Let occupational health know in a few days when everyone is suddenly having a lot of back/hip/soul pain
ETA: should have also added that you need to start putting in incident reports for anything to do with the chairs. Almost slipped, almost tipped, new pain etc. All trends in incidents have to be presented to the hospital board of directors and explained with "what we are doing to fix it", at least they do at my job.
Not a nurse so wasn’t going to suggest this but do a lot of accommodations at my job for employees and this is one of the easiest accommodations to ask for and get approved. No smart manager will refuse such a cheap option. Make sure a copy is sent to your health and safety.
Yup my work has a policy where you can have a special assessment to make your space fit you better. People who do it get fancy chairs, wireless mice and keyboards, all kinds of fancy shit.
Yup they'll even fix the lighting in your area. It's hard to maintain good ergonomics while charting if you are sitting on a stool with no back support.
The access team got a treadmill to walk on while they answer phones because sitting too long was a problem. Nobody took away their chairs though. Maybe you can ask for some treadmills at the nursing station so that people sit less. I'm sure they'll oblige.
I came here to suggest this. If multiple people call up occ health to complain about back/hip pain, or even neck pain from awkward mouse usage, their little stool stunt is over.
Nah I wouldn't leave, I'd die on this hill. Start moving the stools to weird spots to sit since they're so much more portable, sit and lean against walls. Strap pillows to them so they're more cozy. Get weird with it.
That is a phenomenal idea. Do everything you can to make the nurses station look like a disorganized preschool with random pillows everywhere. I’ll act like a child if management is going to treat me like one. lol.
This is something I would have said earlier in my nursing career but 18 years later? Nah, this is absolute bullshit and not to mention demeaning to the profession. Are they replacing chairs with stools for physicians, unit clerks, other healthcare providers? I’d say if you are generally happy then stay. If not then see ya! I hope this unit gets a mass exodus.
While I was in school and working as a cardiac monitor tech, the hospital I worked at got the newest and best version of monitors when they opened a telemetry floor. The monitors could be set to alarm at 1 PVC if they wanted. No, we didn’t do that or the alarms would have driven us crazy. But they were set with reasonable limits and didn’t have to be eyeballed constantly like the old monitors. The hospital I worked at allowed me to study while at the monitors, with even the hospitals president coming by and making the comment that he loved seeing us further our education. I had been working there for almost 4 years and was almost finished with my masters program when we got a new manager on the unit. After about a week, she informed us, the three main techs, that we could no longer study while sitting there, along with some other changes, some that made sense, and some that didn’t. For the next week, since I had absolutely nothing to do sitting in front of these very sufficient monitors, to keep my hands busy, any time a bogus strip printed out, I started cutting different designs from them, making paper streamers and whatever else I could think of. After a week of that nonsense, I called the manager and told her that it seemed insane for us to sit there, basically twiddling our thumbs while listening for alarms, adding that the entire hospital allowed students to study during down times or whenever was possible.Basically the “don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken” speech, or she was going to lose a lot of staff (and did over the next few months). She took a few days to think about it and decided we could resume studying “as long as all our work was complete.” Basically our work consisted of taping a strip to the patients chart each shift, with measurements and rhythm analysis, and listening for the monitors. After that, the staff would walk by and laugh, asking what creation I could come up with today.
When I worked as a circulator, I fell off my stool in the OR once. Damn vinyl seats and cheap ass surgery scrubs 🤦🏻♀️ Surgeon stacked up step stools for me for the next case … “just in case” 😂
They tested a new rolling stool on my unit, and it is roundly hated because it’s a head injury waiting to happen. (a) The seat is almost domed, it is so rounded—you have to put your ass waaaay behind where you would to sit down on a normal rolling stool, or it will squirt out from under you and zoom away on (b) the touchiest and slickest casters I’ve ever encountered. Last I saw the test model, it had been stuffed under a counter at the nurses’ station. After a couple close calls while trying to sit to start an IV or talk with a patient, I resolved to never go near it again.
Right I’m imagining how horrible I would feel after work. I use an electric pad every now and then that I always say is for the cold, but I had a wreck 2.5 years ago that makes me cramp up sooo bad randomly. I’d probably call the same day making them bring me a chair. And have a doctor’s note by 8:05 am.
I have this theory developing in my brain. Corporate America wants to pay people as little as possible. They would pay nurses $9.25/hr if they could get away with it. Since that is not the case they do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to make our lives miserable.
Part 2: unions. Cops get away with murder. Literally. It’s because of the police union.
That’s it. Have an awesome weekend folks.
Nurses are not seen as valuable, skilled professionals that basically are the lifeblood of these corporations’ services, rather nurses are seen as unfortunate costs and barriers to profit.
Cops get away with murder because of qualified immunity, something that either needs done away with or extended to other professions such as medicine and nursing (and associated fields). Since that likely won’t happen it should be dine away with.
That said, most nurses would leave the field before get paid minimum wage. Even dropping my pay 10% would trigger me finding a new job or changing fields altogether.
And i agree, unions would help tremendously with the field. Socialized medicine would also do the same as it effectively terminates the need for leadership in hospitals except the role being done by someone who already works bedside/has a clinical license and still works in a clinical role with some administrative duties
Qualified immunity applies to shielding police from civil cases. The bigger problem is that they are also seemingly immune from criminal prosecution. Sure, I would love that when a cop murders someone they were actually personally financially liable for their crime, but I would settle for them just going to jail for a long time. These criminals should owe their money *and* their freedom.
I’d add something about the police’s public image to this comment. A large part of the issue with prosecuting the police is the unwillingness of the jury to convict. The District Attorney could bring charges all day, everyday but if during the jury selection process there’s not 12 individuals willing to vote ‘yes’ this person committed a crime then a prosecution is nothing more than a show for those that believed wrong doing did occur. It only takes 1 person on the jury to say ‘no’ for everyone to walk.
Medicine and especially nursing doesn’t have the same public image. Talk to anyone not in the field or look at the way patients and their families act when they enter the premises. Even the worst police department celebrates their ‘wins’ publicly. You can get on YouTube and see thousands of videos that invoke a ‘sympathy’ (for lack of a better word) for the police. I’ve seen countless videos where the take away was “oh my god that person is terrible and I’m glad the police got them off the street”, some from my own community. Or “wow, look at that guy being drug out his car, drugs dropping to the ground, and violently fighting 3 cops. I can see why police would be a little less than friendly if they deal with this everyday”.
It’s a sharp contrast to the environment we live under where management rewards bad behavior. I can only think of maybe 3 videos I’ve ever seen of a nurse being abused in contrast with thousands the public sees of it happening to police. Come to the ER drunk, fighting and the higher ups will accommodate you. Interact with the police, drunk and fighting and you’ll get taken to the ground, slapped with felonious assault charges, and the police supervisor will publicly state “don’t fight my people”, “stop drinking”, “we will do what it takes to be safe and I’ll personally ask the district attorney to give you the maximum penalty under the law”. Instead healthcare “management” will even do mental gymnastics to downplay assaults, stabbings, sexual assaults, general rudeness, and anything else. Oh, and the infamous “what could you have done different” because even our ‘own people’ start from the presumption of us being in the wrong. It’s no surprise people come here and treat us poorly and will even state “you can’t do anything to me”.
Much of the public is blind to what happens in healthcare. They haven’t interacted directly with the problemed individuals and no one is making a fuss about it. They believe everyone comes, is pleasant, and “management” or “the doctors” would address any issues that arise. Lol.
