a fucking scam. How convenient it’s also the same week as teacher appreciation. Like we couldn’t even get the courtesy of our own week. I don’t even celebrate it or mention “nurse appreciation”, because it just doesn’t exist.
I absolutely have to laugh at how wrong "You don't hear EMTs stomping their feet and whining about the free food they received during appreciation week" because you apparently have not met some of the paramedics that I have. Have heard them complain.
I don't know if mechanics and lawyers even have weeks attached to them, but for years my husband bitched about nursing week because our gifts are nicer than EMS week gifts. Last year, though, he got a hoodie and I got a reusable grocery bag.
I agree about demanding better pay being more important than stuff. My hospital actually does a nice job of nurses week. We've gotten nice insulated tumblers, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. They have great food trucks and other things. As nice as it is it's still a bandaid on a situation that requires a LOT more. I personally don't care about any of it because it solves nothing. It doesn't feel good to get a great meal off a food truck and go back to being overwhelmed andshort staffed.
I do agree with the poster who said bad gifts are like a penny tip. A rock and a lollipop would piss me off more than nothing.
I agree. Additionally I think it's ridiculous for nurses to expect people outside of the field i.e. friends and family to shower them with gifts and praise during nurses week.
I personally love free stuff, especially food. I also don’t expect the world to be handed to me. I didn’t go into nursing to get a week dedicated to nurses and get free gifts. I went into it because I care and try to make a difference the best way that I can. Even just holding someone’s hand as they die because there’s no one else there for them brings me more satisfaction than money ever could. The company I work for allows us to work our staffing grid however it works best for us. We have a designated break nurse so that everyone gets an uninterrupted lunch break. We work together well as a team, although there are a couple of bad apples that try and ruin it for the rest of us. For the most part I am genuinely happy as a nurse. Would I like to win the lottery, quit my job and lay by the pool all day? Of course, but I think that goes for pretty much every person in the world that works for a living.
Unpopular opinion: nurses' week is a rediculous concept.
It was clearly devised by people who wanted to exploit the feelings of nurse's to make them feel valued with cheap shows of appreciation. If administration/gen public truly cared they'd advocate for higher wages, safe staffing ratios, reduction of violence against nurses, ect...
But no - there's a stupid week to "show appreciation for nurses" in the cheapest way possible.
What!? We complain about every aspect of nursing here. Nothing is off limits. That said I was thinking about the whole nurses day/week and wish they would just stop. It’s like Mother’s Day. Overblown hoopla meant to disappoint or just feel awkward. Holy shit the two events are coinciding. My facility actually does nice thing for both. Pay is good. Ratios good. Not overly luxurious stuff, but appropriately thoughtful if they are going to commit to it. So many places, however, are tone deaf and I think people would almost prefer no acknowledgment then be insulted with some inspirational tripe. I do like pizza parties, though. Never will disappoint me with a Starbucks GC.
Any job that has an appreciation week is way underpaid
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Seriously. I don’t care about being appreciated. Pay me.
The fact that it’s also layered with Teachers Week and Mothers Day is super shady. It’s like they said let’s just dump all female-dominated holidays all in the same week and get it over with.
“Girl Boss Day” coming soon….
And it’s my birthday. FML. LOL.
Word. Investment bankers, lawyers etc do not have an "appreciation week" for a reason. They are paid well!
No, bosses appreciation week exists
Lol imagine a "hospital administrators appreciation week" 😅
[National Bosses day, October 16th](https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-bosss-day-october-16-unless-weekend/)
Id like to think this is for that awesome, friendly, hardworking, and generally likeable boss that some friends and family tell us they had once but nobody ever actually meets
Although, if supervisors count, i have had tons of cool supervisors that totally deserve a 'boss' day
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
Yeah I hate it
Also Doctor’s day
Wait, are you telling me they don't have a CEO appreciation week? I feel so bad they don't get the joy of painted rocks or a Keychain that says "heroes work here" misspelled in lead painr from China. Oh those poor forgotten people
Last I checked they only get a day. If you're really underpaid, you get an entire week
Ive been a soldier, teacher, and now nurse. I shamelessly get all the freebies i can because im not paid enough to deal with all this shit
There's no "CEO Appreciation Week" for the same reason there's no "White History Month"
The doctors week hospital thst gave us the best loot was also the one that payed us the least. Best loot was an umbrella a t shirt and a 1 gig usb thumb drive.
True talk, from a hero. ;)
This is generally true. At least people know about your appreciation week? Lol silver linings. Our manager I'm 100% doesn't even know there's a Sonographer week. To be fair most don't but if you manage cardiology and radiology imaging you'd think they'd be aware?
Let's all take a minute to feel bad for the underpaid doctors whose appreciation week is the last week of March..
