Anyone Else Experience Mobbing?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Hi~

I have been at my new job for over a year now and have become the victim of mobbing by my peers in the ICU where I work.

I have tried every approach with this but nothing has helped my situation. I am going to have to leave this job for it to end.

It has caused me to become depressed, anxious at times, and I have gained weight.

I have also seen mobbing occur at other units where I have worked. I am wondering how prevalent this is now among nurses.

OK, so it seems as if I'm going to have to buck the trend here. Don't get me wrong, I'm very supportive of new nurse and new grads/students and have mentored tons of them. What I'm going to talk about is "REVERSE MOBBING"! This is when a unit protects a person/people that are incompetent or lazy or just don't give a crap. Because they have been there for a long time. No one wants to hurt their feelings. What I have experienced in the past and lately is that a nurse is just not up to speed, will never be up to speed or just has a generally nasty attitude towards patients/coworkers and is allowed to stay there due to her longevity or age. I work with nurse over 70 years old that aren't asked to take the "heavy load" or the more difficult patients because they can't function. This causes some grumbling amongst the ranks. I have several incompetent/mean managers and nothing is done to them. So I call this reverse mobbing(I think I just made that up!). What I like to see is nurses functioning on a compentent level and if they aren't they should be trained until they can and if not, they have to go. When people say the finger is being pointed at them at every job they go to, look unto yourself and see if perhaps your clinical skills are not up to par and then fix it. As for mobbing, I'm going to say I was involved in a similar incident. A nurse was suspected of pilfering meds. She was also suspected of not doing complete assessments/caring for her patients. I didn't accuse her of anything, but pointed out to my managers that certain medications were completely missing from the Pyxis. Other nurses also noticed that meds were missing after this persons shift was over. I don't know exactly what happened to the nurse, but she "resigned" soon after. And the problem was resovled. Does this make me part of mob mentality or just a person that is watching out for the units benefit? If nurses aren't looking out for each other and helping each other, I don't know what else to do. Probably I could look in an other thread and find one about incompetent nurses and what was done to them and it would be "mobbing", but a different term is being used.

Specializes in ER, Infusion therapy, Oncology.

You either file a harrassment suit against all of them, which I admit is hard to prove, or you cut your losses and run. Sometimes the latter is easier. I hope you have found someplace where you don't have to deal with this type of harrassment.

Yes I to was the victom of mo

bbing. I lasted 9mts and had the MNA unuion reps try and help me. I to was on meds. I had given this hospital 7yrs, and that was the way they treated me. I finally realized that it was just not worth it. Took a traveling postion. I have never been happier and look great. I see some of my former workers and they miss me and said things are not getting better. My advice to you is to find a new job.

Hi~

I have been at my new job for over a year now and have become the victim of mobbing by my peers in the ICU where I work.

I have tried every approach with this but nothing has helped my situation. I am going to have to leave this job for it to end.

It has caused me to become depressed, anxious at times, and I have gained weight.

I have also seen mobbing occur at other units where I have worked. I am wondering how prevalent this is now among nurses.

OK, so it seems as if I'm going to have to buck the trend here. Don't get me wrong, I'm very supportive of new nurse and new grads/students and have mentored tons of them. What I'm going to talk about is "REVERSE MOBBING"! This is when a unit protects a person/people that are incompetent or lazy or just don't give a crap. Because they have been there for a long time. No one wants to hurt their feelings. What I have experienced in the past and lately is that a nurse is just not up to speed, will never be up to speed or just has a generally nasty attitude towards patients/coworkers and is allowed to stay there due to her longevity or age. I work with nurse over 70 years old that aren't asked to take the "heavy load" or the more difficult patients because they can't function. This causes some grumbling amongst the ranks. I have several incompetent/mean managers and nothing is done to them. So I call this reverse mobbing(I think I just made that up!). What I like to see is nurses functioning on a compentent level and if they aren't they should be trained until they can and if not, they have to go. When people say the finger is being pointed at them at every job they go to, look unto yourself and see if perhaps your clinical skills are not up to par and then fix it. As for mobbing, I'm going to say I was involved in a similar incident. A nurse was suspected of pilfering meds. She was also suspected of not doing complete assessments/caring for her patients. I didn't accuse her of anything, but pointed out to my managers that certain medications were completely missing from the Pyxis. Other nurses also noticed that meds were missing after this persons shift was over. I don't know exactly what happened to the nurse, but she "resigned" soon after. And the problem was resovled. Does this make me part of mob mentality or just a person that is watching out for the units benefit? If nurses aren't looking out for each other and helping each other, I don't know what else to do. Probably I could look in an other thread and find one about incompetent nurses and what was done to them and it would be "mobbing", but a different term is being used.