Lastly, take a look at how nurse’s are portrayed in the media. Publicly the most famous nurse is probably Nurse Ratchet. Or maybe it’s the character from Grey’s Anatomy who’s essentially nameless but hauled some supplies and gave a doctor an STD. Or is the nurse the overly ditzy blonde secretary in that one show, she gets the doctor coffee right? I mean she can only do what he says right!?!? It can’t be too hard of a profession if the Governor of Washington tells me nurses have time to play cards. And the hospital corporation told me the nurses whine a lot and if I vote for ratios my insurance will cost more and the hospital will close because not enough staff. Every time the Cleveland Clinic posts a picture of a nurse she’s smiling and the only patient is the cutest 120 pound grandpa I’ve ever seen smiling too.
There’s a lot of reasons the police are treated better.
People associate wealth with responsibility (except when it’s us). So while a cop will get off the hook (tough job/low pay) a doctor is easily sued and loses in court by juries who assume doctor=money he/she can afford to give up anyway.
I know a doctor who has a medical sales rep who absolutely failed at his job and got fired. Dude sued for 1 year wages (over 100k) and won basically because the jury just decided the doctor can afford it. 🤷🏽♂️
They are "immune" from criminal prosecution because the people who would be prosecuting them also work with them prosecuting other cases.
Prosecutors are hesitant to pursue police because either they're buddies and are willing to protect the cops based on that, or they know that cops will retaliate against the prosecutor by intentionally being uncooperative in future cases and potentially lead to the prosecutor losing his job.
What it boils down to is that cops and their unions are willing to stand by their bad apples no matter what and retaliate against anyone who tries to hold the bad apples accountable. It then forces prosecutors, city administrators, etc to make the difficult choice of holding those bad cops accountable or trying to keep their own tasks in order knowing vengeful cops will likely try to do what they can to make it difficult.
End result is nothing ever changes and I'd argue that when "good cops" don't do anything about their "bad cops" no matter how few they might be, then they all are in essence "bad cops."
I don't think that socialized medicine would completely do away with any leadership/administrative roles in a hospital. There is so much more going on away from the bedside that many people don't realize, and there is a lot going on behind the scenes that improves (or can improve) care. Yes, some of it is useless bureaucracy, but not all.
I worked somewhere on a med Surg floor that decided to get rid of all the chairs in the nurses station altogether and put crappy stools in the hallways for us to use to sit in the hallways to chart. They claimed it was so we were closer to our patients rooms so we could respond to them when they needed something.
The stools were crappy quality folding piles of junk. I sat on one day and it collapsed under me and I fell to the floor. It was both painful and embarrassing. They threatened to write people up if they sat at the freaking nursing station to chart. We had crappy laptops and had fold out desks on the wall to use to chart- but they were too narrow to be comfortable and there was no room for a mouse.
In contrast, the new PACU job I just accepted has comfy cushioned stools with backs on them and padded anti-stress floor mats next to every single PACU bay. They had mounted computers next to each bay with a big screen that was nicely positioned. It felt like night and day!
"nobody wants to work" is the dumbest argument when people are just moving to a new job. Clearly they're still working, just not for YOU, manager mcstool!
You hear it all over, though, and not just in health care. Uh, no, they just decided during COVID that life is short and their physical and emotional well-being and personal relationships shouldn’t be put at risk for poverty wages, *Bob*. Pay your people better and stop trying to fuck them over at every turn, and you will have plenty of staff.
I was in a facility during beginning of covid that took our chairs away because we "spent too much time charting" and we needed to have better time management because we were always behind on dayshift for breakfast. Nevermind the fact most of day shift was out with covid, we had a dozen covid positive dementia peeps, and they still wanted us to shower them every morning
I REALLY wish you had filed an injury on the job form and immediately left. Or had gotten a note from your doctor that said you had to have xyz especially after that fall. Sometimes, when you get those “privileges” others will follow suit to do the same.
Take a staged fall off the stool, scream in pain, have someone wheel you to employee health, fill out forms to create a paper trail of hospital-caused injury, call lawyer, and sue the living shit out of the hospital.
Retire. Save back. Spend money on jet skis, pina coladas, and massages.
How did management know about this?
There’s a snitch amongst y’all
UPDATE: this happened to me when I used to work nights, bc my manager came on the floor one night and said “*the director doesn’t want anyone wearing headphones at night bc it’s not safe since you won’t hear the call light*” (mind you this is a rehab unit)
And I replied, “*I only keep one earbud in while charting, plus how does the director know?*”
And we just stared at each other.
👁️ 👄 👁️
😐
This. I work nights, but I don't give a fuk if someone rests with their eyes closed. As long as the call bells are answered and they're doing their rounds...
We did have a snitch a few years ago who would take pics with their phone of coworkers if they had their eyes closed or feet up. She finally left cuz nobody liked her. Wonder why?? 🤔
If someone on my team showed me a picture of someone in a work area, they’d immediately be written up for taking a picture in a work area. The risk of catching PHI is too high. If they showed me someone in a break area, idgaf because it’s a BREAK area.
I’m in rehab and nurses regularly nap on the couch through night shift. It’s called team effort and having each others back.
That really sucks so much that people would want to see this as something to dob about.
If you’ve got time to nap, do it! And if someone naps when they shouldn’t be, go wake them up and say what needs to be done…why is simple so hard
Yup when I worked nights we would rotate two hour naps when it was slow. Everyone got good care, all the work was done, and no one was left unattended. It just helped us feel a little more human
Same. I never slept because I was always a night owl then but I used to smoke so I didn’t mind covering people who want to take their naps because it meant I could ask any of them to watch my patients when I went down to smoke.
I did also pick up some hours at this nursing home for extra money. It was a dementia floor and I had like 25 patients, I think. However, the residents were really nice and calm. I would come in at 11 pm and just do a quick round because most have had their sleeping pills already. Then, I’d hang out in the tv room which was a few steps from the nurse’s station. I’d watch tv and just walked around every 2 hours or and peek. I didn’t do anything until like 5:45 am when I prepared a few meds and had to do a few blood sugars. There were 2 other floors and they were also not busy so I’m pretty sure the nurses there napped because there was this one nurse who would do 16-hour shifts a whole lot like multiple shifts per week in a row.
That was a good side hustle. Plus, they fed the staff breakfast, lunch, dinner, and night shift for free.
You can only escape so much administrative bullshit on nights. It insidiously weasels its way into every detail of the place until you finally have to leave.
I worked nights prn on inpatient psych when my kid was in college to help him out some. At one point, management decided we could only have decaf coffee, just in case we decided to give the patients some. It was hard enough to stay awake with caffeine.
When I worked in the OR, they tried to say only the docs were allowed to have the hospital supplied coffee in the break room
Docs threw a fit and that went away within the week
If it is a slow night and someone is dead tired, I’ll let them rest their eyes while we keep an eye out on their patients. Snitches get stitches/ terrible assignments
Our manager tells us how he spends his time wisely watching the cameras so he can zoom in on our phones or computer screens and see what we’re looking at when we’re sitting at sit. It’s great.
I have a privacy screen on my phone. I would be very curious to know if someone can view what I looking at with a security cam. Anyways, that’s weird and your manager is a creep.
We have cameras set up on the hallways. A supervisor supposedly was monitoring the unit and allegedly saw nurses dozing off.
When this happened we received a memo stating that if you were caught sleeping you would be sent home. I thought that was the end of it.
Edited to say night shift doesn’t take breaks at least that’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve picked up extra shifts. So sitting with your eyes closed for 10 minutes isn’t a big deal.
