Unfair orientation discipline?

[RosieD]

Hi all- I need some advice.

I recently got a job at a hospital that I wanted to work at VERY MUCH, and got placed on the step-down unit I requested. I was assigned to a preceptor who did a good job teaching, and things were going well. I was told that I was doing a good job and I felt comfortable with my progression.

I was moved around between several different preceptors over the next 4 weeks due to staffing issues. On the last day I worked there, I was assigned to a preceptor I had not worked with before. She was telling me what to do every 30 seconds, and telling me to drop what I was doing to do something else before I had any time to finish it (and this is not because I'm new and slow, nobody would have had time to do it :)). This went on all day, and was quite distressing.

I made several attempts to fix it, very politely letting her know that her constant direction was making it difficult for me to organize my work- and I promise this was not just an issue of her trying to teach me priorities or being extra vigilant with a new person.

8 hours later, I was not so chipper. I was frustrated and I'm sure that frustration was showing some in my behavior- never in front of a patient of course, but I don't think I was being perfectly sunny with her. I had a very difficult time getting things done in a timely manner ALL DAY because of the constant interruptions.

Long story short, I was called into a meeting with supervisors and told I was doing a bad job by my manager- He said I would still be an employee but would be moved to another floor. I was devastated, and pointed out that I had received good feedback until now- He told me I must have not been listening. Seriously.

I understand that if you burn bridges in an area, whether it's your fault or not, it might be wise to cut your losses and move to another unit. And, maybe I wasn't meant to be in that area anyways. So, I am trying to forgive, forget, move on, and make a new start. That's all going good. Well, good-ish.

So. I had to make an appointment with a higher-up, who had not met me and who had a list of "issues" printed up from my unit. This list included a few things I could work on, but mostly was out-of-context ridiculousness. She had not actually spoken to anyone from my unit, she had just received this memo, and from it she seemed to have come to the conclusion that I was a very serious problem and maybe should be discharged. Wow.

We talked, I was positive, admitted to having some failings in my communication skills that day (we all do sometimes of course), and detailed some ways I could work on that. I felt like I couldn't defend myself- anything I argued would be further proof to her that I was a poor team player who wouldn't accept responsibility.

So. Then there was another meeting with someone who was supposed to be an advocate for me, and that went well, and he really did support me, but we all still were in agreement that I should move to another unit. However, I need to write a detention-type essay about everything I did wrong, how it negatively impacted my unit's teamwork, and all the things I would do to improve myself if I were to be kept on. I also am required to write apologies to all my preceptors for my bad behavior to "tie up loose ends and bring closure to relationships".

I do not owe apologies to my preceptors. Two of them were totally uninvolved, and I had apologized to that ill-behaved preceptor on the day in question several times, and tried to fix the working situation. Anything to make it better. I don't think the DON understands the situation fully, but I don't feel like I am in a position to argue.

I was EXTREMELY careful and tactful when explaining that I felt, while I would love to work on some of my own problems with a new preceptor, I felt like maybe the situation had been blown out of proportion. I delicately pointed out that although the preceptor had the impression that I was a bad, obnoxious person, I was not actually so. I admitted that it is definitely possible I gave her the wrong impression of me, and that I would examine myself and work on my communication style. My advocate agreed that it was most likely exaggerated and that the preceptor had got me wrong, but that doesn't change what I have to do.

So, here's the question, finally- I understand that sometimes unfair things happen and you have to suck it up, and maybe later I will find that it's all for the best. BUT, I don't want this to go on my record as a huge blemish, nor do I want any new manager/ preceptor I have to think I am a bad egg. I was doing okay with the forgiveness and moving on until I was required to detail all my failings in these notes. I am being asked to admit to being a bad team player, which I have NOT proven to be (this was not a large enough inquiry to ask people for GOOD things about me, apparently). If I don't take responsibility, I won't be doing what they ask, and if I do I'll be bad-mouthing myself on paper and in effect agreeing with their view of things. Even though many nurses had good things to say about me, my supervisor is only focusing on the bad, and making it sound like it was a pattern of terrible behavior, and not just the last day.

I don't know what to do. I do NOT want to go to another hospital, I am HAPPY at this one. I already have agreed to go to a different unit (if they decide to keep me, which I guess is all but certain), but I just don't know how to go about fullfilling their requirements without admitting to problems that I don't have- they want some serious details! I am going to write the stuff, I need to keep my job, and I want to work for this company- but how do I do it without damaging myself, and how do I forgive and move on?