I would hardly call it "reverse mobbing" if you have a legitimate complaint about someone.

We have a tech who was just out of high school when she was hired, and this was before "The 40-year-old Virgin" was released or I would have thought she saw that movie and thought people really act that way at work. :lol2: What wasn't funny was that she was screaming at nurses on the phone, hanging up on people, "Yes Ma'am"-ing me and others when she was asked to do tasks, etc. I told the manager about her and added that otherwise, she had the potential to be an excellent employee.

He spoke to her, and the mouthing off ceased and she is indeed a wonderful person to work with.

Specializes in ICU, telemetry, LTAC.

Someone somewhere in this thread wanted to hear from both sides of the fence.

My first nursing job was quite an experience. First off, about 60+ staff on this unit, if you count both shifts and baylor, etc. Second, weak management. Unit director, and both assistant unit directors were inconsistent and/or weak. The unit director was on too much caffeine or she had pre- parkinson's, I dunno which, and was completely unable to be impartial. One of the AUD's was fairly twofaced and labile emotionally, and the other position experienced a turnover. That is, the other AUD decided "oh to heck with this" and went back to bedside nursing on that unit. The person who filled her shoes was so incredibly nice, but nice is only part of what's required for the position.

I didn't think mobbing when I was there. I thought, shift-ism. Days versus nights, etc. On dayshift orientation I made a list of things that nightshift could do right to not piss off dayshift. Got to nights, had a preceptor who was excellent and taught me how to organize, work a shift and get it all done, and how to delegate. She had weak spots: lateness and health problems, possible drug abuse. Otherwise, she was a really good nurse.

So, I discovered that with the list of stuff to do right on nights, I was taught how to do those things from the get-go. There were nights I did everything right and the most unexpected little thing would be harped on as I'm trying to leave, after report. Usually the same small group of people would do this. I quickly discovered two things: One, a nurse will go insane if they try to have a perfect shift, and two, each shift leaves stuff for the next one. The emphasis should be on making sure the next shift knows what they need to help you with so that things don't get missed. I can help finish tasks if you tell me what they are, but if I tell you what they are when I leave, I'd appreciate it if you (generic you) don't bite my head off.

Allright. So six months in, very very hardworking six months, and I wind up in charge. Mostly because the cliquishness didn't affect me and I wasn't "scared to talk to the doctors." Eh? Wow. Charge was stressful. And it enabled the dayshift - only the cliquish ones- to complain to me about various people on my shift who didn't do things to their liking. In the name of trying to be supportive of the new nurses, suddenly it felt like my help was being enlisted to ... what? To harass them? To be harped on for other people's shortcomings, which by the way, I didn't entirely agree on every instance that they were true shortcomings. Short staffing was more like it. So I ran my everloving butt off helping those that they put me in charge of, and all that got me was enough stress to break out with shingles. Woopee.

Compliments directed at management, of my style of charge, only served to get me put in charge of short staffed units more frequently. Because, you know, if I can handle it, why not let me handle it? They look good, I'm stressed out. Then came the new grad season. Oh boy. I discovered how hard it is to teach, which I love doing, while running your butt off and charging at the same time. Especially when I'm just teaching basics because I'm still fairly new. So I saw how anyone without the exact amount of getupandgo that I have, and enough brassiness to speak up for themselves the way I do, is labeled as "not quite good enough" and the clique begins to pick on them. There wasn't much clique on nightshift... as in, the "clique to which I refer was the one that associated and was friendly with the management of the unit. The entire nightshift was its own group, prettymuch in direct opposition to the Clique. Make sense?