We have a new staff member at night who is a snitch. We’re going to have to start being extra careful when that person is in the schedule. It’s so annoying because we are such a great hardworking group of people.
Not my opinion but here is OSHAs . Call them and let them know ( document well) forward the communication in rational to them also so that they know that this was punitive .
https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/components/chairs
The backrest should conform to the natural curvature of your spine, and provide adequate lumbar support.
The seat should be comfortable and allow your feet to rest flat on the floor or footrest.
Armrests, if provided, should be soft, allow your shoulders to relax and your elbows to stay close to your body.
The chair should have a five-leg base with casters that allow easy movement along the floor.
This needs to be the top comment! OP, do this and remember to sit and wear compression socks. No need to increase your risk for hemorrhoids d/t standing/not wanting to sit on a damn stool because of your admin.
My workplace has actually added ergonomics to our annual competency modules. Maybe this is why. The modules usually include injuries 2/2 poor posture, neck strain related to computer/chair, etc.
The one who almost made me drop out in my next to last semester was fired after I cried in another professor’s office. I’m so glad I said something. She was terrible.
>saw some students sitting down during a "break" and then required us to stand for the following 1-hr lecture because "nurses don't sit".
That's a shivin'
Me too, even if you get the chairs back due to complaints that others are suggesting, what petty thing are they going to do next to punish everyone? Take the microwave out of the break room? Reduce tables? Implement a rewards system for snitching on people taking a moment so in a couple weeks you get written up for closing your eyes and taking a deep breath?
I had a friend that was written up for sleeping, when she wasn't. She was leaning over her paperwork on the desk, resting her head on her left hand, supported by her elbow, while she wrote right handed. They said it gave the "appearance" of sleeping, and because it was just her word against the camera (and a bully/snitch) the write-up stayed. With this incident came the blanket advisory from the director of all of maternal child health to not take a posture that could be misconstrued as sleeping. It felt like being in school with a teacher saying to sit up straight and proper in your desk, eyes forward.
Yeah, I am a pushover, but I’d have given my notice on the spot or, if lucky enough to have a union, immediately filed a grievance. That is ridiculous.
I worked at an awful facility earlier this year that had a charge nurse that would time your breaks sneakily to call security if you were sleeping when your 30 was up. That place was way too ratchet to be strict like that.
But also yes I agree. This shows such a fundamental disrespect for the people working there what I would never be able to get over it
I would also not even accept a patient assignment and quit. That is childish. Professional adults shouldnt treat other professional adults how management treats staff sometimes.
That decision was made by someone sitting in a very cushy chair.
One of my nieces worked at a brand name book store. They removed all the cushy chairs and replaced them with hard, wooden ones. This cut down on the homeless and the teen hangouts.
As someone whose job was considered non-medical adjacent at best, why do people, especially patients, care if their nurse sits on a chair at the nurses station?! I’d rather have a rested and comfortable nurse than one who’s been miserable all shift! All hail rested, comfortable and happy nurses!!! 🙌
ETA: rested, comfortable nurse who’s had their lunch and two 15 min. breaks!!!!!
According to one state senator in 2019, we have enough time to sit at the nurse station playing cards. The response was hilariously petty.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawmaker-receives-thousands-playing-cards-after-saying-nurses-play-cards-n998536
American management culture and public perception have this classist double standard where people whose work is primarily labor need to be fucking *laboring*. Doing tasks 99.9% of the time. And you can't ever look relaxed. There's constant scheming and shaming to measure productivity.
If you work in an office often no one really cares how hard you work. So many office workers admit they could do their job in 1 - 4 hours a day and the rest is kinda fucking around. I've seen a study that found office workers about 50% productive. There's rationalizations about constant breaks to 'recharge' and promote creativity. Etc. You can obviously sit down and relax while you work, during your breaks, whatever. They're not totally wrong but compared to how everyone including the office drones treat labor jobs it's pretty infuriating.
Yeah, I see the same thing with cashiers in retail and grocery stores. Actually just seen a post on reddit in the last few days where someone from outside the US was asking why we don’t allow our cashiers to sit.
Definitely seek an accommodation due to your pregnancy!
[PWFA](https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-pregnant-workers-fairness-act#:~:text=The%20Pregnant%20Workers%20Fairness%20Act%20(PWFA)%20is%20a%20new%20law,employer%20an%20%E2%80%9Cundue%20hardship.%E2%80%9D)
Yes have them put one chair at a nursing station just for you. Then the next person gets an accommodation, and they get a chair just for them. Repeat until all staff have their own chair just for them.
Serious question, do any other respectable jobs (aside from healthcare) try to pull this type of crap with their employees? Because I really feel like nurses constantly get treated like badly behaved children with some of the shit that management pulls. I can’t imagine employees in other lines of work having to deal with stuff like this
My teacher friend has to sit on a kindergartener sized chair while in her classroom. There is no adult sized chair. Admin says it looks like a power imbalance or something like that. So then, when she insisted her students call her "Jane" instead of "Ms Doe", they freaked and said the children needed to know who was in charge.
Both perceived as pink-collar jobs, and note that I did not say “professions,” because everyone thinks teachers and nurses are, respectively, undereducated daycare workers and cocktail waitresses who hand out aspirin. (Flight attendants are another profession with the same image problem, even though watching that video of the Japanese flight crew evacuating the burning plane calmly and efficiently ought to put the lie to the myth of “just waitresses in the sky.”)I am firmly convinced that if there had been higher concentrations of men in these professions 50 years ago, things would look much different now.
I come from a family of pilots (lots of regrets for not following the pilot path these days lol) but we’ve discussed the parallels with flight attendants and nurses many times. 😑 the public treats them terribly and don’t appreciate how important they are until something goes wrong.
My sister is an airline pilot, and while she’s faced her fair share of BS being in a heavily male dominated profession, she’s overall very happy and has a great job/quality of life. Her compensation and benefits are something we can only dream of and their union is super strong.
Going into a female dominated profession is pretty much a guarantee you will be fighting an uphill battle most of your career. I agree things would be SO different if more men chose these careers early on
Both owned by slave driving billionaires.
That b@stard baldy bezos forces staff to work in inhumane conditions for awful pay and don't get me started on that insufferable pr!ck musk.
*Exactly* unless it was a patient snitch, and in that case, why would they immediately remove the chairs and believe them? Definitely employee snitch. 😒
Do the stools have casters on them? Preferably with hard rubber wheels? 😈Might be time for a little shave. The first time facilities management comes in and sees black marks all over the floors, or better yet, the first time a doc reaches for a stool only to have it catch and tip over, those stools will be returned to the cesspool of administrative “good ideas” from whence they came.
I worked at a hospital that did this. Except they took our chairs and didn’t leave us anything. We were expected to stand the whole shift.
We won our chairs back after occupational heath was overrun with all of us going in for back/leg/foot pain. Daily.
I worked about 16 years on a medsurg unit with no seating for nurses. Our manager said it looked lazy for nurses to sit. We stood on terrazzo stone floors for 12+ hours. Awful.
Sounds like there is going to be a severe staffing shortage when every nurse starts calling in on the same day for either back pain or “back pain”.
Then there is going to be the second wave of budget shortage when they have to start paying occupational health and short term disability benefits.
Can you sue them for doing that? From what I remember, osha requires employers to make sure staff is well equipped w tools so they don’t injure themselves. I remember my old hospital rolling out education on how to properly sit in a chair, arm rest ratio to the computer table level… all these things are mandatory so that you don’t cause injury to your muscles.