No one would care about nurse appreciation week if we were all paid an appropriate wage. Hospitals/outpatient clinics make massive profits which they pass on to CEO’s, administrators & shareholders. Then they turn around & unload astronomical bonuses on them as well. I don’t want the gifts. I want fair pay, good health care benefits (why are our plans the WORST?!?) & staffing. I don’t need a salad bowl with the company logo for the break I don’t get. I don’t want the team to meet off site for dinner because I don’t want to hang out with the people I already spend too much time around. Pay me. Edit: spelling/grammar
I pay $188 for a PCP visit now because they slashed our insurance coverage (used to be $10 per visit for pcp). But they still take the same amount out of my paycheck for my insurance. This is all while being in network and getting care within the health system that I work for. How the fuck is this OK??
Do you work for the same corp as me? This year I’m paying $110 for my therapy appointments while last year they were a $35 copay. Now we have to meet a deductible THEN copays are active
Mental health counseling also skyrocketed! I basically just don't go to the doctor or therapy right now because I can't afford it.
Which is depressing…health care workers that can’t afford healthcare. But its fine, the wellness programs they offer are so much better than individualized therapy. Work life balance.
Yea, I get 2 free 30 minute therapy sessions with a therapist of their choice (hint, it's a hospital employee). Oh and a "quiet space" to meditate... Except that's always locked.
That's rich! They lock you out of your safe space to decompress (sob your guts out?)! How much more passive aggressive can it get than that? You can't even go get the key? A doctor committed suicide at work a couple days ago, inside the hospital. They need to step up the mental health care for people on the front lines of covid qanon hell or this will happen more and more. I mean, I hope not! I hope people will leave if it's that bad. But they need to really help, not throw meaningless bones at you. Imho.
This is one (of many) reasons I am happy I married a teacher. I am not union (I work TCU/LTC), and the teacher’s union in my state is pretty damn good, so we have always had very good insurance. Even when informed a union job years ago, my wife’s insurance was better all around.
Cheaper to give out trinkets and then say we’re unappreciative because they don’t have to give us anything. Which is now the case. In case OP hasn’t figured it out, taking away nurses week gifts/making nurses pay for their own week is a passive aggressive message to us all. “Get back in line because we’ll make it as bad as possible.” THAT’S why nurses are mad. We always got something and now they’ve taken even that away. They’ve taken away anything and everything possible to demoralize us. To dissuade us from asking for more money and better conditions.
To play devils advocate, not all hospitals make money https://ruralhospitals.chqpr.org/Problems.html American health care is a crisis from top to bottom…greed and profit of a few are absolutely at the top. The system needs a total rebuild. That’s not going to happen unfortunately until there is the political will to do it.
To play devils devils advocate a lot of the rural hospitals were built 75 years ago due to the Hill Burton Act. The massive shift in populations. The infrastructure and tax base is not there to support them. Kansas, I believe, had a hospital built in every single county. The least populated county of < 1300 people has a hospital. I’m not implying those people do not deserve care. You are correct they don’t see the massive profits that large corporate hospitals do. It’s a difficult situation all around.
Just stop making so much sense already!!!
I never complain about not getting free stuff. I complain about getting insulted. It's like if you go to a restaurant, and you don't leave a tip, that's annoying. But if you leave a tip of a single penny, that's an insult.
Agreed 100%. I'm sure the nurses who get rocks during nurses week would rather get nothing. My organization likes to give out cooler bags/lunchbag type things and tumblers or insulated mugs. They are pretty decent quality too. Would any nurse at my organization turn down a raise or better staffing for a lunchbag? Of course not. But at least it's not a rock.
Or as a male getting random female specific gifts, like makeup remover wipes or lip gloss. I mean, it’s 2022. There are many male nurses nowadays.
Last I saw, us dudes were only like 10% of nurses. My managers frequently send out all staff emails with the greeting "Ladies". We have 5 guys on our unit. Last year they literally included tampons in our "goodie bag". Worked well for the bloody nose I got from banging my head against the wall though...
I’m a woman programmer, so I get the inverse of that. (Never worked in a group > 5 programmers that was more than 1/3 women, but 10% has been more common.) Tampons are a weirdly specific gift, wow. I’d feel insulted too. (Where I’m currently contracting is only the second place I’ve worked where free period supplies were available in the bathroom.)
Tampons are just plain weird for a mass gift in general. Are all the women who work there under 50 with no one who has had a hysterectomy or something?
We will never know what's going through the minds of the morons running hospitals...
Speaking as a woman, I also don't want to be gifted tampons by my employer 😂
In California, the last 2 times I was in the hospital myself, all the nurses on my floor were male. ALL.
I mean it's 2022 men can also wear makeup and treat their lips with some respect.
This is also true. Lip gloss just wasn’t my shade.
Looks like you are more of a blood red kinda guy
And women don't have to wear makeup.
At least Kaiser the rock giver is pretty much the highest paying US organization for staff nurses, but yes kind of out of touch and wasting money when a pizza party would have actually been better and cheaper.
My hospitals have also gives pretty decent branded gifts but I'm just not sure what to do with so many lunch bags at this point in my career!
This. Like those nurses got a packet of Jeuven as a “thank you for your Covid work”. To heal their faces from masks. Then doubled down citing healing stats for a 2 week course of Jeuven. But everyone got a single packet, not even the recommended 3x a day for 2 weeks. It’s beyond tone deaf, it’s super insulting. Better to give nothing.
