I was thinking phrasing the question explicitly for nurses, doctors, emergency services and the like but anyone could offer solid advice.

I’ve realized I don’t know how to react if people start crying on me for something as innocuous as asking how they’re doing or how their operation went. Others are terrified of their operation and start shaking like a leaf.

The most I can offer are platitudes, a therapist, a priest, volunteers that come to talk to those who feel lonely, something to calm down if the anesthesiologist agrees and hold their hand but I simply don’t know what to tell them to calm them down.

How do you do it?

I’m a RN (registered nurse), my hospital offered me to to become a Wound Care Nurse. They would cover 80% of the cost, so I’d end paying 20% of it.

Why scared you ask?

I’ve worked at several units at my hospital and I invariably met a majority of childish coworkers and a minority of the good ones, a minority from whom I’d always learn something, but most were and are just immature.

Immature behaviors include caring more about going smoking together and talking like teenagers about who dated who or whose ex is coming momentarily to work at the unit, yelling like they were in a bar, promising the manager when I first come to the unit to show me around and to actually teach me something during my training to do a complete 180 when the manager leaves, ignoring me, being passive aggressive, talking about nothing job related, while ignoring calling patients, or being outright hostile when I ask who is going to take care of what patients so I can organize my shift and start to work. Usually, if you work in a unit with those characters and you are the responsible one, you end up doing your job AND theirs, but I don’t see a dime more.

Complaining to management didn’t change anything. They usually side with the majority, because it’s easier for them.

What I fear is having to work with any of these characters during my certification because I don’t trust them and I don’t want to be treated unfairly (getting a lower score) just because the person who examines me has beef with me.

For this to work I need people, teachers and mentors who take it as seriously as I do. I’ve already quit several units because this wasn’t the case.

unrelenting, continuous, loud, right to your face verbal abuse, insinuating you overdosed the patient, pointing his fingers right to your face, claiming he is going to sue me and the hospital.

I froze, because this is the first time something like this happens to me, my ears hurt.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, completely still because I didn’t know what else to do. At some point I stopped listening to him and simply walked away to a restroom. Miraculously, he didn’t follow me. I was ready to punch him if he touched me.

Out of the workplace, if somebody acts like that I either walk away or answer back or defend myself physically, should it escalate. Enduring that level of verbal abuse is something nobody enjoys, nor is something I am willing to tolerate.

The rest of my shift wasn’t funny. Incident was reported.

a caregiver can be a RN that performs a job in a hospital, might be in a union, gets paid and has pauses, but also a person that does it for somebody in the family who needs caregiving, like an aging parent or a wife with MS.

I’ve heard so many stories of mostly women, complaining but mostly venting that they have a regular job AND then have to go home and must take care of an ungrateful elder, are not being paid, how taxing it is, while other siblings do nothing but offer platitudes, do not to help and have normal lives.

I can understand why people act so passively because taking care of an aging parent or a wife with MS is hard, not valued, back breaking non stop job, physically and mentally, unpaid and unrecognized by society but at the same time, expected. It’s even worse because adults without this kind of responsibility love to judge and call you ungrateful for not sacrificing your life for your ailing parents (they gave you life!!, that’s not christian!!). Most you’ll hear from people somehow aware of this situation is that you’re a hero or an angel, which is so insulting and out of touch.

I wouldn’t sacrifice my life for my parents, move in with them to be their maid 24/7 like these women.

But what if it was just another job, I was paid, had my pauses and I could call in sick and clock out? It looks better.

Where you live, is this possible? How much in wages did you lose? Any regrets?

This happens in a hospital’s ICU.

The patient’s daughter, a woman from the middle east in her thirties and very limited English, after seeing her father in a bed, intubated, with several syringe pumps, a pacer, several monitoring sensors and more stuff, started yelling a long, continued aaaaaahhh…, took her phone, called somebody, started yelling at the phone in her mother tongue, left the room, left the ICU but immediately after started banging the door to be let in again, she yelled to the phone again, the woman at the end of the line started yelling as well, so that’s 2 women yelling, equally stressed. 2 family members who happened to be there started banging the door as well, a nurse approached the door, let them in, telling them in a stern voice and not looking friendly not to yell, which, to my surprise, worked a bit: the daughter kept yelling, but not so loud as before, the other 2 women didn’t yell, they all followed the nurse into the room.

I froze. This has never happened to me. I thought about hugging the daughter but being a man and not speaking an ounce of Arabic I didn’t know if she would think I was trying to assault her. I don’t know how people from the middle east, presumably Muslims, react to this.

If you ever experienced something like this, what did you do?

ETA: I wrote yelling and not wailing, because to me it wasn’t wailing: Wailing is recognized automatically, it makes you cry, this wasn’t like that, wailing cannot be faked. I was born in a household where appearances were highly valued. One family tradition where I was born is to fake cry during funerals: you’re supposed to show how sad you are by faking to sob and cry, but to anyone smart enough it’s clear that’s fake. My grandfather never loved my grandmother and when she died after 50 years of unhappy marriage, he did exactly that during the funeral.