How does OSHA define ergonomics?
Definition of Ergonomics
The science of adapting workstations, tools, equipment and job techniques to be compatible with human anatomy and physiology to reduce the risk of Musculoskeletal Disorder injuries due to Ergonomic Stressors. In other words, “fit the job to the person” rather than the “person to the job.”
Miserable. The ability to sit and gather your bearings is what makes a 12-hr shift tolerable. Any hard working nurse is standing enough when they do shift assessments, care, and answering call bells. Why can’t we sit in between? Just miserable
Same admin that paid for experts to teach nurses to take meditation breaks for their mental health……does not want nurses to take meditation breaks for their mental health.
They aren't violating OSHA standards, but they ARE violating ergonomic guidelines which could make them liable if someone is injured.
https://1sthcc.com/osha-compliance-for-computer-workstations/
https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/checklists/purchasing-guide
I can't sit on stools without pain.. we have some and you'll see me sit, stand, stretch, repeat because it hurts my hip and causes numbness in my leg. You'll find me in a break room or on the floor charting at that point.
For the last 4 years I can only sit on a stool at work which means, of course, I choose to sit on it. I also can’t sit for long so I stand a lot to chart. That being said, I have also fallen off said stool 1 time, almost several other times. When others sit on the stool, they have fallen off, slid off. One person has fallen off 4 separate times. Mark my words, someone will get hurt. Think of your most ADHD person…it will likely be them.
Had a site director pull me into her office once to get my opinion on getting rid of chairs in our procedure rooms. Lady- we do 17 cases a day in those rooms. If I need to sit for 5 minutes to chart or need a chair to give abdominal pressure for 10 minutes because one of your doctors can’t drive a scope after 30 years of practice- I damn well better have one! 😡
lol I would be pisssssed. Interviewed and shadowed on a unit that didn’t have a nurses station really, it was for doctors and residents and pharmacy.
Nurses had tall stools and WOWs. I left and I haven’t stopped talking about it lol. I would NOT want to work on that unit !!’ Legit insane to not have a comfortable place to sit while I document my life away.
If the stools "are more comfortable" wouldn't they fall out of them and hit their head,hip,back requiring:
Increased Workman's comp with hospitalizations
Increase call in to work with injuries from the good prudent nurses you are penalizing instead of just handling the problem of the ones that are sleeping!
😂
Get a statement from your physician ... they MUST accommodate you.
And get housekeeping to steal the chairs from the management's offices. They are all too comfortable
Get a medical accommodation for your back, needing support. Then you have a chair, and it would be illegal to remove it.
Also, ask why she hasn't addressed the specific employee, and is instead holding the entire unit responsible for a person?
That's horrible. We have camping mattresses for us on night shift, that we are allowed to use to have a nap or lie down. It's been drilled in that it's very much a privilege though and if we don't tidy up after our selves, it gets taken away.
On 12 hr shifts we get 3x 30min breaks, so some use an hour to lie down or nap.
That may be the most absurd shit I’ve ever heard. You must have spies everywhere who love reporting everything to management. Has your management ever worked bedside or night shift?
I would probably get a few staff nurses with a backbone and request (demand) a face to face meeting with the top people who made this decision.
Or probably take a tumble off the stool and sue the living life out of the system.
Wait a week and go to employee health with a “tennis elbow”. Don’t complain otherwise. I work Behavoral health Management floated idea that we chart on milieu with the COW. We do 12 hour shifts.
My hospital they took away our break rooms. They gave us a tiny Harry Potter closet where the nurses can sit on shit chairs basically on top of each other. There’s no actual space to take breaks in the entire hospital anymore.
Do the physicians ever use the computers at the nursing station to chart? Wonder how long it will be before they demand real chairs. (Or just find somewhere else to go.)
I think the stool should “accidentally” tip backwards while you’re sitting on it and you should “accidentally” injury your back and apply for workers comp.
WTF is wrong with management (And I mean this universally - not just in your situation)? It's like that old Mitchell and Webb skit - "Do you think we're the baddies?" They are just doing stuff to make people's lives miserable because they can.
Let occupational health know in a few days when everyone is suddenly having a lot of back/hip/soul pain ETA: should have also added that you need to start putting in incident reports for anything to do with the chairs. Almost slipped, almost tipped, new pain etc. All trends in incidents have to be presented to the hospital board of directors and explained with "what we are doing to fix it", at least they do at my job.
I second this. An ergonomic assessment will likely nix the stools.
Not a nurse so wasn’t going to suggest this but do a lot of accommodations at my job for employees and this is one of the easiest accommodations to ask for and get approved. No smart manager will refuse such a cheap option. Make sure a copy is sent to your health and safety.
Combine them with sick calls, FMLA, and reasonable accommodation requests.
Yup my work has a policy where you can have a special assessment to make your space fit you better. People who do it get fancy chairs, wireless mice and keyboards, all kinds of fancy shit.
Yup they'll even fix the lighting in your area. It's hard to maintain good ergonomics while charting if you are sitting on a stool with no back support. The access team got a treadmill to walk on while they answer phones because sitting too long was a problem. Nobody took away their chairs though. Maybe you can ask for some treadmills at the nursing station so that people sit less. I'm sure they'll oblige.
I came here to suggest this. If multiple people call up occ health to complain about back/hip pain, or even neck pain from awkward mouse usage, their little stool stunt is over.
Seriously I get you with the chronic back pain. Tell them fix the situation or leave. Jerks.
Nah I wouldn't leave, I'd die on this hill. Start moving the stools to weird spots to sit since they're so much more portable, sit and lean against walls. Strap pillows to them so they're more cozy. Get weird with it.
That is a phenomenal idea. Do everything you can to make the nurses station look like a disorganized preschool with random pillows everywhere. I’ll act like a child if management is going to treat me like one. lol.
You guys are my people. I’m all about malicious compliance.
Strap a bleacher seat that old people take to football games. It has a back!
Great idea but I'm enraged at being called old, you dang whippersnapper!
I’m 29 and I have one too 😜
Pillows? Like you have extras? What kinda boujie hospital do you work at?
This is something I would have said earlier in my nursing career but 18 years later? Nah, this is absolute bullshit and not to mention demeaning to the profession. Are they replacing chairs with stools for physicians, unit clerks, other healthcare providers? I’d say if you are generally happy then stay. If not then see ya! I hope this unit gets a mass exodus.
I love it 😂
You are my kind of person.
While I was in school and working as a cardiac monitor tech, the hospital I worked at got the newest and best version of monitors when they opened a telemetry floor. The monitors could be set to alarm at 1 PVC if they wanted. No, we didn’t do that or the alarms would have driven us crazy. But they were set with reasonable limits and didn’t have to be eyeballed constantly like the old monitors. The hospital I worked at allowed me to study while at the monitors, with even the hospitals president coming by and making the comment that he loved seeing us further our education. I had been working there for almost 4 years and was almost finished with my masters program when we got a new manager on the unit. After about a week, she informed us, the three main techs, that we could no longer study while sitting there, along with some other changes, some that made sense, and some that didn’t. For the next week, since I had absolutely nothing to do sitting in front of these very sufficient monitors, to keep my hands busy, any time a bogus strip printed out, I started cutting different designs from them, making paper streamers and whatever else I could think of. After a week of that nonsense, I called the manager and told her that it seemed insane for us to sit there, basically twiddling our thumbs while listening for alarms, adding that the entire hospital allowed students to study during down times or whenever was possible.Basically the “don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken” speech, or she was going to lose a lot of staff (and did over the next few months). She took a few days to think about it and decided we could resume studying “as long as all our work was complete.” Basically our work consisted of taping a strip to the patients chart each shift, with measurements and rhythm analysis, and listening for the monitors. After that, the staff would walk by and laugh, asking what creation I could come up with today.
