NUR 670 topic 5 DQ 1_1

Describe a time in your professional life when you felt used and manipulated. What were the circumstances? Did you feel valued by the leader? Based on the textbook, explain how the issue of purpose, in the servant-leader paradigm, could have yielded a more beneficial outcome for the leader and yourself.

ANSWER 1

I work as a charge nurse/staff nurse in the facility that I am currently employed in and have two other nurses working with me.  We all have the exact schedule and get the same number of hours.  We work five days, off seven, work two, off seven.  We can plan our vacation and time off a year ahead because our schedule is set.  Two of us work very well together as far as helping cover for each other when we need to be off.  With our schedule, it is rare when we need off, but we get three weeks of vacation and eight holidays annually, so if we don’t use it, we lose it.  The other nurse is not so much of a team player when it comes to needing to switch or cover shifts.  One time she asked me to change my schedule because she had an emergency and needed to be off. This left me working a long stretch of days, but I was thinking that if it was an emergency I would cover her no matter what. Later, I found out that she needed off because of a long term planned event and not an emergency.  Another time I changed my scheduled days off to cover shifts for her and at the last minute she changed her mind which resulted in me changing and cancelling plans.  In another incident I had asked her to work my shift and she changed her mind at the last minute leaving me to cover and cancel my doctor’s appointment and not being able to reschedule for another two months.  It seemed like every time she is involved in a change in the schedule to cover for someone or for us to cover her, she changes her mind.

My manager lets us do self-scheduling making sure we cover all shifts, so we don’t have to go through her.  She is confident that all shifts will be covered.  When I have been given the opportunity, I have expressed my frustration that this causes me but nothing happened until I followed up the chain of command with my manager’s supervisor.