NurseFail

6/28/12

The Nurse Chair Timer

In the summer of 2010 Hospital XX was under new management.  Like any place that receives new management, changes were too come.  Of course this latest head honcho didn’t like how “things” had been going & decided that HE was exactly all that Hospital XX needed to change these, “things.”  As with any first impression, the new boss of the nursing department had a tuff decision to make.  Did he want his introduction to the nurses to give a sense of fear or a more passive aggressive, “I’m a cool boss but I’ll fire you for anything,” type of feeling?  Some decisions are more difficult than others but the new boss decided it was a fear kind of day today, so he put on his angriest face (that would later cost him thousands of dollars in plastic surgery to correct) and tromped into the nurses station to tell, “Those damn nurses how it’s gonna be from here on out!”

As he huffed and puffed and stomped around the nurse’s charting station, the nurses of Hospital XX barely looked up form their charting.  One nurse who was loudly chewing her gum raised her hand and said to him, “Will you get that?” referring to a call light that had just went off.  After things did not go as planned, the big boss man stomped away and figured he would take queues from some of the more common type of bosses that he knew and use an approach more fitting for a psych patient.  He decided to switch to the more passive aggressive, “I’m a cool boss but I’ll fire you for anything,” approach he had considered earlier and act as if the attempt he made to induce fear had not occurred.  Ever.

This attempt to forget the past and make a second, first impression was very easy to do, because the lazy nurses of Hospital XX had not paid any attention to him the first time around and barely remembered who he even was.  His second, first impression at being passive aggressive was very successful and the nurses now remembered him as the nice guy who brought them donuts & hand delivered to each of them, as their self imposed state of lethargy made it too difficult for them to get out of their chairs.  After this, the new boss was rarely seen around the hospital as he preferred to work in secrecy.  And one by one, the nurse’s jobs began to vanish as they were replaced with more active nurses without Stage II pressure ulcers from 12 hours of chair sitting.

At first the nurses were scared.  Who would be the next one to loose their job?  But just how any other slothful individual would react, the nurse’s initial bout of fear was quickly overtaken with a sense of IDGAS (I Don’t Give A Sh*) a condition that is not protected by the American Disability Association.  As more and more nurses were fired the original lazy nurses did manage to muster up an ounce or two of care, enough at least to try to lie to make the boss think that they were working.

What the nurses would do was carry spray bottles filled with 0.9% Normal Saline and when their new boss was in viewing range they would douse themselves with the water and make it look like they were not only working hard, but hard enough to be drenched with sweat.  This trick worked at first, but it wasn’t long before a nurse whose job was on the chopping block ratted them out to save herself.

Bound & determined to find out which nurses were working & which were sitting on their asses all day, “The Nurse Chair Timer,” was invented.  This historical device, which could be embedded into any chair, could sense by weight if a person was sitting in it or not.  The Nurse Chair Timer also records the number of times a nurse gets up via wireless transmitter that reads out, “On or Off,” depending on whether weight is felt on or off the chair.  A person can then look at the information to determine how long a nurse actually sat in the chair.

The device was a success for the hospital’s newest boss but a fail for all of the nurses.  It resulted in the firing of many more nurses to come.  The Nurse Chair Timer is no longer in use today.  After it’s publication in a prominent scientific journal created media attention, leading to a Dateline Investigation called, “Who’s Timing My Butt?,” which was watched my nurses all over the world including those at Hospital XX.  The nurses then resorted to sitting on countertops, making The Nurse Chair Timer’s useless.  AssClock, the manufacturer of The Nurse Chair Timer filed for bankruptcy in early 2012.  As for the nurse’s of Hospital XX, shortly after the demise of The Nurse Chair Timer, they were all mysteriously injured at the same time in the same foot (their right foot) and now have lifetime doctor’s orders forcing Hospital XX to allow them to do their jobs while sitting as much as possible.  NurseFail.com did receive information from an anonymous source that proposes that foot injury was self inflicted, based on a pact the nurses created not long after The Nurse Chair Timer was discovered.