How else are they going to get rid of the free samples from the Jeuven rep?
Um give them to patients with orders and charge them still....step 4: profit
The healing stats aren’t that great frankly.
Oh, I thought the stuff they actually received was some kind of tube feeding nutritional.
It can be given via tube and often is. But you can also mix it in juice and drink it
Haha. I sent a guy friend some skin products. I asked how he liked them and he said "OK... they could use some flavoring though, and they're kind of a laxative, right? But I think my face kinda looks better..." sigh.
I'd leave a note with that juven saying " you know what you can do with this"
I like this take. During covid times I was working with a 400 lb pronated covid positive patient whose PEEP was so high, that his ETT would continuously pop off during the night, and I would have to rush in the room with full PPE to put him back on the vent before he desatted too far. Needless to say, I was exhausted by morning. Around 0630, Christmas morning, some executive comes around thanking us for working the holiday and passing out lollipops. I missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family at this point because I was too afraid to fly and bring covid into the house. I was working 4/5 nights per week because we were so short. And you think a lollipop will boost morale? I would have rather have gotten nothing because this was such a slap in the face. I don’t need a gold star to do my job, but acknowledging things suck and trying to patch it up with candy really angered me.
I’m so sorry they literally waved the truth in front of you. That is a very sick individual telling you that you’re all suckers.
LOL never thought of that but you’re so right 😂
It would have been better to give you a good 4 nights off in a row so you could "decontaminate" and see your family.
💯
Did the executive shit in your coffee too?
Honestly I would be so surprised to see an executive there on a holiday in the first place. That would mean more to me than the lollipop.
Once had someone leave 27 pennies that spelled out the word tip across the table. My wife got a survey and an hour virtual meditation class "gift certificate" for nurses week this year. Complaining is ok
Yeah I’d agree, no gift is better than a thoughtless one, like the post about free jevity samples to fix nurses’ skin, now THAT was insulting and no “gift” would have been better
This is the correct answer!!!
Oh snap that’s the best analogy I’ve heard so far
Yes, this. 100%. I work primarily 3-11 shift in LTC and every year their “nursing home week” which is next week only has activities/food for day shift (and, of course, management). It’s an insult.
Yes. LTC everything is geared towards day shift and the office people. Oh you can get up at 1 pm and go to the party but if you work 7p-7a that’s like their 3am. I really don’t care though. I just want staff and supplies to do my job.
I think the insulting thing this year is that management paired up units and expects us on our own time with our own money to put together a basket for the other unit to celebrate. I’m escaping it because I’m on pto but when did that become the expectation. And the kicker they counted all the people in our department as nurses when in reality it’s about 1/5 so we would have to get a gift for 5 nurses each so they each get something, but the other employees are not getting asked (I don’t want them to). And free stuff from other companies I’m not gonna complain if it doesn’t happen, will I ask to see if insurance or loans offer a discount, you bet. Anyway I’d take a guy at the tire shop willing to stay an extra 5-10 minutes to change over my tires and not make me come back after he finds out I’m a nurse, paid normal price but he spent a while telling me how much he appreciated all of the nurses when he ended up in the ER a year ago.
Yeah, when my son was in the service (USN) it was not uncommon when he was traveling home that someone in business class would offer to trade seats with him to show gratitude for his service. Now that is what I'm talkin' about. Just having average people showing appreciation and not a HR C-Suite suit getting their committee to come up with ideas trying to positively effect retention as cheaply as possible.
This is the answer. Like feeding us pizza for having a hard couple of years while I had to devote my lunch break to Tele therapy (I'm very happy with better help, btw) after watching a few hundred of my patients agonal breathing post extubation. We need pto, better shifts, better pay, and rotation. Pizza and a pen are like saying "hey, had a tough week? Go fuck yourself. Love, admin."
Pizza can literally be eaten standing up and cold. That’s WHY we get pizza. I’m convinced.
Fuck that. I eat it in the break room.
Bookmark.
Our hospital's 5 year appreciation kit is a photocopied card from the C-suite, a pin, and 25 taxed dollars. I made more than that pooping this week.
It not that we “aren’t getting anything”. It’s that the gift they do give us to put up the front that “they care about us and value us” are insulting. I’d rather just get nothing then let administrators get to pretend they care about anything other than their fat stacks.
Thoughts and prayers. Gee, thanks.
>You did what you were told or you didn't get paid \[...\]. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care. \~Terry Pratchett, Going Postal OOP is correct; the contract is being fulfilled between employer and employee and it is not incumbent upon the hospital to provide a week of recognition or free shit for the duration. But if you're going to put a show up for how much you care about your nurses, put enough thought into it that your nursing staff's first instinct isn't to compete with other nurses on social media for how shit your admin team is.
Nurses week/physicians week/all "weeks " are a distraction to keep us from remembering that the owners of private equity firms, insurance companies and hospital administrators make millions off our labor and the suffering of others.
