subtly abusive co-workers

[adrienurse]

deleted

[ageless]

just type in:

kickbully.com

best wishes, agelesss

[BarbPick]

this is my favorite serial bully link:

http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/serial.htm

[Rapheal]

Just like you I am having this problem, but with a nurse who always tends to follow me the next shift. It is really hard when you are working your hardest to do the best job that you can and then the subtle questions, criticisms on your decisions. She too has been there for a long time and I think has the expectation that things should be done her way, has a hard time accepting that people do things differently.

Sometimes when she says "You could have done........" I respond with "Ok you can do that." trying to deflect it back onto her. If she wants it done that way - her decision, her responsibility. If the aide wants to do it her way and it's safe, let her do it but do not become a part of it.

If she wants it done her way and you can't allow it, can you just tell her "Well I think this way is best" without defending your decision. If she starts to yell- well that is a confrontation and I would get mgmt. involved. I believe that we all need to work together and talk with each other but when someone is out to make you explain everything your'e doing then they become very draining.

Good luck. I am going to follow this thread and hope to get some good advice from other posters as well.

[BadBird, BSN, RN]

Yelling at you???? That in itself is threatening and you could write her up for that. You definately need to bring your nurse manager and Head of HR in on this. Tell them you feel like you are working in a "hostile work environment" it is their responsibility to curtail that. Do other nurses on your unit feel the same way? Perhaps you could all write up a example to bring to the managers attention.

[Agnus]

It is true she gets her jollies every time you react to her.

Pretend nothing she says or does effects you. It will likely exculate as she will be more determined to get a rise out of you but after a while she will give up.

However, if at any point in this you do give her a reaction and you go back to ignoring her, the next time she will persist even longer and harder to get the reaction. So absolutely do not give her satisfaction if you want to extinguished this.

You can not control her behavior ever. You can choose how you will react to it.

My daugher loves to kill these folks with kindness. It really does kill them.

[kimmicoobug]

There is an aide that I occasionally work with that I conflict with. She thinks that all we nurses do is sit in front of the computers and chart...well, yeah, we work the night shift and that is our job. She recently told me to go toilet a patient belonging to another nurse, as she had been sitting on her butt for an hour. I told her "no, I am busy with my own patients. You are going to have to toilet your own patient and if you have a problem toileting your patient bring it up with the nurse caring for the patient." It just takes everything I have to not bite her head off.