What this woman did felt like that.

it’s footage made by the Americans to be shown to the court and possibly to the German public to advance denazification. It begins with a map of occupied Europe and the names and locations of the main concentration camps.

I’ve seen some excerpts of that documentary on several history documentaries, but never the whole film.

In the film shown to the court we see some prisoners praying, thanking their saviors, emaciated dead prisoners, excavators burying decaying bodies by the hundreds, former prisoners describing Nazi torture techniques, a crematorium is shown…

Do you know the name of the footage and where to find it?

short answer: no. It happens, move on.

a bit longer answer: an elective operation with no immediate danger to a person’s life like a heart operation is going to be postponed no matter what if more than one doctor calls in sick. It also happens if there are not enough anesthesiologists.

Why I’m asking this question. On my last post somebody wrote:

Nobody deserves to have their medical treatment withheld, even temporarily, even if it was an elective procedure.

My take: the person who wrote this and all of them who upvote him don’t work in healthcare and have unrealistic expectations of what working in a hospital entails, don’t consider the workload a nurse has to endure and how the general population’s respect of nurses and doctors but specially nurses has tanked since covid.

Any heart operation is always more important than an elective one that can be safely postponed.

It’s not only a respect issue, but a literacy one as well, as many patients and their family members come to us with really stupid questions and resent us when corrected: no, statins do not cause dementia, no, the pills your friend gave you so you don’t have to inject yourself with insulin twice a day for the rest of your life so your diabetes doesn’t spike are BS and are the reason why you feel tired and dizzy.

Nurses are no longer celebrated but considered as malicious agents with a hidden agenda, insulted and struck.

I wrote sick doctors, but in emergencies or mass casualty incidents several or all elective surgeries get canceled.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3626563

with people with good skills to defuse a tense situation at the workplace I mean everyone of you, because I suck at this and I’m sure anyone here is better than I am with this kind of stuff.

Tense situation is a karen yelling at one of my colleagues because her father’s operation was postponed because I kid you not 4 doctors called in sick today. Rumor has it they’re striking for better pay.

My instinctive response if someone starts behaving like a childish, snippy, entitled karen and acts passive-aggressively is to leave and ignore the person. In this case, the karen started ranting to my coworker, getting all snippy and wouldn’t shut up. A rational conversation with people that irrational is impossible, so I kept doing my job, transferring a patient to another ward.

I never expected this colleague to tell me she felt let down because I didn’t help her to deal with said karen. She said simply staying next to her would have sufficed. I told her I’d do that next time someone yells at her.

I consider myself lucky because I can leave to do my job but my colleague was trapped with this person.

My questions to you people with good social skills:

does it really help to simply stay next to my colleague, letting her do the talking while I do nothing but looking at the karen in the eye?

what if, each time the karen opens her mouth I repeat ‘calm down’ ad nauseam till she either tires, shuts up or walks away?

what do you say or do to support your coworkers while they’re being verbally abused that somewhat defuses the situation?

what if avoiding conflict is a trait of mine to the point that I let people walk all over me?

how do you resist the urge to walk away? Situations like this trigger my fight or flight response.

what if I have to do this with a man and it gets physical? If somebody strikes me and I strike back, and I can guarantee you I’m striking back, I’m as guilty as the first aggressor.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3524630

former bed side nurse here on sick leave till the end of the month. I should start my new job away from patients with normal working hours on October 1st.

I feel drained, even though I eat and sleep well, the best I’ve slept in months, my circadian rhythm is that of a normal human being, I can cook, go shopping, I even play some hobbies now.

Nobody yells at me or makes passive aggressive or backhanded remarks for me to hear.

The 1st. of October is a week away and I don’t believe I’ll be a fully functioning human being by then, most probably I’ll ask for a 2 week sick leave extension.

what worked for you to go back to your normal self?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3511467

I learned what non violent communication is a day ago and I’m using it to mend a friendship.

Have you however used it at the workplace?

I find it unpractical: there are so many things to do at the workplace and the last thing stressed people with deadlines need is to have a conversation about feelings, but maybe I’m wrong?

A question for nurses working bedside: do you actually use non violent communication at your ward with your patients and actually have time to do your other duties, like charting, preparing infusions and meds, dealing with providers, insurance, the alcoholic who fights you, the demented one who constantly tries to leave the unit, the one who wants to leave ama (against medical advice)?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3500461

it was bad, but we both agree we have to talk about it.

The conversation became a yelling match where neither listened to the other, we both started ranting about the other one and left the room.

It was, however, mostly my fault, something I want to acknowledge.

I was thinking about using pauses each time one feels offended or thinks is going to yell, so we both leave the room and calm down, pauses we can use to try to understand the other’s point of view before resuming the conversation. We don’t have to solve all our problems in one sitting, we could explain how we see a particular issue and if we don’t see an immediate solution, sleep on it, meet on another day to keep talking about it. I’ve also heard about using a talking pillow and not forgetting is not me against her, but we against the problem, but other than that I have no idea what to do.

I also plan to tell her I find some things she does extremely unfair because this is not a one sided apology where I’m the only guilty party.