Thanks!

-Rose

[missjennmb]

Just from reading this thread, it seems more that people were suggesting that you be honest and up front about how you feel, as opposed to lying about an incident both in person and in writing, because its what you think they want to hear.

I don't think its going to be a deal breaker, but I don't think I'd be comfortable putting something in writing that I did not feel was true either. As others have said, fairly or not, it looks like, at this point, you are going to have that mark on your record and all you can do is hope that potential supervisory personnel just chalk it up to new grad jitters.

[Mulan]

Please keep us updated on what happens.

Good luck to you.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

I would be very interested in knowing whether Rosie is still at this hospital in six months, or one year. And what her standing is in her unit, or how many transfers have taken place.

Best of luck to you.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Day, not all managers have your moral/ethical standards....yes persons are fired for no particular reason, and yes they are bad mouthed to prospective employers.....that letter in your file isnt even going to come up at a private function when one manager asks another "you know so and so "? should i hire her?......

I was a manager in both small and large facilities; good and bad ones. I don't know where you have been in management, but I sure didn't know the managers at all the facilities around town. In fact, I didn't know any of the other working managers at other facilities unless I had worked at them. But I worked with enough human resource people to know that only a fool of a manager or supervisor would ever bad mouth a former worker who asked for a reference. They open themselves up to a lawsuit. The only person I knew that had that good of a relationship that she could pick up a phone and talk turkey with people was a nurse recruiter and it was with a handful of nursing instructors in various nursing programs around town. I suspect she knew them from her time as a staff nurse when she worked on the floors. Even so, all she ever got in most cases was positive information. I had to laugh sometimes because she would put on this big act and say, "Let me ask the instructor over there and see what she has to say about [the new grad applicant we were discussing]". The instructor would only tell her positive qualities of the student. Even the instructors wouldn't tell us who their worst students were! It was up to us to figure it out in our interviews with them.

References are highly subjective. You merely focus on positive qualities and say nothing about the negative ones. Intelligent people can read between the lines and figure out what isn't being said. I sat in enough hiring conferences where final hiring decisions were made to know that.

We managers and supervisors were all told to never take a call for a reference but to refer the caller to the human resource department. Now staff workers may not know this and make this serious error. But then, it also calls into question the ethics of the person gathering the information and why they would knowingly talk to an unauthorized person for a reference. If we wanted to provide someone with a reference it had to be a personal reference and we had to give the employee our home address and phone number to use.

You also need to realize that people taking job applications need to be practicing some ethics as well. They need to get the applicant's permission first before making any inquiries of former bosses and they must specify who they want to call. If someone is applying for a job and the person verifying information on the application is making phone calls without the applicants permission to former supervisors and bosses that the applicant did not authorize them to talk to in order to get the "real" information, that is underhanded and doesn't say much about their ethics. It's dishonest. If they lie about that, what else are they lying about? I wouldn't want to be working for them! Why jump from one frying pan of trouble into another?

As I said, you can restrict the information your former employers give out about you. If you don't believe me, try calling, or have a friend call, a previous employer and pump them for some dirt on yourself and see how far you get. If it's a hospital you're going to get transferred to human resources and unless you provide a social security number and probably give them the dates of employment they will politely cut you off. They might even give you the third degree and try to find out just who you are.

[at sea]

Good response! I feel horrible for that girl! And I wouldn't put up with it! I have my own issues to put up with.

Which brings me to my question. Your husband is an Occupational Psychologist? That is really cool! Can you tell me about that, if you don't mind?!

I'm a nurse, desperately hanging on by a thread because I've never done anything else. (I'm usually posted in the "nurses with mental illness" threads). So, I was wondering what you, and he think about all these nurses - and apparently there are a lot of them - putting up with managers, co-workers, prying into your business and adding additional pressures to nurses who suffer with depression/anxiety/bipolar disorder, etc. It seems to me that there MUST be an answer (solution) for this type of behavior; harrassment when all of us nurses are professionals being treated far less than! What do you think?

[MrsMommaRN]

i am so sorry about your orientation experience. don't be so hard on yourself. it is very hard to function with someone breathing down your neck (literally). it gives you no time to think and react on your own, then on top of that you have someone that is going to criticize instead of teach.

the sad thing is some nurses forget what it is like to be in a new atomosphere where you are unsure how things are done.

please please understand you did the best job you knew how to do.

hugs.