Advice please

Nursing Students CNA/MA

Published

How do you deal with nasty coworkers who just have a stink attitude? By stink I mean the coworker from he!! (whining, complaining, slacking, etc...)

Tell me what has worked for you.

Helpful advice only, please. :smokin:

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Specializes in LTC.

Personally I would just ignore the whining and complaining, unless it gets really annoying. Then I would make a sarcastic remark like "O.M.G!!!! That is like, SOOO horrible!! You should quit." It's not the most professional way of dealing with it but it gets them to stop.

When someone is slacking off I innocently "remind" them of their duties with a bunch of people in earshot. Like, "Here's the paper for the vitals. I'm done with mine." Or, "Mrs. B wanted me to tell you that she's ready for her bath now." If the nurse is standing nearby they will feel obligated to go do it right away.

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You kind of need to ignore it. From my experience, if you try to reason with them or talk to them or even tell them they need to do there job you can get fired. Or maybe that was just my experience. But those are the people you just need to ignore. Sometimes its hard I know, because you may have to do their job as well, if you want to keep your job there you need to just let it go and hope it catches up with them.

But I agree with the first reply I would say "get off your butt and answer some lights" But Where I worked The Nurse was right there telling ME and another Co worker to do everything while 10 lights were on and 4 CNAs were in the Day room not on break just sitting there. That was a bad night.

I was fired from the place I got my CNA license from and was at for almost 3 years Because of CNAs who felt it was MY JOB to do their job. And since we had a new Director of Nursing, she had no idea the situation and got rid of the best CNAs including my aunt who was their for 11 years! Everyone knew she was the best CNA in that place. Sometimes you open your mouth and they wont take it. But I took time off to raise a family I have been out of work for almost 3 years I have two babies and Im going to school to be a RN.

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As much as possible ignore their behavior. You have better things to do.

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Specializes in LTC.
Sometimes its hard I know, because you may have to do their job as well

I'm all for helping and working as a team, but you shouldn't have to do anyone's job for them especially if the only reason they're not doing it themselves is because they're lazy. I used to bend over backwards doing all the work and it got to the point where I felt guilty if I didn't do all my own work plus about 5 extra people. Ridiculous! Because then people start to expect you to pick up their slack, and they leave more and more of it. Which means more work and more stress for you. You end up working quickly to finish through your assignment so you can rush through all the people your coworkers didn't get to. And then someone will say "hey we had a good day today!" Maybe THEY did, because you took 3 people off their assignment, but you sure as hell didn't have a good day!

I'm trying to break myself of this habit. But I'm a worker bee and I hate seeing people laying in bed all wet half the morning and knowing that if I was on that assignment it wouldn't be like that- I'd be busting my butt to keep them dry. I'm trying to keep myself busy on my own assignment and let the other people be accountable for their own. My "problem" coworkers aren't cranky or lazy, but they're spazzy- they don't get anything done because they're running around in circles thinking the sky is falling. So I'm sitting there doing nail care on people after I've finished my assignment and I'm constantly thinking "I wonder if the others are done yet" and stressing out about it. Well screw it I have enough stress at home... I don't need to be coming home in the afternoon and downing half a pint of ice cream because I'm so wound up!

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Specializes in LTC, Med/Surg.

As far as the laziness goes, don't help the lazy CNA. It sucks and may even hurt-- the residents deserve better-- but either the lazy CNA will start picking up the pace, or they won't, and the higher-ups will notice their lack of effort.

As for the crappy attitude... ignore it as best as you can. I've never gotten to the point where I can't take it anymore. :)

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