:angryfire
OK, after 6 months of miserable floor work, I went to work in a small local Chicago ED. It has not been an easy transition, but ED is the only place I wanted to work, ever, and it's been really hard. I need some help. There's the whole way this ED is run... when I was an ED tech, level 1 trauma center, (where my first miserable 6 months of floor nursing was 'served') my goal was to keep the RN out of the room as much as possible. I brought pts back from Triage or ran to the ambulance run, said "I'm the tech the RN'll be here in a minute" got the patient nekkid, in a gown, on the monitor/bp/SPO2. Got vitals. Drew blood.
The staff don't really talk to me much, yet, and when I try to join in conversation they sort of tune me out. I feel as if I'm bothering them.
Here, the techs don't get off their @sses unless you ask, or do so rarely. They do not initiate the patient nekkidness or on the monitor-ness. I take my own vitals, empty my own foleys, take my own dirty nasty bedpans to the dirty utility room. I don't ask for much. I take out my own SL, foleys, etc. In short, I don't ask for much help. And I really need it! I'm new to the ED!
Today, the Nurse Educator tromped up to me at the beginning of the EXTRA shift I had picked up, and said "I need to talk to you". ooookkkkkaaayyyy...She said 'the techs have been c/o about you talking to them in a not so nice way'. 
I asked her for specifics, she said she could only recall Easter Sunday (incidentally, my first official night off of orientation, and I walked into a code at that) because I asked a tech to put a patient on the bedpan...isn't that part of their responsiblities if I'm busy getting, say, an ABG, Cardizem drip, helping a doc w/ a pelvic? Which priority am I supposed to cater to? Critical patient work, or stroking the tech's ego?
I asked again for specifics...she wouldn't give me any. I told her that in the future if a tech has a problem with me it'd be better for 'teamwork' if the person just came to me and said 'look, this is a problem'. She said that they didn't feel 'comfortable' doing so. I asked her then how did she expect to fix the problem if there are no specifics I can reflect on, and no one person to reference. I told her that I was very cognizant of how I approached techs and I try to go out of my way to say please and thank you, but when I'm up against two priorities the bedpan is NOT GONNA WIN for me if there is an extra pair of hands available. She said 'we all work as a team and give 110%' here.
OOOKKKKAAAYYY ... now for the weirder still part. This educator was in charge of my orientation. Not once, but 4 times did she drop the ball. I started mid february so I actually had two weeks of floor time before the formal 'nursing orientation' happened. She called my house, AFTER signing off on my orientation schedule, to see where I was, and then was pissed at me because I wasn't on the floor. Same thing, two weeks later -- general orientation. She called my house 4 times within two hours to see why I wasn't there, scared my husband to death. Another time, I told her that I was going to a critical care class. She again called my house. I spoke with her later, and she SWORE that I never told her I was going to this class. She had written it down, and never checked her notes.
The reason I go into this is because she has a pattern of accusing first and checking her facts later. It seems to me that she has made many errors and wants to lay the blame someplace else. She also told me, when I had a paper due the next week, to turn in all of my orientation material the next time I came to work, because she hadn't followed the schedule.WTH? I told her that I had a paper to do and she said "not acceptable" "you must give this department 110%". My next shift was 36 hours away so I was able to get some of it done, quite a bit, and she never said 'thank you'.
I have picked up two shifts this week, no one has said 'thank you'. I'm getting very frustrated and angry at this situation. I get little support from the techs (isn't it the same everywhere though? always favorites).
I had a similar confrontation at my first job, and since then I have always been very conscientious to be kind to the techs, because we really need them, and they are very valuable to us, but fer crying out loud, if I ask them to re-temp somebody I get the There isn't that much for them to do. They get to do some interesting stuff and I love teaching. I am willing to work on my shortcoming but fer crying out loud (again) we're talking about 2 instances in high-volume, high-pressure situation (I think, I'm not clear on the details) in an ED. Is it possibly there are such fragile egos out there?
Sorry for the extra long rant. I just need some support, and guidance. I don't know what I'm doing wrong!