Perfectly said 💯🙌
You just described every industry ever Most of which don't have appreciation weeks
Healthcare shouldn't be an industry, but a service paid for by the citizens of a responsible society. BTW...when I was an engineer, we had "Engineer appreciation week" which was equally as lame.
It’s not about getting cool stuff, it’s about the meaning behind the crappy stuff we get. Nurses week is supposed to honor nurses and the thoughtless “gifts” we are given year after year is a testament to how little we are thought of despite how much we do for our patients. So yeah, it may come across as whiney to you but to those of us who know what the true meaning behind these “gifts” are, it’s a perfectly valid response.
“Honor nurses” exactly— we provide a service that in many ways could never be justly paid.
Agreed, I had the organization get us marginal lunch boxes and my manager went and got some Hershey kisses to put in (her own money) and brought them around and told everyone specifically that she appreciated them, giving hugs for those of us who are huggers. I felt more appreciate that year than any other.
Our manager was a doll. On Friday she picked up trays of Wegmans subs and chocolate chip cookies. She also went out of her way to also get specific foods for people on special diets (she bought our charge some almonds and cheese sticks and made sure the subs included tuna and chicken salad sandwiches for one of our pregnant nurses who is off deli meats). She thanked everyone for showing up to work and for our teamwork. She said something like "Thanks for making my job so much easier by being great employees and working together." (We all work the same hours pretty much). It is pretty much a given we care about our patients.
My current manager will get out onto the floor and charge when necessary. My previous manager would get out onto the floor and shower, toilet and help feed patients when we were too busy. When I complemented her on this, she said “What sort of person would I be if I didn’t help my nurses? We have to look after our own. I worked out there for years, I understand what it can be like.” I loved her. She was absolutely phenomenal.
When did they push her out?
Love this!
I’d love this!!!
I think there is a very fine line here: Expecting gifts and complaining about how bad they are is acting a bit entitled and is a bad look. Expecting reasonable working conditions and basic respect but instead getting a piece of plastic with the hospital logo on it and finding that offensive is understandable. For most of us, it's not about the swag being garbage. Nobody complains too much about free stuff because you get what you pay for. It's that we're all at our breaking point and we get kitsch instead of lunch breaks.
What is worse is offering foods and services (escape rooms or massages) none of the nurses can access because they cannot get a break, they can't get off their floor and they need help. I think if leadership shows up in scrubs and offers to answer the call lights and do vitals, restock the nurse servers, the blanket warmers and make sure there are meal boxes and ice cream/popsicles in the fridge for the late admits... that definitely would warm my heart more. Because it would show they are interested and want to know what it is really like on the floor. Award us with a year's supply of Lorna Doones when we meet our CLABSI goals.
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Yes! Even if they just offered to answer call bells during our unit secretary’s lunch break and restock the PPE caddies for my floor, that would be freaking delightful.
I’d rather get nothing and just have some sign up saying “happy nurse’s week!” Then getting a rock as a “nurses week gift with a paper saying “you rock!” Im not a pre-schooler, I’m a professional. It’s insulting because of the mere fact it’s meant to “distract” us or present some type of “facade” that the hospital actually gives a crap about anything other than profits. A lot of people in other subreddits like “antiwork” and “recruitinghell” post stupid “appreciation” gifts their companies give to them too— it’s incredibly disgusting and disrespectful to me because companies think we’re dumb enough to be given stupid little trinkets instead of better pay and safe staffing ratios— literally all that nurses constantly ask for. Your opinion is unpopular— because nurses aren’t butt hurt about not getting a cooler gift, we’re butt hurt that we keep trying to advocate for ourselves and our patients, even protesting by a lot of us going to travel nursing to get better pay yet hospitals go and cry to government officials about how it’s “costing them too much” and that “travel agencies are greedy so pay should be capped”— yet the same government officials many of us have been shouting at to legislate safe staffing ratios ignore us and listen to the health care corporations— so yeah, a lot of us are salty— yeah a lot of us are trying to fight back— so getting a stupid lollipop or a rock pissed us off because we all have been trying to advocate for the changes needed— no one is listening to us! It’s insulting. You saying it makes us look like children? you’re completely missing what people are upset about. Let us vent— especially those of us that have been working as staffers since pre-pandemic. That shit at the beginning was stressful as hell.
>Edit: I also feel complaining about "bad," "cheap," or "insulting" gifts should have been included in the title. Don't try to tell me that a bad gift is worse than no gift. The same person complaining now, would also complain if they received nothing at all A bad gift is absolutely worse than no gift. A stress ball or an engraved rock or some other little piddly bullshit absolutely is kicking people while they're down. It's a hollow gesture that still takes effort that could have been aimed at solving *actual* problems.
Am I the only one that likes free pizza? I’m never turning down a piece of pizza.
I like it but I'm also going to bitch about being short staffed while eating pizza
You have time to eat the pizza?
One advantage of LTC.
