We have a co-worker who is driving us (entire staff) nuts. She is extemely lazy, manipulative, and just plain annoying. It would take me all day to address every problem concerning this nurse, so I'll just try to hit the high spots. First of all, she goes out of her way to get out of work. She goes out to smoke at least 15-20 times in a 12 hour shift, and that's being conservative. She'll ask me all the time "You don't have a problem with me going out to smoke do you?" The thing is, I don't have a problem with her actually going out to smoke, but I don't get a break other than 20 minutes, maybe, for lunch. When she is gone, she usually stays gone for at least 10 minutes, and usually we end up needing her for something, ie, phone, lights, etc. It causes us to have to pick up a lot of slack when she is out. And the next thing is, if she did her job, maybe 3 breaks per shift would be in order. But she does not do her job. She constantly needs to be reminded to do simple things. The other day I had to remind her to discharge a patient that was waiting on HER so that she could go home. She had been waiting over an hour while this nurse was piddling around, not to mention she took 2 smoke breaks within the hour. We get very, very busy because we are so short staffed. I try to delegate very easy tasks to her when I am swamped and have no choice. I asked her to go and put a binder on a patient the other day and she had the nerve to tell me that the patient wanted me to do it. She had not even been in the room so I knew she was lying. One of our nurses was sick the other day and called to find out what the next day was going to be like since she was scheduled to work. When she found out it was going to be busy, she said she would just come on in. The "problem" nurse was talking to her on the phone and kept telling her that she needed to stay at home, and she assured her that she would work for her if needed. As soon as she hung the phone up, she told me that she was not working the next day, she would not be at home if the phone rang. :angryfire This made me irrate and I said "Why did you tell her that you would work then?" This woman is rude to the patients and to the patient's visitors. Her teenage kids call the unit constantly and it is very distracting to have to take time out from what we're doing and go and find her to take a nonsense phone call. They also visit her on the unit at least 1-2 times in a 12 hour shift. So the other day, our phone starts ringing constantly as it always does (we don't have a unit secretary.) She makes the statement "We're going to have to tell these people we can't have all of these phone calls, we're busy." I responded to her that I wouldn't be telling anyone anything of the sort. It is not my business how many phone calls my patients receive. Later that same day, her kids start calling non-stop over ridiculous issues that we have to hear every last detail about, and of course, takes her away from the work at hand. There have been numerous complaints about how rough she is with the babies. And just a few weeks ago, a patient complained that this nurse told her she would probably be too tired to care for her infant in the nursery that night, being that she was a day shift nurse and she was working nights that night because we were short staffed. Her main job is the nursery while she is there, and ALL of the on-coming nurses dread following her because the nursery is ALWAYS left in disarray after she has worked. She leaves things undone for the next shift to do (hearing screens, baths, PKU's) because she is "so busy" although none of us can figure out exactly what it is she does. The other day, I caught her sleeping while the rest of us were running our asses off. She told me that one of the other RN's would be making her work if she were there. This comment was a wake up call to me. I realized that I had been allowing her to take advantage of me, and had fallen prey to her manipulative ways. For the past few months, I have felt sorry for this woman, because she is so hated by the rest of the staff. I have tried my best to be kind to her because I am one of those people that looks out for the underdog. I have heard all of the talk from other nurses about how this nurse operates, but chose to form my own opinion. Well, it seems that she has taken advantage of my kindness, and I have seen her deviant behavior firsthand on more than one occasion. I don't want to put up with this crap anymore, and would love some tips at handling this person. I'm afraid I'm not a very aggressive, nor assertive person when it comes to something like this. But I'm tired. My co-workers are tired as well. I don't understand why our manager puts up with her. She too voices her disgust with this nurse and often schedules her days opposite of her so that she doesn't have to deal with it. Any pointers with this type of personality would be greatly appreciated.
Later that same day, her kids start calling non-stop over ridiculous issues that we have to hear every last detail about, and of course, takes her away from the work at hand. There have been numerous complaints about how rough she is with the babies. And just a few weeks ago, a patient complained that this nurse told her she would probably be too tired to care for her infant in the nursery that night, being that she was a day shift nurse and she was working nights that night because we were short staffed. Her main job is the nursery while she is there, and ALL of the on-coming nurses dread following her because the nursery is ALWAYS left in disarray after she has worked. She leaves things undone for the next shift to do (hearing screens, baths, PKU's) because she is "so busy" although none of us can figure out exactly what it is she does. The other day, I caught her sleeping while the rest of us were running our asses off. She told me that one of the other RN's would be making her work if she were there. This comment was a wake up call to me. I realized that I had been allowing her to take advantage of me, and had fallen prey to her manipulative ways. For the past few months, I have felt sorry for this woman, because she is so hated by the rest of the staff. I have tried my best to be kind to her because I am one of those people that looks out for the underdog. I have heard all of the talk from other nurses about how this nurse operates, but chose to form my own opinion. Well, it seems that she has taken advantage of my kindness, and I have seen her deviant behavior firsthand on more than one occasion. I don't want to put up with this crap anymore, and would love some tips at handling this person. I'm afraid I'm not a very aggressive, nor assertive person when it comes to something like this. But I'm tired. My co-workers are tired as well. I don't understand why our manager puts up with her. She too voices her disgust with this nurse and often schedules her days opposite of her so that she doesn't have to deal with it. Any pointers with this type of personality would be greatly appreciated.