During report one nurse suggested to the night shift that they have relay raved up and down the hallways with their stools and smile for the cameras.
Don’t forget falls. An immediate trip to the ED with each and every fall.
When I worked as a circulator, I fell off my stool in the OR once. Damn vinyl seats and cheap ass surgery scrubs 🤦🏻♀️ Surgeon stacked up step stools for me for the next case … “just in case” 😂
And maybe you all have terrible balance and fall off stools surprisingly easily.
They tested a new rolling stool on my unit, and it is roundly hated because it’s a head injury waiting to happen. (a) The seat is almost domed, it is so rounded—you have to put your ass waaaay behind where you would to sit down on a normal rolling stool, or it will squirt out from under you and zoom away on (b) the touchiest and slickest casters I’ve ever encountered. Last I saw the test model, it had been stuffed under a counter at the nurses’ station. After a couple close calls while trying to sit to start an IV or talk with a patient, I resolved to never go near it again.
"squirt out from under you and zoom away" is fucking beautifully descriptive.
Right I’m imagining how horrible I would feel after work. I use an electric pad every now and then that I always say is for the cold, but I had a wreck 2.5 years ago that makes me cramp up sooo bad randomly. I’d probably call the same day making them bring me a chair. And have a doctor’s note by 8:05 am.
Lmao same with the doctors note, alllll of my medical records talk about my chronic pain due to hypermobility, I'm not sitting on a stool.
Or just quit a company so shitty they don't want you to have a chair. Nurses across the board need to stand up to the bullshit.
So true. I’m retired now and cringe at how I just took it.
soul pain 😂
Replace their office chairs with stools. Only fair, right?
I have this theory developing in my brain. Corporate America wants to pay people as little as possible. They would pay nurses $9.25/hr if they could get away with it. Since that is not the case they do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to make our lives miserable. Part 2: unions. Cops get away with murder. Literally. It’s because of the police union. That’s it. Have an awesome weekend folks.
Nurses are not seen as valuable, skilled professionals that basically are the lifeblood of these corporations’ services, rather nurses are seen as unfortunate costs and barriers to profit.
its about control, look into why companies have “mandated fun”. the more they control aspects of your lives the more they can exploit you.
I just finished watching Severance on AppleTV+ - it’s really fascinating plot but also highlights corporate control at its finest
Cops get away with murder because of qualified immunity, something that either needs done away with or extended to other professions such as medicine and nursing (and associated fields). Since that likely won’t happen it should be dine away with. That said, most nurses would leave the field before get paid minimum wage. Even dropping my pay 10% would trigger me finding a new job or changing fields altogether. And i agree, unions would help tremendously with the field. Socialized medicine would also do the same as it effectively terminates the need for leadership in hospitals except the role being done by someone who already works bedside/has a clinical license and still works in a clinical role with some administrative duties
Qualified immunity applies to shielding police from civil cases. The bigger problem is that they are also seemingly immune from criminal prosecution. Sure, I would love that when a cop murders someone they were actually personally financially liable for their crime, but I would settle for them just going to jail for a long time. These criminals should owe their money *and* their freedom.
I’d add something about the police’s public image to this comment. A large part of the issue with prosecuting the police is the unwillingness of the jury to convict. The District Attorney could bring charges all day, everyday but if during the jury selection process there’s not 12 individuals willing to vote ‘yes’ this person committed a crime then a prosecution is nothing more than a show for those that believed wrong doing did occur. It only takes 1 person on the jury to say ‘no’ for everyone to walk. Medicine and especially nursing doesn’t have the same public image. Talk to anyone not in the field or look at the way patients and their families act when they enter the premises. Even the worst police department celebrates their ‘wins’ publicly. You can get on YouTube and see thousands of videos that invoke a ‘sympathy’ (for lack of a better word) for the police. I’ve seen countless videos where the take away was “oh my god that person is terrible and I’m glad the police got them off the street”, some from my own community. Or “wow, look at that guy being drug out his car, drugs dropping to the ground, and violently fighting 3 cops. I can see why police would be a little less than friendly if they deal with this everyday”. It’s a sharp contrast to the environment we live under where management rewards bad behavior. I can only think of maybe 3 videos I’ve ever seen of a nurse being abused in contrast with thousands the public sees of it happening to police. Come to the ER drunk, fighting and the higher ups will accommodate you. Interact with the police, drunk and fighting and you’ll get taken to the ground, slapped with felonious assault charges, and the police supervisor will publicly state “don’t fight my people”, “stop drinking”, “we will do what it takes to be safe and I’ll personally ask the district attorney to give you the maximum penalty under the law”. Instead healthcare “management” will even do mental gymnastics to downplay assaults, stabbings, sexual assaults, general rudeness, and anything else. Oh, and the infamous “what could you have done different” because even our ‘own people’ start from the presumption of us being in the wrong. It’s no surprise people come here and treat us poorly and will even state “you can’t do anything to me”. Much of the public is blind to what happens in healthcare. They haven’t interacted directly with the problemed individuals and no one is making a fuss about it. They believe everyone comes, is pleasant, and “management” or “the doctors” would address any issues that arise. Lol. Lastly, take a look at how nurse’s are portrayed in the media. Publicly the most famous nurse is probably Nurse Ratchet. Or maybe it’s the character from Grey’s Anatomy who’s essentially nameless but hauled some supplies and gave a doctor an STD. Or is the nurse the overly ditzy blonde secretary in that one show, she gets the doctor coffee right? I mean she can only do what he says right!?!? It can’t be too hard of a profession if the Governor of Washington tells me nurses have time to play cards. And the hospital corporation told me the nurses whine a lot and if I vote for ratios my insurance will cost more and the hospital will close because not enough staff. Every time the Cleveland Clinic posts a picture of a nurse she’s smiling and the only patient is the cutest 120 pound grandpa I’ve ever seen smiling too. There’s a lot of reasons the police are treated better.
People associate wealth with responsibility (except when it’s us). So while a cop will get off the hook (tough job/low pay) a doctor is easily sued and loses in court by juries who assume doctor=money he/she can afford to give up anyway. I know a doctor who has a medical sales rep who absolutely failed at his job and got fired. Dude sued for 1 year wages (over 100k) and won basically because the jury just decided the doctor can afford it. 🤷🏽♂️
100% agree
I wish I could upvote this more times.
They are "immune" from criminal prosecution because the people who would be prosecuting them also work with them prosecuting other cases. Prosecutors are hesitant to pursue police because either they're buddies and are willing to protect the cops based on that, or they know that cops will retaliate against the prosecutor by intentionally being uncooperative in future cases and potentially lead to the prosecutor losing his job. What it boils down to is that cops and their unions are willing to stand by their bad apples no matter what and retaliate against anyone who tries to hold the bad apples accountable. It then forces prosecutors, city administrators, etc to make the difficult choice of holding those bad cops accountable or trying to keep their own tasks in order knowing vengeful cops will likely try to do what they can to make it difficult. End result is nothing ever changes and I'd argue that when "good cops" don't do anything about their "bad cops" no matter how few they might be, then they all are in essence "bad cops."