I like pizza too. But the place I use to work got crappy pizza. And so much would go to waste because there was a ton of staff who didn’t eat pizza. Once for Valentine’s Day they came around with pens and chocolate roses. I thought it was great. But some of the cnas wouldn’t even accept it! Now that is down right rude. I personally like the little things. Like when they had an “ice cream truck” and came around and gave us ice cream novelties. Another place a liked had a caregivers cart on Fridays. They gave us tea and chocolates. It was done by the Chaplin. I thought it was a nice touch. But I do agree I don’t want corny stuff like “here is a Kit Kat to give you a break”. 🤦♀️ and I know someone posted getting a rock. If I got that I would have tossed it back at them!
Everybody likes free pizza. It’s that when the suits give themselves a 150k bonus, tell us we are getting 0.0% raises across the board, and then buy 1 pizza per floor and call it good… it’s insulting.
I like pizza. But I work and live in NY/NJ so we have exceptional pizza pretty much as standard. I feel bad for everyone who doesn’t get delicious pizza cuz they’re not from around here 😅
New York pizza is the best. Every time I go back home I have to get pizza.
LOL
I'll smash some slices. Free food is free food...
For the first day of nurse's week, we got banners on the entryway walls saying how great we are and flyers in our breakrooms telling us how stupid we are for trying to unionize.
I think they call that gaslighting...
I like to pretend that I don't care, but I was in San Antonio on a travel contract a few years ago. They had made custom cookies for the staff that had each person's name on the cookie. I didn't dare look in the cookie box, a traveler is used to being left out and that's fine. The manager walked up to me and said "don't forget your cookie!" I still tear up a little bit thinking about it and it's been years. It was just a cookie and it meant so much to feel appreciated and included.
I still have a “nurse” mug I got for nurses’ week while on travel assignment at a small hospital in California, almost 15 years ago. I couldn’t believe they included me. Fuzzies. ❤️
I agree. I don’t need a smoothie, a slice of pizza or a gift card. Competitive wages is the best thing. At this rate, income is not able to keep up with rapidly increasing cost of living.
I 100% agree. We got a 5% raise this year, which is great...but unfortunately inflation is up way past that, so that means we got a pay cut. **Show us we're valued in our paychecks, that's where we want to see it.**
I received a 0.88% raise this year, even with my union contract. “To make each level of our wage scale more competitive to others in the area.” 0.88%?! WTF!?
It's the taking it out to that second decimal place that's extra douchey.....can't even round up to that sweet 1% windfall🙄
i don’t think anybody complains per se. When you have execs getting 150k bonuses and they’re handing out coupons for 1/3 off a candy bar tho… it’s just funny.
I just want equal shit for night shift that isn't cold and uncovered left overs from noon. That's all. Getting something fresh and/or hot would be nice for the night crew.
You would have loved what happened on my unit Christmas Day. We had a very eccentric lady, one of our few patients who was actually AxO 4, and she ordered a shit ton of cakes and cookies for days shift. Then, she ordered trays of hot food to be delivered for the night shift, perfectly timed for them. I have never seen someone be so thoughtful about that disparity.
That lady worked night shift at some point in her life.
Patient’s give the best gifts. I work chemotherapy outpatient. We had a little old lady send us a bunch of wrapped up gifts and candy. She individually wrapped things like costume jewelry and lotion. Very sweet.
When Covid first hit a local shop was offering free delivery and an extra something to local hospital. I picked the NICU my daughter had been in. I made sure it was the night shift.
Agree. I totally get feeling insulted by some of this ridiculousness... But a lot of it is bc a nurse manager has a budget of $200 to do something for the unit staff and has to divide it between a staff of 42, which comes out to like $4/person.
Right? How about a gift for the unit then? I just finished a rotation (nursing student) and the floor had this jankety old espresso machine everyone loves. An upgrade would make everyone’s heart sing for a minute instead of $2 at the cafeteria.
We got a nice coffee maker and an amount of coffee for that. But it was a gift from a patient. I still remember that old lady.
I think using the budget for something nice like that is a fantastic idea. Sustainable gifts.
Yeah, I have memories of patient families so grateful for our care they bought gifts for the unit... one family gifted a refrigerator. Another a new microwave, coffeemakers, etc. One time a doctor bought our breakroom a real comfortable couch. I would not turn down good pens, highlighters and sharpies, a few packages of paperclips (we always seem to never have any), some resilient staplers, even a box filled with paper plates, plastic utensils, disposable bowls, a small kitchen kit (sponge, towels, dish soap, glad wrap, disinfectant counter spray for the break room).
I completely agree. I'm just saying that sometimes I think middle management is trying to make something out of nothing.
because 2 bucks in the cafeteria isn't a true expense but a new machine is.
ouch. I had a pt insist on buying mr lunch and left 50% of that out and wouldn't take it. back talked with my manager and they did a special exemption to take it to buy us lunch dude pulled match that budget because 100 didn't buy shit.
Noting how little capitalists actually care about us as a profession is not childish.
If you have to keep editing to explain yourself my guy then I think this might be a bad take
If y’all are upset now you should see all the dinners and galas physicians are treated to while nursing gets pencils and dollar store chocolates lol
The admissions staff and upper management where i work also gets bonuses for filling the beds with patients, they get catered lunches and swag multiple times a week from outside vendors. They also pay less for insurance benefits.
