We had a little separate room branching off the break room about the size of a powder room with just one table and one chair in it. It was so you could go cry or sleep or just not look at your coworkers on your break if you needed it.

Admin decided it was better used for storage, so they took out the table and chair and stacked it with patient mattresses. Admin literally just decided one day with no warning or even a memo that they were going to take away our decompression space (important when you work psychiatry). That space was now a designated storage area.

I, being an enterprising young night nurse, am always ready to turn someone else’s slights into my own opportunities so I had no problem with the area now being used for storage. It made a great multipurpose room and my new nap spot. I would take sanitizing wipes, a fitted sheet, and a blanket, and spend my break napping on the mattress stack. When I was done I would make sure to take everything out and put my used linens in the linen cart.

Apparently I was not the only person who had this idea, I was just the neatest. They started with repetitive emails telling us not to sleep in there, that the mattresses weren’t for us. Then they started asking that we just make sure we clean up after we’re done (this did not happen either). This was also mostly happening on nights, and god knows admin wouldn’t be caught dead in the building after sunset, so there was nothing they could actually do about it, including figuring out who exactly was to blame.

After a month they stopped using it for storage and put our furniture back. They can store mattresses in there, but they can’t stop us from making the best of it!