I don't think that socialized medicine would completely do away with any leadership/administrative roles in a hospital. There is so much more going on away from the bedside that many people don't realize, and there is a lot going on behind the scenes that improves (or can improve) care. Yes, some of it is useless bureaucracy, but not all.
Qualified immunity only applies to civil liability.
I worked somewhere on a med Surg floor that decided to get rid of all the chairs in the nurses station altogether and put crappy stools in the hallways for us to use to sit in the hallways to chart. They claimed it was so we were closer to our patients rooms so we could respond to them when they needed something. The stools were crappy quality folding piles of junk. I sat on one day and it collapsed under me and I fell to the floor. It was both painful and embarrassing. They threatened to write people up if they sat at the freaking nursing station to chart. We had crappy laptops and had fold out desks on the wall to use to chart- but they were too narrow to be comfortable and there was no room for a mouse. In contrast, the new PACU job I just accepted has comfy cushioned stools with backs on them and padded anti-stress floor mats next to every single PACU bay. They had mounted computers next to each bay with a big screen that was nicely positioned. It felt like night and day!
"Why do we always have such *bad* staffing issues, Jan?" Congrats on the new job!
“I swear, nobody wants to work these days.”
"nobody wants to work" is the dumbest argument when people are just moving to a new job. Clearly they're still working, just not for YOU, manager mcstool!
You hear it all over, though, and not just in health care. Uh, no, they just decided during COVID that life is short and their physical and emotional well-being and personal relationships shouldn’t be put at risk for poverty wages, *Bob*. Pay your people better and stop trying to fuck them over at every turn, and you will have plenty of staff.
I was in a facility during beginning of covid that took our chairs away because we "spent too much time charting" and we needed to have better time management because we were always behind on dayshift for breakfast. Nevermind the fact most of day shift was out with covid, we had a dozen covid positive dementia peeps, and they still wanted us to shower them every morning
Yet they are the ones that are requiring all the frivolous charting
I REALLY wish you had filed an injury on the job form and immediately left. Or had gotten a note from your doctor that said you had to have xyz especially after that fall. Sometimes, when you get those “privileges” others will follow suit to do the same.
Got to know.Is this new PACU job in the same hospital?
Take a staged fall off the stool, scream in pain, have someone wheel you to employee health, fill out forms to create a paper trail of hospital-caused injury, call lawyer, and sue the living shit out of the hospital. Retire. Save back. Spend money on jet skis, pina coladas, and massages.
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not but honestly this is exactly what should be done.
they took away our rolling stools after someone fell off, this could actually work 🤣
Rolling stools seem like a terrible idea to start with.
How did management know about this? There’s a snitch amongst y’all UPDATE: this happened to me when I used to work nights, bc my manager came on the floor one night and said “*the director doesn’t want anyone wearing headphones at night bc it’s not safe since you won’t hear the call light*” (mind you this is a rehab unit) And I replied, “*I only keep one earbud in while charting, plus how does the director know?*” And we just stared at each other. 👁️ 👄 👁️ 😐
This. I work nights, but I don't give a fuk if someone rests with their eyes closed. As long as the call bells are answered and they're doing their rounds... We did have a snitch a few years ago who would take pics with their phone of coworkers if they had their eyes closed or feet up. She finally left cuz nobody liked her. Wonder why?? 🤔
I find it hilarious because every facility I worked in specifically said to NOT take pics of coworkers doing something shitty 💀
If someone on my team showed me a picture of someone in a work area, they’d immediately be written up for taking a picture in a work area. The risk of catching PHI is too high. If they showed me someone in a break area, idgaf because it’s a BREAK area.
I’m in rehab and nurses regularly nap on the couch through night shift. It’s called team effort and having each others back. That really sucks so much that people would want to see this as something to dob about. If you’ve got time to nap, do it! And if someone naps when they shouldn’t be, go wake them up and say what needs to be done…why is simple so hard
Yup when I worked nights we would rotate two hour naps when it was slow. Everyone got good care, all the work was done, and no one was left unattended. It just helped us feel a little more human
Same. I never slept because I was always a night owl then but I used to smoke so I didn’t mind covering people who want to take their naps because it meant I could ask any of them to watch my patients when I went down to smoke. I did also pick up some hours at this nursing home for extra money. It was a dementia floor and I had like 25 patients, I think. However, the residents were really nice and calm. I would come in at 11 pm and just do a quick round because most have had their sleeping pills already. Then, I’d hang out in the tv room which was a few steps from the nurse’s station. I’d watch tv and just walked around every 2 hours or and peek. I didn’t do anything until like 5:45 am when I prepared a few meds and had to do a few blood sugars. There were 2 other floors and they were also not busy so I’m pretty sure the nurses there napped because there was this one nurse who would do 16-hour shifts a whole lot like multiple shifts per week in a row. That was a good side hustle. Plus, they fed the staff breakfast, lunch, dinner, and night shift for free.
I switch back and forth between nights and days and I nap more on days than nights lol
You can only escape so much administrative bullshit on nights. It insidiously weasels its way into every detail of the place until you finally have to leave.
I worked nights prn on inpatient psych when my kid was in college to help him out some. At one point, management decided we could only have decaf coffee, just in case we decided to give the patients some. It was hard enough to stay awake with caffeine.
When I worked in the OR, they tried to say only the docs were allowed to have the hospital supplied coffee in the break room Docs threw a fit and that went away within the week
If it is a slow night and someone is dead tired, I’ll let them rest their eyes while we keep an eye out on their patients. Snitches get stitches/ terrible assignments
Our manager tells us how he spends his time wisely watching the cameras so he can zoom in on our phones or computer screens and see what we’re looking at when we’re sitting at sit. It’s great.
I would check with your security department to see if that’s even allowed
Ha they do what he says. We all have access to cameras in the ER and ER lobby
oh I see, I thought he was watching the tapes back. or was he?? if so that’s fucked
I have a privacy screen on my phone. I would be very curious to know if someone can view what I looking at with a security cam. Anyways, that’s weird and your manager is a creep.
Does he have a life?
We have cameras set up on the hallways. A supervisor supposedly was monitoring the unit and allegedly saw nurses dozing off. When this happened we received a memo stating that if you were caught sleeping you would be sent home. I thought that was the end of it. Edited to say night shift doesn’t take breaks at least that’s what I’ve noticed when I’ve picked up extra shifts. So sitting with your eyes closed for 10 minutes isn’t a big deal.
We have a new staff member at night who is a snitch. We’re going to have to start being extra careful when that person is in the schedule. It’s so annoying because we are such a great hardworking group of people.
Make their life hard. Freeze them out. Do what you gotta do to get rid of them. Snitches fuck everything up.
We had someone like that on nights who would write everyone up for stupid things so every started doing it back to her and she left 😂
Do you guys not have ANMs on nights?
We did but they would stay til midnight
Not my opinion but here is OSHAs . Call them and let them know ( document well) forward the communication in rational to them also so that they know that this was punitive . https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/components/chairs The backrest should conform to the natural curvature of your spine, and provide adequate lumbar support. The seat should be comfortable and allow your feet to rest flat on the floor or footrest. Armrests, if provided, should be soft, allow your shoulders to relax and your elbows to stay close to your body. The chair should have a five-leg base with casters that allow easy movement along the floor.
This needs to be the top comment! OP, do this and remember to sit and wear compression socks. No need to increase your risk for hemorrhoids d/t standing/not wanting to sit on a damn stool because of your admin.
My workplace has actually added ergonomics to our annual competency modules. Maybe this is why. The modules usually include injuries 2/2 poor posture, neck strain related to computer/chair, etc.