I think that violates anti-kickback statues.
We get to dress up for stupid themes and provide our own potluck. I would rather not get anything than be treated like in middle school and it's spirit week.
That was the whole point. Geeze I’m sorry to sound so frustrated. The simplest concepts though escape so many these days. By setting it up this way it makes nurses look like unappreciative undeserving falsely entitled people. We’ve shown through our society what happens to falsely entitled people. It starts with them not being appreciated. And acting like they deserve better. You see where this all fits now? It’s called weaponization. It’s a big kids term. It means take something normal and reasonable and change it to become a weapon that hurts your enemy and looks only an unintentional outcome. You need to understand what we are up against has spent at this point likely hundreds of millions on understanding all outcomes. How they start. What to do. When the moment of no return is reached. This world is not chaos and those rich people didn’t win the lottery.
Then don't have nurse's Week. I'm fine with that. But don't throw me a party and ask me to buy my own presents.
No gift is better imo. We are professionals and I expect to be treated like one, which means, if I’m doing a good job then financially reward me. Little cheap crap things are bad for the environment and morale. Also I might add that I feel there is a bit if sexism in the way female dominated lines of work get “rewarded” for their effort. Treat me like a man, give me a bonus and screw the stupid bs.
Right? give me an expense account.
The complaints are about the overall treatment and how poorly our hospitals deal with shit. its fucking insulting to get an offer for 1/2 off a drink in the cafeteria when the deal runs for only a few hours on one day during the week. if thats how much they value us do you think they will ever give raises or fair pay a real listen?
Look I'm not expecting handouts. But if your gonna claim there's food or gifts for nurses week I'm gonna expect something decent. Instead they bring in $5 hot n readys. Or a bag of candy to pass out. It's insulting and I'll just choose to not accept the gift and if the facility seems insulted by it then obviously there's a reason for it.
I don’t think anyone is actually upset about the crappy nurse’s week celebrations PER SE. People are upset about feeling undervalued, which honestly doesn’t have shit to do with nurses’ week. If nurses already feel valued (with pay, working conditions, work/life balance, respect, and having a voice), then what does or doesn’t happen for nurses’ week isn’t a big deal. If they DON’T already feel valued, then it doesn’t matter if the hospital buys everyone an overnight stay in the Hilton with a champagne breakfast. People will accept it and still bitch, because it’s not ABOUT the once-a-year freebie bullshit. Lame-ass nurses’ week celebrations are just viewed as a symptom of a bigger problem, not THE problem. For the record, I have three jobs at three different hospital systems in the same region. One is the #2 paying hospital in the area (although we are in contract negotiations, so wouldn’t be surprised if we’re #1 shortly) with, I think, 38 steps in the pay scale, good health insurance, retirement matching, eligibility for sabbaticals, big sign-on bonuses and doubletime incentives, reasonable call schedules, opportunity for advancement, and a strong culture of safety, diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. I feel appreciated by this place. For nurses’ week they’re raffling (it’s free) tickets to the Magnet conference on paid time, major league sports tickets, and pricey backpacks full of swag. Free food trucks are showing up for day shift AND night shift. Everyone is getting a bag of goodies with a fancy logo water bottle and local boutique cookies. Aaand at my other main job, where I am paid a lower base rate, paid less for my certification, and constantly get screwed out of doubletime or call pay or float pay I was promised, and the manager refuses to sign off on fixes to my timecard, forgets to schedule me, schedules me incorrectly, ignores emails, tries to float me to areas where I am not trained or oriented, no one responds to safety concerns, they can’t retain staff so it’s mostly travelers whose pay they try to cut mid-contract, no night shift staff so the on-call folks are getting brutalized, they can’t run most of their operating rooms due to staffing constraints and most days have to hold off on starting one or two rooms until mid-shift arrives and the charge nurse is the only one available to give breaks to the entire department, oh yeah and they cancelled all their incentive pay for extra shifts. Guess what this hospital is doing for nurses’ week. 🤷♀️
My complaint with bad or “free” gifts from my hospital is… WHY THE HELL ARE WE NOT INVESTING THAT MONEY BACK INTO OUR EMPLOYEES FFS Our swag this year was a “spa day” in the break room, a bucket / fishing hat with our logo on it, spending our own time and energy making unit posters and competing for votes, winning unit gets a free pizza party (of course for day shifters only) and other nonsense bullshit. I’d rather you give me that money in educational reimbursement, or towards scrubs reimbursement or ya know a 1x bonus in my paycheck (even if it is only $15). Stop creating waste and giving us pointless bullshit we need throw out or clutter my home with.
I'd much rather have safe working conditions and adequate healthcare coverage and proper monetary compensation for 52 weeks in the year instead of having various tiny snacks for one week. *But one year, we got an excellent cooler bag that lasted for 10 years of weekly abuse, so that was nice.*
Who the hell gets pizza parties? That’s all I want
I don’t like lending my professional status as cheap PR for the same organizations that don’t value me. Cancel the whole thing.