This is a conversation to clear the air, to be sincere and to see if we still want to be friends.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3497784

Example: several of my former coworkers are from Mexico, Peru and Argentina, meaning they share Spanish as a common language.

I used to practice Spanish with them, but my last charge (like a ward’s manager) would yell at us to stop it, use English only. She would get very angry really fast if she heard anything in a language she didn’t understand.

I find it stupid, because some of them would use Spanish to better explain to the new nurses how to do certain procedures, but maybe I’m missing something?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3455022

smart guys who avoid drama have this ability I lack: to do their job, even if it means working more than an established, well connected lazy group of people. Smart guys do their 30 minute pause and then keep working, even if the lazier ones have longer pauses.

Maybe you’ve accepted that life is unfair, or that a job is a job and while you’re at the workplace and being paid, your employer can do with you what he wants, even if that means some of your coworkers have it easier than you and let you the most physically demanding tasks so they get the easy ones.

I am incapable of being like this:

Nursing is a physically demanding job and mentally draining as well: an even larger number of patients will complain about everything and are convinced you’re there to be their private therapist for 2 hours, forgetting I have other patients, patients are nowadays fatter with more comorbidities, they sometimes fight you, the one with dementia wants to get up and leave the ward, even if he’s there because he fell at home and broke his orbita, they question you, they blame you for things you cannot control or don’t decide, they verbally abuse you, they sometimes don’t speak English…

If I ignore the lazy ones, pause for 30 minutes and then work chances are I’ll be calling in sick the next day, because I work till my back and legs ache, it is simply not sustainable. I’m the one walking the ward side to side.

Furthermore, I don’t know if you understand how draining and frustrating is to see a group of people who are well connected and know they cannot be fired to play on their phones while you, the new guy there, are held to a different standard and are expected to work, physically, continuously, bar that 30 minute pause.

That’s why to me this is personal: the more they lazy around the more I have to work, the more back pain I get, the more frustrated I get, the more I hate it there.

You may successfully separate the people from the job and care more about the job than the people there, but I cannot get pass this, and I don’t feel I’m in the wrong.

Maybe I’m entitled? Am I wrong? AITA?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/3420358

as said previously I’m a nurse, which means the overwhelming majority of employees are women. Gossiping, being unauthentic, cattiness and passive aggressiveness is a daily occurrence.

My current unit: there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them, they are punctual with their pauses, I mean really, 30 minutes and that’s it, and can ignore when other coworkers lazy around, even if it means they have to be the ones doing most of the work, extra work they don’t receive any extra money or recognition for.

I am writing in awe, because as much as I’d like to be this thick skinned, I am not. The feeling of being treated unfairly rubs me the wrong way really fast. My strategy so far has been to lazy around so much as my direct coworkers, even if they’re part of an established group at the ward I don’t belong to. They’re the ones supposed to be showing me around and teach me. If they don’t work, why should I?

I believe this is a trait of mine, something nearly impossible to change, it would make more sense to change the setting than trying to change me, to change jobs. I don’t know how to play this game where I am, in a workplace where most employees are women.

But my question remains to all of you who are this thick skinned: how? I don’t understand it. Don’t you find it tiring? Doesn’t it make you feel like shit when you go back home? Don’t you feel taken advantage of?

I like tomatoes and hot food but I don’t like to add much fat to my food, be it oil or butter. I won’t use lard.

Am I going to ruin the sliced tomatoes by grilling them on a pan just with salt and pepper?

I’m talking about 4 to 6 regular tomatoes per serving, half an inch thick slices.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/2749844

I don’t know if I’m a low key alcoholic or so cheap because in my past I was homeless and dependent on the charity of (sometimes) strangers and feel I only “deserve” alcohol when it’s on sale.

I know binge drinking is stupid, I know if I drink more than a pint of beer without food my stomach feels bad and I feel dizzy, but each time I find beer on sale I buy at least a 6 pack (6 pints). I then promise myself to drink it within several days, not all within 3 days, but something snaps in me each time I open the fridge and see all that beer. I sometimes drink 2 pints a day till I have no more beer.

The only thing stopping me from buying beer every day is the price: if beer is not on sale, I don’t buy it.

Beer is the only alcoholic drink I buy, I cannot tolerate anything else.

There are much healthier alternatives there, like tea, milk or juicy fruits, but my brain still associates beer with a good time, which is very ironic, because now, after drinking almost a pint, I have a headache. It doesn’t even taste as good as I thought it would.

Another thing that stops me from drinking more is reading about other alcoholics, their regrets and health issues, but my brain still “wants” the beer.

To be even more ironic, I usually run 2 miles and do some stretching and yoga before going to work, but yesterday and today I was so tired I skipped this routine and started drinking.

Am I a high functioning alcoholic?

How do I stop being so fixated on alcohol on sale?

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I don’t know how extended this is, but apparently there are car makers selling cars with no keys. Instead you download a proprietary app and use it to access your car.

I like being practical and talking to a car to turn the volume up or down, to open the door or to turn the temperature higher are things I don’t need nor want. Give me mechanical levers, reachable stalks and no proprietary bloatware. I don’t need a movie theater on wheels.

Imagine an early 2000s car running on an electric motor. That’s what I want.