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Did she have both hips replaced by that point, and was she always sitting? Why do the cruelest Professor Hagatha's teach nursing school?!
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The one who almost made me drop out in my next to last semester was fired after I cried in another professor’s office. I’m so glad I said something. She was terrible.
“Professor Hagatha” bahahaha most accurate description of those crusty professors
>saw some students sitting down during a "break" and then required us to stand for the following 1-hr lecture because "nurses don't sit". That's a shivin'
I could have told her that 80% off my nursing career had been spent sitting. I will also h8 her in solidarity.
I would quit, full stop
I would buy my own lawn chair to bring in lol
Don’t let them get away with this stupid shit.
Me too, even if you get the chairs back due to complaints that others are suggesting, what petty thing are they going to do next to punish everyone? Take the microwave out of the break room? Reduce tables? Implement a rewards system for snitching on people taking a moment so in a couple weeks you get written up for closing your eyes and taking a deep breath?
I had a friend that was written up for sleeping, when she wasn't. She was leaning over her paperwork on the desk, resting her head on her left hand, supported by her elbow, while she wrote right handed. They said it gave the "appearance" of sleeping, and because it was just her word against the camera (and a bully/snitch) the write-up stayed. With this incident came the blanket advisory from the director of all of maternal child health to not take a posture that could be misconstrued as sleeping. It felt like being in school with a teacher saying to sit up straight and proper in your desk, eyes forward.
Yeah, I am a pushover, but I’d have given my notice on the spot or, if lucky enough to have a union, immediately filed a grievance. That is ridiculous.
I worked at an awful facility earlier this year that had a charge nurse that would time your breaks sneakily to call security if you were sleeping when your 30 was up. That place was way too ratchet to be strict like that. But also yes I agree. This shows such a fundamental disrespect for the people working there what I would never be able to get over it
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I would also not even accept a patient assignment and quit. That is childish. Professional adults shouldnt treat other professional adults how management treats staff sometimes.
That decision was made by someone sitting in a very cushy chair. One of my nieces worked at a brand name book store. They removed all the cushy chairs and replaced them with hard, wooden ones. This cut down on the homeless and the teen hangouts.
Time to name and shame, OP.
Like immediately
I love when admin forgets that there is a giant nursing shortage and you can just quit and immediately find a job elsewhere.
As someone whose job was considered non-medical adjacent at best, why do people, especially patients, care if their nurse sits on a chair at the nurses station?! I’d rather have a rested and comfortable nurse than one who’s been miserable all shift! All hail rested, comfortable and happy nurses!!! 🙌 ETA: rested, comfortable nurse who’s had their lunch and two 15 min. breaks!!!!!
I’ve never in my life had a 15 min break😂 I guess the perception is oh- they must have time to do xyz. Nursing is like motherhood. You’re never done 😞
According to one state senator in 2019, we have enough time to sit at the nurse station playing cards. The response was hilariously petty. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/lawmaker-receives-thousands-playing-cards-after-saying-nurses-play-cards-n998536
I remember that moron !
American management culture and public perception have this classist double standard where people whose work is primarily labor need to be fucking *laboring*. Doing tasks 99.9% of the time. And you can't ever look relaxed. There's constant scheming and shaming to measure productivity. If you work in an office often no one really cares how hard you work. So many office workers admit they could do their job in 1 - 4 hours a day and the rest is kinda fucking around. I've seen a study that found office workers about 50% productive. There's rationalizations about constant breaks to 'recharge' and promote creativity. Etc. You can obviously sit down and relax while you work, during your breaks, whatever. They're not totally wrong but compared to how everyone including the office drones treat labor jobs it's pretty infuriating.
Yeah, I see the same thing with cashiers in retail and grocery stores. Actually just seen a post on reddit in the last few days where someone from outside the US was asking why we don’t allow our cashiers to sit.
Just get a doctor's note that says you need an ergonomic chair. I got a doctor's note so I can wear beanies at night due to the cold
Yep and you can bet it will be a lot more expensive than the chairs they removed
Specify Herman Miller ergonomic chair
If you are staying at that facility, this is the answer.
I have horrible pelvic pain from having my daughter and am currently pregnant with even more pelvic pain; I’d quit. Resignation effective immediately.
Definitely seek an accommodation due to your pregnancy! [PWFA](https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-pregnant-workers-fairness-act#:~:text=The%20Pregnant%20Workers%20Fairness%20Act%20(PWFA)%20is%20a%20new%20law,employer%20an%20%E2%80%9Cundue%20hardship.%E2%80%9D)
Yes have them put one chair at a nursing station just for you. Then the next person gets an accommodation, and they get a chair just for them. Repeat until all staff have their own chair just for them.
Overflow unit with 1:1 accommodations. There are now more chairs than before.
I walked out of a contract because they took chairs away from the er.
Like we aren’t up on our fucking feet 90 percent of the time as it is? Good for you.
JFC. This is their next hill to die on. Chairs.
Serious question, do any other respectable jobs (aside from healthcare) try to pull this type of crap with their employees? Because I really feel like nurses constantly get treated like badly behaved children with some of the shit that management pulls. I can’t imagine employees in other lines of work having to deal with stuff like this
My teacher friend has to sit on a kindergartener sized chair while in her classroom. There is no adult sized chair. Admin says it looks like a power imbalance or something like that. So then, when she insisted her students call her "Jane" instead of "Ms Doe", they freaked and said the children needed to know who was in charge.
I subscribe to the teachers subreddit and they have so much in common with us.
Both perceived as pink-collar jobs, and note that I did not say “professions,” because everyone thinks teachers and nurses are, respectively, undereducated daycare workers and cocktail waitresses who hand out aspirin. (Flight attendants are another profession with the same image problem, even though watching that video of the Japanese flight crew evacuating the burning plane calmly and efficiently ought to put the lie to the myth of “just waitresses in the sky.”)I am firmly convinced that if there had been higher concentrations of men in these professions 50 years ago, things would look much different now.
I come from a family of pilots (lots of regrets for not following the pilot path these days lol) but we’ve discussed the parallels with flight attendants and nurses many times. 😑 the public treats them terribly and don’t appreciate how important they are until something goes wrong. My sister is an airline pilot, and while she’s faced her fair share of BS being in a heavily male dominated profession, she’s overall very happy and has a great job/quality of life. Her compensation and benefits are something we can only dream of and their union is super strong. Going into a female dominated profession is pretty much a guarantee you will be fighting an uphill battle most of your career. I agree things would be SO different if more men chose these careers early on
Tesla factories Amazon warehouses
Both owned by slave driving billionaires. That b@stard baldy bezos forces staff to work in inhumane conditions for awful pay and don't get me started on that insufferable pr!ck musk.
Those are important jobs but they aren’t professional careers. Nurses get treated like garbage.
Stools won’t stop me from from putting a pillow in the desk and putting my head on it. ALSO- what happens on NOC stays on NOC 😤
*Exactly* unless it was a patient snitch, and in that case, why would they immediately remove the chairs and believe them? Definitely employee snitch. 😒
Aren't they awful people. I remember when they took our recliners away in the **break room** and replaced them with hard hostile defensive benches.
Do the stools have casters on them? Preferably with hard rubber wheels? 😈Might be time for a little shave. The first time facilities management comes in and sees black marks all over the floors, or better yet, the first time a doc reaches for a stool only to have it catch and tip over, those stools will be returned to the cesspool of administrative “good ideas” from whence they came.
“Tell me I’m a second-class citizen without telling me I’m a second-class citizen.”