If anyone wants to stop reading now, please, feel free.

So one of my friends on nights began to... not quite do her job up to standards. Pissed me off. I love her and I enjoy her presence but I can NOT work with her. She'd do small stuff and less of it when working under my charge, but it got on my nerves nonetheless. I could not defend her because in my mind, the actual, real, laziness was the cause of the complaints and I can't defend a person who isn't doing their job right. Especially when it's causing me more work. Example: I would not allow a shift to be handed off with basic things not done by the end of it, barring a couple of codes at five am. So if someone complained of sudden, transient illness, not quite enough to go home but certainly enough to sit down for a bit, I'd pick up slack because I wanted to go home on time and not hear any backtalk at shift change.

That's only one example. I didn't appreciate this. It really made me question my ability to lead people because I couldn't seem to be the b*tch I needed to be, to get my friend to wise up and do her job right.

The management gave her a hard time about transfers, she didn't get what she wanted and she wound up leaving to go to another hospital. It felt to me like I participated in the Clique briefly where she was concerned. It wasn't enjoyable. Then I got this bright idea to work more shifts and to do this, I trained to be part of a small group (very very much the Clique) that would do a separate job plus staffing, at weirdish hours. Staffing being the headache, the other job part was enjoyable. Nice extra shifts, but it really was odd to see myself on the other side having to explain to my group why they're short staffed. If I hadn't been doing the job, no one would have told me that management had decided to permanently shortstaff the nightshift. Of course that made this particular part of the job nearly unbearable, as my group could now treat me like the enemy for doing what I was told to do, and I ran my tootie off trying to help them in their difficult situation. Sometimes there were times when one of the other charge nurses and I, on nights, could not agree to be friendly over this sort of thing and it was difficult to ignore.

So when I got fed up enough that I was grouchy all the time, no matter who I was talking to, and would come in with the intention of nailing my feet to the floor lest I run out and fail to clock in, I looked for another job. Meanwhile the management had gone on some sort of rampage and the unit director had come very close to breaking someone's nose with a door. Very close being a couple of inches. When all 19-ish of the people involved as witnesses say the same thing, I'll trust the account. I made sure I found a job, and that I was on the schedule and cleared for employment there, and then I turned in my resignation.

Now that I'm gone I still don't know how to characterize the experience. At times it felt like I was involved in the "mobbing," if that's what you want to call it, by being part of the group that would do the complaining, or alternatively, by simply existing on nightshift. At times I was sure I was dead in the sights of those who had to push someone around or die trying. It was a very complex unit. If one of the Clique complained to management, and lied, it wouldn't matter if God himself came down and told that woman the truth, she would not have believed it. And of course she was surprised and hurt when I quit. I figured out it wasn't wise to let her know it was going to happen!

My current unit is small enough that 1) there aren't large groups to begin with, and 2) it's actually possible to work with the opposite shift somwwhat, also 3) my manager now is anything but weak. It's her unit and you exist in it or you don't, but you play by her rules if you do. I've tried to make a point of having something good to say when the gossip gets to flying, even if the general tone is not good. It's not always possible but I have to try. We have very few lazy nurses so that does help, and they will pick up on good examples and work harder sometimes. Plus, we can all talk to each other and there is a decidedly lesser degree of shift-ism. It's there, but it's not a monster.

So there you have your ... other side? In the middle? I don't know, I'm just glad I changed jobs.

Bullying is alive and well in some hospitals, I have seen it happen. I have experienced one on one bullying myself and found that standing up to the bully is the best way to deal with it. But group bullying, or mobbing, is another thing altogether, especially if your supervisor is involved. You might be able to get some help from your union if you have one, or could consider hiring an attorney. Otherwise, I would have to agree that it might be worth your while to find something else. It's possible the mob will get tired of the whole thing and move on to something, or someone else, but it doesn't sound like a very healthy environment to stay in.

Specializes in Med-Surg, LTC.
I would hardly call it "reverse mobbing" if you have a legitimate complaint about someone.

