Staff acting like mean girls what do you do

Unfortunately, you are going to come across this a lot. You need to have a thick skin and let their cliquish ways roll off your back. Shrug it off. Eventually, they will see that they have no effect on you. You're there to do a job, not make friends anyway. And yes, it is nicer when you have pleasant coworkers...but it's not always in the cards. Just be you, a competant and capable nurse.

Or, you can go the other route and plow them with doughnuts whenever possible. For some reason...nurses are nicer when there are doughnuts around.

Good luck!

I would be polite and friendly with them and if they choose to act like teenagers do not make it YOUR problem. You say that many of the staff are tight, this implies that there are other staff who aren't in the 'in crowd'. Perhaps they are worth being friendly with?

As for talking behind one's back, unless it's work related and could potentially be damanging to your career why waste your energy confronting them? If it's not about work and about your personally, does it really matter what a bunch of immature people with nothing better to do than gossip have to say about you?

I could have posted this exact same thing... I'm a new CNA and working in a LTC facility. I've worked my behind off and have had no complaints about my work until today. I'm older than many of the CNA's (36, want to go to nursing school, this is a second career), and frankly, they are not people I'd really hang with, socially. I had one girl rip me a new one today (she's basically a bully, picks on all the new people, but gives no constructive criticism or real help). I think it actually could affect *my* work, since all the CNA's need to work together at our place-she's sort of toxic, and I think has a big influence on many of the CNAs. I'm afraid our DON will think I'm just some sort of troublemaker, as I am new, and she "knows" the other CNA's better because they have been there for much longer. I'm tempted to quit... I don't need this job, honestly. But I don't want to burn bridges either. (I did confront this girl, and she was kind of speechless)

I would be polite and professional, do my job well, assume that they're going to talk about me behind my back anyways, and if it became intolerable, find someplace else to work.

Nasty people are gonna be nasty no matter how "nice" you are to them.

Most of the time.

Sounds like the ward whr I wk currently. It's either back up the bully or be bullied and never forget that no matter how nice they are to your face you've heard them about other ppl and you're other ppl too.

I was having issues with my Ward Manager (renouned for bullying) so I put in the effort to say hi every time I saw her (previously I'd just tried to stay under the radar hoping to stay out of it that way) and once in a while I pretend to ask for her opinion or advice to boost her esteem (think carefully abt what you want advice in and know the answer really well already so you don't look dumb for hvg to ask).

After her comes the head Clinical Nurse for the ward who hates the Ward Manager (as appears everyone on my ward does). She picks on the more gentle (not so loud/staunch) male nurses and puts in complaints abt them all the time. Everyone joins her for a ***** session, if you don't join in you'll get bullied too. I try to leave the room and attend to patients if I see it coming as I don't want to be involved but this isn't always possible. This CN, one can't afford to be on the bad side of, so I'm polite and I laugh at most of her jokes (when they're not racist or cruel to pts) and I just respect her work. I keep quiet about myself (no one really wants to know abt anyone else anyway) and it seems to work.

Does that help? My best advice, from previous experience is, if they start being nice to you don't forget how awful they were and don't trust them too much because you already know the potential they have to mistreat ppl including you.

One of the units I worked on in my grad year had a very similar problem to what you described and had a bad reputation throughout the hospital. There were about 8 nurses in this group, 3 of them were the more troublesome ones who strongly influenced the other five in their gossiping, skivving off etc. Eventually management stepped in. What they did was make sure that the problematic nurses were not put on the same shift, in particular the three ringleaders. I think 2 of them were actually sent to other departments because they kept trying to start trouble.

My advice...is not YOUR problem, is the department problem, to assign you to a good one. I had in my experinece people who was send for orientation to wrong mentors. I was a lucky one because from couple of bad ones I had a couple of AWESOME ones, never I could say much more thanks to them! But if you have bad ones instead to receive a GOOD NURSING orientation, you will receive, bad advices and bad negative attitude to fallow from the beginning, you will be fulfill with them unhapiness and negative fellings and you will belive..."OH my God i am in heal" loooooool

Entering in a new field, you need to grow up straight, good optimistic, to fallow the rules, to develope your potential and to have trust in your decisions. Instead of that new grads, new nurses growup twisted with falses hopes and false goals, false trusting, teached from beginning how to cut corners and to be rebels in the name of "how good and independent nurse I am".

Go to education department, tell them what you want to have!
Don't stay along with people like them, even if you don't want.... step by step them behavior will change you and finally you will be like them.

Be logical, listen asking in a good way, take advices, you will be a great nurse, ask for help, for sure is around a good one!

Have a good luck, stay positive!

Here's an old post of a great essay that I read to get my spirits up when I'm feeling bogged down by the cliques. The essay and the link itself are rife with words that I took time to censor, and I'm too lazy to to that again. I just wish everyone had the mindset of, "You don't have to like each other, but you darned well better work with each other," but that hasn't caught on.

I'm the type who just minds her own business and really doesn't talk to others unless it pertains to work. This is a double edged sword. On one hand, I stay clear of a lot of drama. On the other hand, it still finds me sometimes and I'm out of the loop and thus unprepared. Take my first nursing job for example. A CNA didn't like me because I reported her for neglecting her patients to talk on her cell phone. She retaliated by telling corporate management that I had grabbed her breasts, and told all the black staff that I was racist. I quit before I was fired, under the whispered advice of my nurse manager. Face it, once you're hit with allegations of racism and sexual harassment, you're done. Being the island that I was, I had assumed that the CNA was "popular" and had influence, and that I was disliked in the work circles. When I went back to turn in my badge, I found out how incredibly wrong I was. It turns out that many people had a problem with her and had a nice stack of write-ups. In fact, one coworker came up to me and told me, "Why didn't you tell me that she was doing this? She's sent so many racist jokes and text messages, and I've seen her do plenty of stuff worse that she's accused you of doing! I would have backed you up by showing them this and insisted on your innocence!" This coworker also later told me that a lot of people thought highly of me and were sad to see me go. If I had been more in the loop, I might have had a chance at keeping that job. Oh, that CNA was later fired for getting in a fight with another CNA, the classy broad.

My point is that yes, this is a bad situation, and that the common advice is to take the high road. However, you are not an island. Stuff like my situation happens, and the workplace confidentiality policy can actually be detrimental when management gets involved, as other perspectives are often not considered. My advice is to stay busy or at least look busy while keeping your ears open. Form alliances, not friendships. Go through the motions of basic social interactions such as greeting them, "Good morning." I used to avoid taking about people like the plague because I saw it all as gossip. However, I learned that there is a difference betweek malicious, empty gossip and social awareness. It's important to know if someone is trouble, or that a saboteur/saboteuse is throwing stones at you from their glass houses. It's a part of covering your butt and learning how to play the workplace game. I absolutely don't condone tattletaling, but people can be vicious and you need to cover your butt using whatever you can sometimes.

Good luck!