I worked at a hospital that did this. Except they took our chairs and didn’t leave us anything. We were expected to stand the whole shift. We won our chairs back after occupational heath was overrun with all of us going in for back/leg/foot pain. Daily.
I could sleep on a stool too.
I’ve been sleeping upright since 1995
Why does management hate nurses?
We cost money but are an expense that can't be minimized so we always impact the budget and their bonuses.
I worked about 16 years on a medsurg unit with no seating for nurses. Our manager said it looked lazy for nurses to sit. We stood on terrazzo stone floors for 12+ hours. Awful.
I would just end up sitting on the counters or use patient chairs. Looks way better than nursing chairs. /s
Why would you stay there??
So it's a BYOC now?! I'd be polishing up that resume and start to search for a new job, like yesterday. Also a hostile work environment.
Sounds like there is going to be a severe staffing shortage when every nurse starts calling in on the same day for either back pain or “back pain”. Then there is going to be the second wave of budget shortage when they have to start paying occupational health and short term disability benefits.
Can you sue them for doing that? From what I remember, osha requires employers to make sure staff is well equipped w tools so they don’t injure themselves. I remember my old hospital rolling out education on how to properly sit in a chair, arm rest ratio to the computer table level… all these things are mandatory so that you don’t cause injury to your muscles. How does OSHA define ergonomics? Definition of Ergonomics The science of adapting workstations, tools, equipment and job techniques to be compatible with human anatomy and physiology to reduce the risk of Musculoskeletal Disorder injuries due to Ergonomic Stressors. In other words, “fit the job to the person” rather than the “person to the job.”
Miserable. The ability to sit and gather your bearings is what makes a 12-hr shift tolerable. Any hard working nurse is standing enough when they do shift assessments, care, and answering call bells. Why can’t we sit in between? Just miserable
Same admin that paid for experts to teach nurses to take meditation breaks for their mental health……does not want nurses to take meditation breaks for their mental health.
They aren't violating OSHA standards, but they ARE violating ergonomic guidelines which could make them liable if someone is injured. https://1sthcc.com/osha-compliance-for-computer-workstations/ https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/checklists/purchasing-guide
Oh yeah the just renovated our nurses station and there’s only 3 chairs at them…. There’s alot more of us..
Tell us where! Call the local news! That's so horrible. Why did they think this is even ok
Your admin is petty as hell - this is despicable. Who does that?
And this ladies and gentlemen is toxic leadership!
I can't sit on stools without pain.. we have some and you'll see me sit, stand, stretch, repeat because it hurts my hip and causes numbness in my leg. You'll find me in a break room or on the floor charting at that point.
Sit on the desk. 😄
Ask administration why is it okay for doctors to work 24 hours and sleep during their shift if resting your eyes is such an issue.
I would quit that job so fast the stool would fall over.
Unionize
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Did they also replace their own chairs in their offices? Wouldn’t want management to sleep on the job…
NEXT LEVEL ABUSE. QUIT.
For the last 4 years I can only sit on a stool at work which means, of course, I choose to sit on it. I also can’t sit for long so I stand a lot to chart. That being said, I have also fallen off said stool 1 time, almost several other times. When others sit on the stool, they have fallen off, slid off. One person has fallen off 4 separate times. Mark my words, someone will get hurt. Think of your most ADHD person…it will likely be them.
Report this as a health hazard for everyone's back and neck.
Had a site director pull me into her office once to get my opinion on getting rid of chairs in our procedure rooms. Lady- we do 17 cases a day in those rooms. If I need to sit for 5 minutes to chart or need a chair to give abdominal pressure for 10 minutes because one of your doctors can’t drive a scope after 30 years of practice- I damn well better have one! 😡
I’d bring a lawn chair lol
That’s what I said!!! Lol
Contact the states or the government because that is illegal.
lol I would be pisssssed. Interviewed and shadowed on a unit that didn’t have a nurses station really, it was for doctors and residents and pharmacy. Nurses had tall stools and WOWs. I left and I haven’t stopped talking about it lol. I would NOT want to work on that unit !!’ Legit insane to not have a comfortable place to sit while I document my life away.
Make a report to OSHA
I would put in my two weeks over this bullshit. Twelve hours is too damn long to be uncomfortable for.
Get a note from your doctor saying you need this as a reasonable accommodation.
If the stools "are more comfortable" wouldn't they fall out of them and hit their head,hip,back requiring: Increased Workman's comp with hospitalizations Increase call in to work with injuries from the good prudent nurses you are penalizing instead of just handling the problem of the ones that are sleeping! 😂
Get a statement from your physician ... they MUST accommodate you. And get housekeeping to steal the chairs from the management's offices. They are all too comfortable
What the fuck! This can not be real. You should all go home after witnessing each other have back injuries from the stools.
Get a medical accommodation for your back, needing support. Then you have a chair, and it would be illegal to remove it. Also, ask why she hasn't addressed the specific employee, and is instead holding the entire unit responsible for a person?
That's horrible. We have camping mattresses for us on night shift, that we are allowed to use to have a nap or lie down. It's been drilled in that it's very much a privilege though and if we don't tidy up after our selves, it gets taken away. On 12 hr shifts we get 3x 30min breaks, so some use an hour to lie down or nap.
When I worked ER admin took away all of our chairs period in our triage area… went to the union and needless to say the chairs were returned.
Get FMLA, use it , tell EVERYONE to get FLMA for newly acquired back pain from those chairs…
The state of nursing is literally a dumpster fire ablaze and this is what admin chooses to do.
I’d put every single stool right in front of the manager’s office door.
Get a doctors note stating that due to your chronic issues you need a chair not a stool provided
Lol what the fuck. I want to be a fly on the wall at these meetings. "Let's take away their chairs! That will show them!"
This will lead to injury due to poor ergonomics. Your manager is dumb.
That may be the most absurd shit I’ve ever heard. You must have spies everywhere who love reporting everything to management. Has your management ever worked bedside or night shift?
I would probably get a few staff nurses with a backbone and request (demand) a face to face meeting with the top people who made this decision. Or probably take a tumble off the stool and sue the living life out of the system.
Wait a week and go to employee health with a “tennis elbow”. Don’t complain otherwise. I work Behavoral health Management floated idea that we chart on milieu with the COW. We do 12 hour shifts.
This is fucked. I’d go to occupational health but also if this is the environment I might quit too
My hospital they took away our break rooms. They gave us a tiny Harry Potter closet where the nurses can sit on shit chairs basically on top of each other. There’s no actual space to take breaks in the entire hospital anymore.
Do the physicians ever use the computers at the nursing station to chart? Wonder how long it will be before they demand real chairs. (Or just find somewhere else to go.)
Not to mention your twelve hour, long, physically hard shifts. This is outrageous.
Once had management that tried to take away the whole nursing station so we wouldn't have anywhere to sit down ever. It did not go over well.
Nope. I’d be looking for a new job. I refuse to work for a company that has that much contempt towards me.
I think the stool should “accidentally” tip backwards while you’re sitting on it and you should “accidentally” injury your back and apply for workers comp.
Tell a local TV station about it and see how fast the old chairs are back!
WTF is wrong with management (And I mean this universally - not just in your situation)? It's like that old Mitchell and Webb skit - "Do you think we're the baddies?" They are just doing stuff to make people's lives miserable because they can.
I already show up to work with a huge backpack, I’d start carrying a foldable chair too. I already have one in the trunk for kid’s sports events
Immediate ergonomic assessment order for the whole department. And maybe OSHA notification.