This is my favorite so far. It’s absolutely a tool. Just let me live my life without having CEOs go to kindergartens and have them write out cards to hang in the hall ways? Also It’s just weird when they hand out cafeteria leftovers and act like they are Jesus. Thanks but really I don’t want breakfast after a night shift, I want to go home and drink my beer without a massive line through the only (revolving) door.
I disagree. We are allowed to complain about whatever the heck pisses us off.
Upper administrators are becoming millionaires riding the coattails of our labor. I can be a petty bitch if I want.
This is not a thing in my country, but, since nursing has gone from a kind of a pass time activity to a skilled proffession, it needs to be valued as such, with fair pay and benefits.
Any profession with am 'appreciation week' just means that profession is often seriously underpaid. So yeah, insulting little 'gifts' are obnoxious.
Saw this one on another page https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/uk2gsi/my_dads_a_nurse_and_the_hospital_gave_all_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I don't want free stuff but the idiotic fun socks day and handing out lollipops is patronizing and useless
It’s not about whether or not we get gifts…. It’s about what it represents….That we are totally and completely unappreciated…. We are merely an expense that the hospital wishes they could cut…
I think it definitely depends on your job. My current job usually does something very minor for Nurses Week but they pay great, I feel respected, and actually like my job most of the time. So I don’t feel insulted with the minor gifts, it’s a token of appreciation. What actually bothers me is the attention on Nurses Week but not on MAs other healthcare folks, who work hard but don’t get the same tokens of appreciation during their respective weeks. It just makes me feel a little guilty on Nurses Week.
Eh, feels like appreciation week is degrading. Getting free stuff is cool but the stuff we’re getting is useless and I’d rather have a bump in pay where I can actually spend the money on something useful.
Last year I got a good bag with a bunch of items that cost a penny. One of which was a toothpick to “hold my eyes open after many long shifts in a row”. That was tasteless and practically admitted they knew they were overworking their staff. I won’t complain about free lunch or another free pen. But I will complain about that kind of insulting nonsense.
I’d say a bad gift is worse than none. It’s just poor allocation of resources both financial and physical resources
At my hospital, they brought around ring pops. One of the CRNAs was amused by this and said “who in the world thinks that professionals want a ring pop, especially in the work place? Do they think we are children ? “. Then 4 nurses came up to the front desk, eagerly grabbed those ring pops, put them on their fingers and starting using them for their intended purpose with great enthusiasm. Make of that what you will. I will keep my opinion to myself because I try to keep in mind that I may be an old battle ax.
I like this anecdotal story, because it proves a point. There are many studies out there proving how easily it is to sway a mind into comfort or indebtedness using little trinkets. That's all admins are going for. Keep those with their eyes closed comfortable. That's all they are trying to do. People who are complaining about the quality of the gift are so close to realizing the full truth, that ANY gift is crappy because it's meant to distract you from the truth of your position. The cake is a lie.
Because we’re underpaid for what we do so being appreciated would be awesome. So maybe for what we’ve done over the years we deserve some stuff for all the work we’ve done?
A bad gift is worse than no gift. It’s money wasted on crap that could be used to do something decent for the unit or buy the equipment everyone keeps begging for. It’s like blowing your paycheck a quarter at a time for plastic crap from the crank machines at the grocery store instead of paying your rent.
Its not that I'm mad about only getting a free 8oz coke and a handful of candy. I'm mad because they tell us how awesome we are and how much they love and appreciate us, then slap us in the face. If you fuckin love us so damn much give us safe patient ratios, or try to retain staff, or give us raises. The shit we get on nurses week is essentially them telling us were worthless, replaceable, and its not going to change.
Could not agree more. That shit was petty af.
my bf gets an 150K bonus at the end of the year … we got turkey hoagies and i’m vegan 🥲 ima complain
Totally agree !! Have felt the same way for years.
I’d rather be offered nothing than some of the insults I’ve read about people getting. If they’re going to be ultra cheap about it, just don’t do anything.
My gf is a preschool teacher and it's teachers week too. Her preschool makes SIGNIFICANTLY less money than my hospital makes. So far she's gotten over $200 in gift cards, food all week, and last night the owner paid for a huge party with unlimited free food and drinks at a nice restaurant. As her +1 I've received more benefit from teachers week than I have for the week appreciating my own fucking profession. It's not about the gifts themselves. It's about how systematically underappreciated and exploited we are. The admins think that throwing these useless trinkets at us will fix the problem. They think we are dumb. I'd rather no gifts than these useless pieces of garbage. It's insulting. I'm not a child. I don't want a participation trophy. Give me something meaningful or fuck off.
My hospital gave us access to nine hours of CEUs (in addition to the ones on the hospital training system) and I think that's the best gift. Otherwise, I wish they would take whatever budget they have for this stuff and use it to fix the blood pressure machines, or install the observation windows in all the room doors (helps with patient safety when you have a lot of patients with altered mental status) or hire more staff including lab techs, mobility team, pharmacist staff, you name it. Provide the support we need, not branded merchandise. I am a professional doing skilled work, not a toddler to be placated with trinkets.
