Charge nurse hates me? and overall nasty attitude of coworkers

wooh, BSN, RN · Feb 15, 2014

She's not charge all the time. Some days are going to be challenging. Honestly, there's always going to be someone you'd rather not be in charge for some reason or other. One charge always gives me a RIDICULOUS assignment. Rather than worrying about it, I just take it as a day where I remind myself that I can do anything for 12 hours. You can't change the charge nurse. You can label her a bully or a hater or whatever, but it's not going to change the shift. So see she's in charge, and decide to make the day a "challenge" instead of a "living hell." Ask for help if you need it. I like people's suggestions when it's time to go to tell her the situation and ask for her advice.

It would be great if all charge nurses were great. They aren't. People saying to leave are crazy, because if you otherwise like the job, you're likely not going to find a place where there isn't at least one charge that's less than ideal. It really is all how you approach the day. Choose to approach it as a challenge rather than a hell.

Mandychelle79, ASN, RN · Feb 15, 2014

The times when I have experienced issues like this I went to my manager and asked if I ticked someone off and didn't know about it? Well I didn't use tick :) when she said no and asked why I just said well the other day I.... And laid out what happened in a factual matter.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 15, 2014

I just need some serious input here (and please no rude comments, I've seen enough of nurses jumping all over each other on this website).
First off let me say this, I am most definitely NOT a mean person, at all. If anything I'm probably too nice. I am a hard worker and while I am a new nurse (8 months in), I'm sure I have plenty of flaws but I do everything to the best of my ability and try not to leave anything unfinished. With that being said, let me get to the story.....
There is one particular charge nurse who I feel just hates me. Everyday I work that she's there I have a horrible day, can't keep up to save my life, I have the worst group of pts, endless new admissions, etc.....when the other charge nurses are working I don't have this issue.

You may not realize this, but usually the charge nurse from the previous shift makes the assignments, and during charge nurse report their is usually a brief exchange of ideas about where the first admit should be put and which nurse should take them.

**What is the policy where you work if they send a nurse home early??? for example, do they have a certain amount of time to finish up their work before they leave?***
Once before my name was in the drawing to go home and I "won". I had a few meds due and I didn't wanna leave my coworkers with anything more to do than I had to so I gave out my meds first (I had seen plenty other nurses do this before so I figured it was custom to tie all loose ends before you go). Well it took me about 40 minutes or so to finish my charting, give a few meds and give report to the nurses getting my pts. She blew up on me and said from now on if I have anything to do to let her know and she won't put my name in the drawing.
Well today I was picked to go home. All meds were given PRIOR to the drawing and I was ready to go except within the last hour an order was entered for a catheter on a pt. After I found out I was leaving I figured, no problem that never takes long I will do that before I go. Well I tell my charge nurse that I'm all caught up and ready, just going to do the catheter before I go. She tells me no, I need to go immediately and to get the other nurse to do it. Well I guess the nurse wasn't too happy about that so she complained to the charge nurse....who then proceeded to let me know that if I had anything to do I didn't need to have my name in the drawing. (let me just point out that there is ALWAYS always something to do, every nurse that's sent home early gives meds that were due or starts IVs before they go, etc...just anything they needed to finish before they left) and it seems I'm the only one she jumps on for doing this. I could have easily put in the catheter before I left and have it done in plenty of time, without making the other nurse mad at me and leaving her with it.
Not only that but 15 minutes or so after I left she called me and told me I left out something with my charting and it's against policy and blah blah blah and I have to come back and chart. I ALWAYS chart everything....everything. I checked over and over to make sure nothing was left out so it was an honest mistake. Its something that I've seen many nurses forget to do before and I've never known of them being called in to finish it. I don't wanna go into too much detail to give myself away but does this sound right to anyone? Several of the nurses I had to give pts to were talking about me with each other (some others I work with heard), I just feel like there's been alot of unnecessary meaness going on.......

I haven't seen anything that indicates your charge nurse actually hates you. You don't know what she's saying to other nurses behind closed doors, so she may actually be giving them a hard time about the same issues.

Thirty to forty minutes seems like a reasonable timeframe to be out the door when given time off, but to be sure, ask another charge nurse whose opinion you trust whether there is any written policy about the procedure in these cases. If there isn't one, perhaps there should be. It sounds like a good project to me.

As far as other nurses talking about you -- that's not necessarily mean. It's natural for them to talk about the new girl. Is it possible that you're making much ado about nothing?

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 15, 2014

Be that as it may, OP, it's not appropriate for you to have seven and a bunch of other nurses have 5. You should have had 6 and someone else 6, but frankly it would have been more appropriate for the charge to given those two to someone who either didn't have admits or discharges or hadn't already had to pick up additional.

It depends upon the acuity of the patients. If the OP had 8 easy patients and someone else had five, 1 or 2 of whom were circling the drain, that would be fair. You cannot make blanket statements about numbers without considering acuity.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Feb 15, 2014

In this case, I'm going to choose to take the OP's statements as truth. And it makes me angry.

OP, I'm not angry for you (forgive me), I'm angry for your patients. Twelve patients in a shift, with discharges, transfers, direct admits, and straight-up admissions is RIDICULOUS!!! No patient is getting the care they deserve from a nurse who must spend all her time during a shift at the computer. Not a single one of them. That charge's actions are unconscionable. Simply unconscionable.

ETA: People are saying to advocate for yourself. I agree because what you are really doing, in this case, is advocating for your patients. They deserve to have a nurse take care of THEM, not their paperwork.

Tooimpatient · Feb 22, 2014

Just wanted to update everyone. I had a talk with my manager about the situation and she insisted on speaking with the charge nurse when she worked again. I'm assuming they spoke because the charge nurse has been much more friendly and helpful thus far (which we have only worked together one day since then). Rather than make me feel stupid about any questions I have, she actually gave me some great info on something and explained to me how it works....let's hope things stay good!

HappyWife77, BSN, RN · Feb 22, 2014

Great to hear!

T.H.R.N. · Feb 26, 2014

YAY!!!!!!

LPNMary · Mar 3, 2014

I forgot who penned this tidbit:

"Working with coworkers you don't like in a civil fashion while remaining at an emotional distance is called professionalism. Such a demeanor is infinitely superior to the phony pretense of friendship that has been substituted".