Warning: You cannot please me! But, please, keep trying!

from Google Images

Some folks ought to wear a warning label.  It would save the rest of us a lot of time, energy, emotion, and effort we would otherwise spend in attempting to make them pleased, comfortable, satisfied or content. Some folks are just disgruntled and angry.  They will never be happy, pleased, or grateful.  

How great would it be if they all went to live away from the rest of us?  But, alas, then they would lose their power and, thus, the reason they behave as they do.  They need us, the regular people who feel and reach out, who get angry as seldom as possible and who treat others fairly, if not gently.  They need us to draw back in astonishment or pain at their petty onslaughts.  They need to watch us redouble our efforts to satisfy them.  They draw power from seeing us in a service role, knowing in advance that we can never earn their approval. 

If these emotional tyrants had a warning label for all the world to see, we could all relax, do our best, and know that killing ourselves for them would be futile and unnecessary.  Poof!  Disconnect.  No need to be hurt or confused or exhausted.  And, it would put the rest of us on an 'Aha!' alert when these folks further flex their dysfunction by complaining about service, reporting inadequacies, or passing along hurtful tales. Again: Poof!  Credibility failure.  Time, energy, effort, emotion: spared!  Wow--a labor saving device.

Sometimes, nurses get a feeling about some patients.  Their behavior seems to go beyond stoic or stern. They turn away from their caregiver, often frowning or with pursed 'pissy lips' (you do know pissy lips, don't you?).  They answer in short, dull, inaudible monosyllables and participate only minimally in their own recovery.  They seem to resent any effort to make them comfortable or to gather important information about them.  They act as if the nurse is an intrusion, a servant to be waved away, to be held in line.  I have come to learn that these are all red flags, and a call to action to watch my back.  

These are the folks who are gonna bite the hand that heals them.  They will make their nurse miserable while they are being cared for, and usually, they'll continue to do so after they leave.  They will complain about their care, or the environment, or their 'experience'.  Case in point: remember the difficult patient I wrote about a week or so ago?  The one who didn't want to hurt, but didn't want medication, the one who wanted nausea meds, but to not be tired?  The one whose husband kept me on the phone grilling me about his wife's care?  Well, when I returned to work a few days later, damned if they hadn't complained formally that I wouldn't, get this: let her urinate while in recovery!  What?!  She had been offered a bedpan and refused it!   

I now record my care notes in even more excruciating detail, yet another CYA move to counter yet another nasty person who should be wearing a label.  Taking up even more patient care time.  

So, to the chronically displeased, the career offended:

Hey, asshole...here's your sign!