We have a tech who was just out of high school when she was hired, and this was before "The 40-year-old Virgin" was released or I would have thought she saw that movie and thought people really act that way at work. :lol2: What wasn't funny was that she was screaming at nurses on the phone, hanging up on people, "Yes Ma'am"-ing me and others when she was asked to do tasks, etc. I told the manager about her and added that otherwise, she had the potential to be an excellent employee.

He spoke to her, and the mouthing off ceased and she is indeed a wonderful person to work with.

That was a great example of doing the right thing! You saw potential and looked past the immature behavior. You did this employee a huge favor but I'm sure she didn't know it.

I think the mobbing thing is stuff like going after someone for personality differences, deciding you dont' like someone and then actively looking for anything to pick them apart on. It's not necessarily true incompetence. Rather than encourage and try to help and teach the person, they just decide they dont' like them and so they have to go and so let's make them as miserable as possible until they leave.

Sometimes they are terminated for vague reasons because they're "not fitting in" whatever that means, but not for a real cut and dried offense.

This, at least in my mind, is mobbing. Not stealing drugs or injuring patients.

This is one thread that everyone has input about. They teach about nurses eating their young in nursing school, but they really do not go into detail about it. I guess if they did no one would go into nursing. I have been nursing since 1994 and the majority of the nursing facilities that I have worked in unfortunately have had mobbing as part of the culture. This thread helps to let others know that it is a common practice globally, that we are not going insane, nor do we have dysfunctional personalities; that there is something wrong with the work environment.

Most of the places that I have found this environment the Manager or Director of Nurses was also part of the mob. At a few, the personel department also was part of the mob. The best advice that I can give anyone is when you find that you are in the environment transfer to another floor or find another job. You are not going to change anything there, they will only try to destroy you and or your career. It is not worth the cost.

That was a great example of doing the right thing! You saw potential and looked past the immature behavior. You did this employee a huge favor but I'm sure she didn't know it.

She probably DOES know it. I went to the boss after she screamed at a nurse and slammed the phone down, and I told her, "If you do that to the wrong person, you won't be working here any more" and she smarted off to me (I don't remember exactly what she said) and I just hadn't seen anyone else address this behavior directly.

When I talked to our manager, I said, "If she asks if I told on her, you have my permission to tell her yes" and "I'm not telling you this because I want her to get in trouble. On the contrary, I don't want her to get in trouble, and that's why I'm doing this."

In fact, she's thinking about nursing school but is a bit hesitant because she doesn't want to work evenings, weekends, and holidays for the rest of her life, so if she proceeds with this, she might do school nursing, doctor's office, public health, or something along those lines.

A couple weeks ago, she was entering an order into the computer and asked if we processed Fleet's Enemas. We don't, and I said, "If you go into nursing, you will find out all about those!" :lol2:

Specializes in Med-Surg, LTC.
She probably DOES know it. I went to the boss after she screamed at a nurse and slammed the phone down, and I told her, "If you do that to the wrong person, you won't be working here any more" and she smarted off to me (I don't remember exactly what she said) and I just hadn't seen anyone else address this behavior directly.

When I talked to our manager, I said, "If she asks if I told on her, you have my permission to tell her yes" and "I'm not telling you this because I want her to get in trouble. On the contrary, I don't want her to get in trouble, and that's why I'm doing this."

In fact, she's thinking about nursing school but is a bit hesitant because she doesn't want to work evenings, weekends, and holidays for the rest of her life, so if she proceeds with this, she might do school nursing, doctor's office, public health, or something along those lines.

A couple weeks ago, she was entering an order into the computer and asked if we processed Fleet's Enemas. We don't, and I said, "If you go into nursing, you will find out all about those!" :lol2:

Yes she will!

And when she is older she will always remember the nurse that took the time to mentor her.

I have had a couple of those and I am so grateful to them! It's so nice to get a hand up rather than a kick in the teeth!

yep, i know it happens...seems more prevalent in "th units". get otta there!

may I recommend a GREAT website for advice on dealing with bullying "BULLYONLINE.ORG"

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