Better Late Than Never?

A couple of months ago I was MANDATED to complete an online job application with references. This month, I was told to fill out a release of information so that info from the application could be checked out.

 The problem?  First, I filled out a paper application of several pages, provided references and signed a release when I started work.

                     Second, I have been working in the same unit of the same hospital for over 19 years!!!!!! 

Why is it MY responsibility to transcribe data as an RN on a critical care unit and why did it take 19 years to decide to check me out? I find both of these items insulting.  I believe in protecting the public, my coworkers and the hospital's reputation, too, but hell!  after 19 years, I don't feel like it's MY responsibility to protect them in light of the hospital's negligence of longstanding duration.

Why does it gripe me so much?  Because it is just ANOTHER hindsight measure the hospital has taken after some incident somewhere else that affected the administration's reputation.  Like the theft of a laptop in another state by some administrator's negligence and poor choice of taking it home. We, here, end up having to cope with multiple emails and mandates about privacy, identity theft, and taking things home that do not affect us, basically, as bedside nurses.  Like the conditions noted last year at Walter Reed...a MILITARY HOSPITAL, not a VA Hospital, yet it was linked to the VA. So all of us are put on guard about environmental conditions, how to be "customer friendly" and  "guest relations" for our "guests".  For God's Sake! we are nurses, caring for the sick.  We are not hotel room service and catering gofers. How about treating us like professionals that we seem to hear when it's time to write us up or remind us about when staffing is short and we are asked to be floated to some area we've never even walked the floor.

Sorry for my rant. It's very irritating at times to deal with beauracracies and people with "authority" who don't THINK or have respect for the people who do the work.