The Real Letter to the Boss
Dear Marc,
I have just a few issues that have cropped up over this last year that I feel need your immediate attention.
As you know, we are in the health profession and it is our job to take care of really sick kids. It is really hard to take care of really sick kids when you are trying to cut spending by first, not scheduling enough nurses and second, by taking away our support staff. Throw in several very costly and necessary machines that continuously break and/or get stolen by other units and you've just created the perfect storm. Perhaps we could cut down on the amount of times we have to perform CPR on our patients (and fill out the corresponding book of paperwork afterward) if you would buy/keep track of the right equipment and hire/schedule the appropriate nursing/ancillary staff to keep watch/tend to these ailing patients. I'm sure the parents would appreciate not seeing their children coded on a regular basis and this might help our satisfaction rate (of which only you keep telling us is terrible) increase.
While we're discussing scheduling, I just want to remind you I'm almost 7 months pregnant and I have several prenatals to attend in the next months. First, I cannot schedule my prenatals on my days off because the new schedule for the upcoming month isn't posted until 3 days before the old one ends. This hasn't been as much of a problem up until now when I've only had 1-2 appointments a month, but now that we're going to an every other week/eventually once a week schedule, this will pose a LARGE problem for our already short-staffed unit. There's no reason we can't have 1-2 months advance notice of our short-staffedness. And the "draft schedule" is a joke because you change so much of it, we can't place any value in it anyway. I know I'm pregnant and that's requiring a bit of understanding, but there are several others on the floor that have health issues/lives outside of work that would appreciate this also.
Please email the next staff meetings to the entire staff of the floor (or even just me; I will be sure everyone else knows). Posting the meeting times the day before the meeting only guarantees that those who are working and have time to read your post that day will be able to attend. I've reminded you every month for the last year that I need an email so if I'm off, I can plan to attend. If you tell me one more time that the meetings are on the third Thursday of every month, I will clock in for that whole day and sit in the little meeting room until you come around and ask why I'm there and eventually tell me the real time of the either nonexistent monthly staff meeting or when you were thinking of having it that day. Take 5 seconds, type out a date and time, and hit send.
Finally, you are by far the worst manager I have ever had. You pile your work on the coordinators who then have to either delegate to (or in Joyce's case dump everything on) us underlings and then leave to get Starbucks with whoever your favorite is that day. You spend more time looking at our staffing board than you do interacting with your staff. You don't respond to the concerns/advice of those who have far more experience and knowledge than yourself and then criticize us for not providing the best care. As soon as someone gets hired above you for more than just the interim, you should be replaced for a better trained monkey.
Thanks,
Carli
I have just a few issues that have cropped up over this last year that I feel need your immediate attention.
As you know, we are in the health profession and it is our job to take care of really sick kids. It is really hard to take care of really sick kids when you are trying to cut spending by first, not scheduling enough nurses and second, by taking away our support staff. Throw in several very costly and necessary machines that continuously break and/or get stolen by other units and you've just created the perfect storm. Perhaps we could cut down on the amount of times we have to perform CPR on our patients (and fill out the corresponding book of paperwork afterward) if you would buy/keep track of the right equipment and hire/schedule the appropriate nursing/ancillary staff to keep watch/tend to these ailing patients. I'm sure the parents would appreciate not seeing their children coded on a regular basis and this might help our satisfaction rate (of which only you keep telling us is terrible) increase.
While we're discussing scheduling, I just want to remind you I'm almost 7 months pregnant and I have several prenatals to attend in the next months. First, I cannot schedule my prenatals on my days off because the new schedule for the upcoming month isn't posted until 3 days before the old one ends. This hasn't been as much of a problem up until now when I've only had 1-2 appointments a month, but now that we're going to an every other week/eventually once a week schedule, this will pose a LARGE problem for our already short-staffed unit. There's no reason we can't have 1-2 months advance notice of our short-staffedness. And the "draft schedule" is a joke because you change so much of it, we can't place any value in it anyway. I know I'm pregnant and that's requiring a bit of understanding, but there are several others on the floor that have health issues/lives outside of work that would appreciate this also.
Please email the next staff meetings to the entire staff of the floor (or even just me; I will be sure everyone else knows). Posting the meeting times the day before the meeting only guarantees that those who are working and have time to read your post that day will be able to attend. I've reminded you every month for the last year that I need an email so if I'm off, I can plan to attend. If you tell me one more time that the meetings are on the third Thursday of every month, I will clock in for that whole day and sit in the little meeting room until you come around and ask why I'm there and eventually tell me the real time of the either nonexistent monthly staff meeting or when you were thinking of having it that day. Take 5 seconds, type out a date and time, and hit send.
Finally, you are by far the worst manager I have ever had. You pile your work on the coordinators who then have to either delegate to (or in Joyce's case dump everything on) us underlings and then leave to get Starbucks with whoever your favorite is that day. You spend more time looking at our staffing board than you do interacting with your staff. You don't respond to the concerns/advice of those who have far more experience and knowledge than yourself and then criticize us for not providing the best care. As soon as someone gets hired above you for more than just the interim, you should be replaced for a better trained monkey.
Thanks,
Carli