• ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    My mom was a nurse. For her there was no down time. Usually she couldn’t even stop to eat lunch. She’d just grab a granola bar or something and keep going. Hospitals are dangerously understaffed.

    Yet there were still some people who would stand around chatting or whatever while her arthritic ass ran around the floor taking care of people.

    • Zachariah@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      So some people knew it is healthy to carve out downtime instead of relying on management to give it to them.

      • ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        In most lines of work, that’s perfectly fine. In a hospital, someone can die if there isn’t enough help.

        But again, this is entirely the hospital management’s fault for failing to properly staff their hospitals.

        • markstos@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Someone can also die if the nurses burn out and quit because their job is not sustainable.

          Understaffing is a system failure, not a personal failure.

        • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          But it’s not the fellow nurses responsible for hiring and scheduling enough help.

          This is one reason why unions can be so effective for nurses.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I reject the idea that HCW, or any kind of emergency or life support workers for that matter, should be treated like slaves because of the consequences to others if they are treated as fairly as other workers in less urgent lines of work.

          • reversedposterior@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Agree. It’s yet another case of underpaid and understaffed industries. If nobody wants to do a job because it’s too long and hard, it’s because 1 person is being expected to do the work of multiple people.

        • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          8 months ago

          Okay, and…? Do you think people in the business of saving lives shouldn’t get downtime at all, just all go from clock in to clock out? Like it’s a concentration camp instead of a hospital?

          Your mum sounds like she’s awesome, but she remind me so much of mine. Self-sacrificing to a fault, and potentially like she struggled to internalise that she needed breaks, because otherwise “someone (could) die”.

          • ExtraMedicated@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Whoa, not what I was trying to say at all. Nor was I implying that OP or anyone else here is lazy.

            There’s a huge difference though between not getting a break and not being willing to do what is expected of you (within reason), and this isn’t really something that can be generalized so easily.

            Again, I never meant to imply anything about any particular person, so I apologize if it came across that way.

    • HubertManne@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      my wife had someone after her surgery that was supposed to make sure she did not fall while trying small stints of walking. watched her cell phone intensely the whole time while talking to her without looking at her.

  • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    I had a boss that was a constant micromanager. I started compiling lists of questions I had or things I actually needed for him and whenever he would come around I would just hit him with the list. I would even chase him down every time I knew he was in the vicinity. Eventually it got to the point where he would try to avoid me because he didn’t want to do any actual work. He just wanted to “supervise” and I was ruining that for him.

    Talk about irony, the same guy like to brag about not taking vacation time. I told him that people don’t usually brag about their poor life choices. Fuck him. One of us was lazy and it definitely wasn’t me.

  • pizzacat_nomnom@lemmings.world
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    8 months ago

    I don’t work in medicine, but I’ve had plenty of demanding managers. My advice is to start advocationg for yourself and making sure you take your breaks, no excuses. And don’t cut them short, put a timer or something. In some states, if your manager interrupts your break, the break restarts, check if that’s an option for you and do just that. Same goes for your lunch. Know your worker rights and be ready to advocate for yourself as well as share that information with your coworkers. Finally, slow down your pace. Work is a marathon, there will always be more work for you. Rushing will only exhust you, and you will still have to do it again tomorow. Instead slow down so that you can do it again tomorrow.

    • Duranie@literature.cafe
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      8 months ago

      More like “how do you find a moment to catch your breath and let your brain reset after you worked through your breaks, haven’t gotten to use the bathroom, and feel like you’re going to punch your patient in the face if they bitch about not getting a hot meal at 11:30pm.”

        • stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Ya dude. It’s like, I hate when I’m watching football, and I see some of the players sitting on the bench between plays. Lazy fucks.

            • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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              8 months ago

              Soccer players just gotta run around a lot.

              Football players don’t run very much, but they spend a lot of time getting slammed by and pinned between refrigerator-sized humans running remarkably fast for their build and amount of padding.

        • PlantJam@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Keep in mind that nursing is a four year bachelor’s degree. There are other options, but the four year degree is most common in the US. That means many nurses chose their profession when they were just out of high school. Nursing being a stable, well paid, and highly in demand career is something that everyone hears about. Blaming nurses for taking that to heart and pursuing it as a career is questionable at best.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          8 months ago

          Yeah if there’s one thing the world needs less if, it’s those selfless pricks working themselves to the bone in understaffed, underpaid, and underappreciated (yet totally necessary) licensed professions.

          Let’s get mad at teachers for having the week “off” this week, too. They don’t need paid time off, what do they need money for? Pencils? Hah!