Bad Managers

BBFRN, BSN, PhD · Jan 13, 2009

I agree with CathyLew.
Having been moved from staff to management in the same hospital, I can attest to the lack of managerial training, mentoring and support that most new managers experience.
I busted my butt to keep up on the things that were necessary to the functioning of the unit (schedule, evals, staff meetings, education, P&P, etc.) none of which my supervisors gave a darn about. All they wanted was my warm body at numerous meaningless meetings, my signature on disciplinary actions and my budgets, which I was never trained to do. I worked 8 hours per day in the unit and then stayed another 4 hours to get the paperwork done, on most days. Salaried, of course, so not a dime of OT.
My staff was supportive, for the most part, because they saw that I was working hard. It was a thankless job, one I did not keep for long.
Nurses aspire to management because there are so few opportunities for daytime hours in nursing. But very few nurses have the education and experience necessary to be successful managers, a skill set vastly different than bedside nursing.

OMG- did we work in management together at the same place? :chuckle

Seriously though- I agree with you wholeheartedly. The nurse-is-a-nurse mentality carries over to nursing management as well. I got more perks when I went back to the bedside in the same facility.

loricatus · Jan 13, 2009

Anyone have a manager who just isn't all that good at managing?
Some examples?
We have one who never posts the schedule more than a day or two before it starts, doesn't give a thorough orientation, doesn't answer our questions, and lies or tells half-truths.
Yet, she's the manager and we're not. Hmmm, what does that mean?

Think I may just have a worse manager than you. Can't get into specifics; but, you will have to trust me that she is the worst I have ever seen, in and out of nursing.

At least you get your schedule a day or two before it starts-still haven't gotten January's and have to go on a day to day basis of calling the manager on her cell phone (rarely know where she is during my shift) to see is I am scheduled the next day. This went on till mid December last month-all I remember is that I kept saying that I WILL get Christmas Eve off and found out about a week before the day I needed off that I actually was.

This one does not even know basic nursing and runs whenever anything looks like she may be needed. Her lifeline are a few favorites that call her with made up complaints about other staff throughout the shift. When arriving for the next shift, we will get a note with a new policy that relates to the gossip her favorites gave her. But she is a primo butt kisser to the higher ups and that is how this incompetent keeps her job. Sad, isn't it?

Magsulfate, BSN, RN · Jan 13, 2009

Management at my new place of employment has just shifted. For some reason the manager that hired me is no longer there and there is a wonderful person replacing him. She really is getting the job done, and doing it the right way the first time! I am looking forward to working with her.

I had the opportunity to work under one of my best friends from HS. She was a great manager. Not just because I had been friends with her, but because at work she was my manager. We did not hang out, go out together and all that. We had an open liine of communication, but she had that with all of her nurses. She was young, like me, but she really shined bright. She is now a much bigger deal.. a big shot in a big hospital... and it is because she is such a great manager. However, I saw how she was pulled in so many directions, trying to keep her nurses happy and trying to keep administration happy at the same time. It really stressed her out. She had to leave the hospital she had been at for YEARS just to enrich her career. Administration thought she was too young and always seen her as the little girl they hired.

I can also give good examples of bad management from my last job. OH my oh my,, that manager was the biggest maggot ever! He had his homeys, (nurses in our unit) that he would go clubbing with every weekend. When they came back into work monday, they'd all gather around and talk about the crazy stuff that they did, while they were drunk. Then of course, there was the favoratism. OF course he had to show them that, why else would they be his friend? He would pick a nurse, and if she made him mad, or mad him look bad to adm then he would pick on her until she quit or got fired. He did this many many times. I even seen him scheming to retaliate against a nurse that already quit. That really scared me. So, when I got yelled at by him, I told myself right then and there that I was never coming back to that place. And I didn't.

I am so glad I got away from that.