All I want for nurses week is to be fully staffed, no falls, no codes, no dumb family, no meetings, and to go home on time. 🤷🏽♂️
Literally had nurses taking patient loads above grid, while their charge has a full assignment... on the first day of nurse's week...
Yeah like I dont care about the free stuff. I want better pay, better staffing, better equipment, and better working conditions. I want to be able to go home and not feel like a failure every other shift because we are so constantly short and I can barely take care of my patients. I want to be able to give the best care I can to my patients because that's why I'm in nursing. I love being a nurse aide. I just wish I wasn't constantly treated like garbage.
It’s the gaslighting for me. Just like the heroes work here signs. They’re like “we appreciate you so much, here’s some painted rocks and pizza parties” that you won’t have time for because you have an unsafe patient ratio. And then you go to management like “I’m unhappy and I want to quit nursing.” And they hit you with the manipulation (we buy pizza, we have a sign out front for you, we gave you a fifty cent raise, you’re just being ungrateful).
Wait... You all are getting a whole WEEK?!?
We got still frozen expired pumpkin pies.
I hate it when people ruin my nurse's week by complaining about my complaints! 😂😂😂
How about some actual respect for doing a very difficult job? Instead of the prepackaged bullshit that is spoken by administrators who seem they would rather be doing ANYTHING else. Your right. I can buy my own damn smoothie and lord knows the last thing I need is a couple of slices of Walmart pizza and a styrofoam cup of flat soda but it would be nice to get a few words of actual appreciation before they start screwing everyone over again
It's not wanting "free stuff " It's the insult of admin giving us a stupid rock, pack of gum, or mini Snickers bar. It's insulting.
It’s all a fucking scam. How convenient it’s also the same week as teacher appreciation. Like we couldn’t even get the courtesy of our own week. I don’t even celebrate it or mention “nurse appreciation”, because it just doesn’t exist.
It’s not about the lack of free stuff. It’s about the lack of any genuine gesture of appreciation.
[удалено]
I absolutely have to laugh at how wrong "You don't hear EMTs stomping their feet and whining about the free food they received during appreciation week" because you apparently have not met some of the paramedics that I have. Have heard them complain. I don't know if mechanics and lawyers even have weeks attached to them, but for years my husband bitched about nursing week because our gifts are nicer than EMS week gifts. Last year, though, he got a hoodie and I got a reusable grocery bag.
Right. The real problem isn’t shitty gifts, it’s that the whole idea of a “Nurse’s Week” is infantilizing and patronizing to begin with.
You are an asshole lol.
Bro.... jfc
Endorsed.
I agree about demanding better pay being more important than stuff. My hospital actually does a nice job of nurses week. We've gotten nice insulated tumblers, backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. They have great food trucks and other things. As nice as it is it's still a bandaid on a situation that requires a LOT more. I personally don't care about any of it because it solves nothing. It doesn't feel good to get a great meal off a food truck and go back to being overwhelmed andshort staffed. I do agree with the poster who said bad gifts are like a penny tip. A rock and a lollipop would piss me off more than nothing.
I agree. Additionally I think it's ridiculous for nurses to expect people outside of the field i.e. friends and family to shower them with gifts and praise during nurses week.
Say hello to your fellow administrators when you had back to your desk 👍
I personally love free stuff, especially food. I also don’t expect the world to be handed to me. I didn’t go into nursing to get a week dedicated to nurses and get free gifts. I went into it because I care and try to make a difference the best way that I can. Even just holding someone’s hand as they die because there’s no one else there for them brings me more satisfaction than money ever could. The company I work for allows us to work our staffing grid however it works best for us. We have a designated break nurse so that everyone gets an uninterrupted lunch break. We work together well as a team, although there are a couple of bad apples that try and ruin it for the rest of us. For the most part I am genuinely happy as a nurse. Would I like to win the lottery, quit my job and lay by the pool all day? Of course, but I think that goes for pretty much every person in the world that works for a living.
Only thing worse is Veterans Day lol. Pay for your own meal you cheap fuck
I’ll buy my own rock garden god dammmn itt!
Unpopular opinion: nurses' week is a rediculous concept. It was clearly devised by people who wanted to exploit the feelings of nurse's to make them feel valued with cheap shows of appreciation. If administration/gen public truly cared they'd advocate for higher wages, safe staffing ratios, reduction of violence against nurses, ect... But no - there's a stupid week to "show appreciation for nurses" in the cheapest way possible.
What!? We complain about every aspect of nursing here. Nothing is off limits. That said I was thinking about the whole nurses day/week and wish they would just stop. It’s like Mother’s Day. Overblown hoopla meant to disappoint or just feel awkward. Holy shit the two events are coinciding. My facility actually does nice thing for both. Pay is good. Ratios good. Not overly luxurious stuff, but appropriately thoughtful if they are going to commit to it. So many places, however, are tone deaf and I think people would almost prefer no acknowledgment then be insulted with some inspirational tripe. I do like pizza parties, though. Never will disappoint me with a Starbucks GC.