Attention nurse bullies... and victims!!

KezrockRN29 · Oct 20, 2016

These people have gotten away with bullying so many nurses and screwing with their livelihood yet it is allowed to continue with every nurse that steps into that plant. They need to be exposed for the bullys they are. No ONE should have to feel afraid to go to work or feel the way I felt NO ONE.

TriciaJ, RN · Oct 20, 2016

Hah!!! "Weak Leadership" "Why wasn't it addressed definitively?" EXCELLENT QUESTION!!!
At our facility, the Nurse Manager of our Outpatient Clinic had a horrible reputation as a blatant bully for years, even from her days as a Charge Nurse on the floor of the hospital. My first encounter with her was on an evening shift in the ER and we were trying to move several admitted patients upstairs. I had to pick up some meds at the 7th floor Pharmacy and the ER Charge asked me to check the 5th floor on my way back, so she could call the Housekeeping Supervisor and expedite some rooms to be cleaned for our patients. As I approached the desk, I greeted the staff, and told them we were going to get them some help in getting their rooms ready. The Bully loudly admonished me in front of the staff, telling me I had no business being on their floor, and threatened to summon the Hospital Police to arrest me for trespassing if I took one more step in any direction but out. I'm very proud of the fact that I didn't laugh in her face, but I did turn around and return to the ER where I shared my encounter with my colleagues who chimed in with their own experiences of her bullying behavior.
Some years later, due to a natural disaster, our facility was destroyed and we had no more hospital. To my absolute dismay, the remnants of our staff were selected to provide care in several Outpatient Clinics. Horror of horrors, The Bully was now my direct supervisor as the Nurse Manager of the clinic. Every single employee, whether they were an RN, LPN, CNA, or even a clerk or housekeeper, cringed at the thought of having to deal with this woman on a daily basis for who knows how many years to come.
Her bullying was primarily in the manner she spoke to you.....in a tone and manner that one would address a disobedient child. Then there were the write-ups. She would call staff privately into her office (no witnesses!) and ambush them with a disciplinary action. Within moments of taking a seat, and not knowing why you've been summoned, she shoves a fully written reprimand of some sort across the desk, and says, "You need to sign this, or you're being suspended immediately!" The write-up could have been something that was charted WEEKS ago, and she discovered it during her review of your notes. You're now in a position that you have to sign the document before you can leave her office, and then have to go back in the patient's chart to see what may have been the issue, and then start the appeal process, which can take several more weeks. During that time, she can pull out any number of other issues and just keep piling it on to wear you out.
The Bully also seems to operate in a cycle, meaning that she focuses on one or two staff for a period of time, and then rotates off to someone else. This way, the entire staff is always kept on edge, wondering whose turn it is next. So, when "your turn" rolls around, you can at least take comfort in knowing that she'll be moving on to someone else in due time after she feels that you have been sufficiently terrorized.
One of our male LPNs was one of her favorite targets, possibly because he was homosexual, or that he was highly emotional and dramatic, or simply that he was such easy prey and she could reduce him to sobbing to the point where he couldn't function and had to go home sick for several days. After one of the episodes, where, even though the door was closed, we could hear their raised voices, and his anguished scream for her to "Please Just STOP!!!" She stormed out of his room, and he was curled on the floor sobbing. He left that day and never returned. Several weeks later, he killed himself.
Many of our staff successfully transferred to other clinics or just quit, or retired. Many staff, including myself, filed EEO complaints against her for the incessant bullying. I'll never forget my Arbitration Hearing where the EEO person told me that they were quite familiar with The Bully, but so far, nothing had been done, because in the course of their investigation, they found that she DID NOT DISCRIMINATE, and was EQUALLY abusive and abrasive to ALL the staff.....????!!!!!!
The stress of that environment sent me to the ER twice on the job with chest pains and palpitations, thankfully with no permanent damage. Another of my colleagues was not so fortunate. We'd had MANY conversations, sharing our frustrations of filing grievances with the employee's union and we both had filed EEO complaints against The Bully. He remarked more than once that the stress was going to kill him. After his fatal heart attack, I'm definitely convinced that it did.
The Bully did finally make good on her threat to me of calling the Hospital Police one day. It was in the last 15 minutes of my shift, and my nephew picked up my children from school, ages 12, 11, and 9. He dropped them off to me on his way to work, and I had them sitting quietly in my office with the door closed while I finished my charting. The Bully burst into my office, eyed my children playing their Game Boys, and yelled at me in front of my kids. "You aren't allowed to have your children accompany you to work!" I tried to explain that they only got dropped off a few minutes ago and were riding home with me. She stormed out, shouting, 'I'm calling the police!" My children were terrified, and started crying. Moments later, two Hospital Police Officers, armed and in uniform, came into my office, ordered me to shut down my computer, and escorted me and my children out of the building as they sobbed, begging the policemen to not take them to jail. All this from a woman who is routinely seen entertaining her own children in her office at various times of the day during work hours.
There was a movie a few years ago, "Horrible Bosses". They had a scene in there that gripped me by the throat. One of the lead characters had just been royally screwed by his boss, played by Kevin Spacey. The guy snapped, and snatched Kevin Spacey by the necktie, dragging him through the office while everyone cheered, and he threw him out the window of their office building. Of course, it turned out that it was only what he'd been THINKING of doing. MY thoughts were that the script writers were reading my mind!
My ordeals with The Bully ended after another hospitalization and extended recovery, during which she made every attempt (lying, fabricating, etc.) to have me dismissed or forced into retirement. All the while, I had three EEO complaints against her running simultaneously. At the Arbitration Hearing, they lumped all 3 into a single event and a deal was struck where I would finally be granted a transfer away from her; my disciplinary record would be cleared, and BEST of all, that no matter where I would be assigned in the future within the organization, The Bully would NEVER again be my direct reporting supervisor throughout the duration of my employment.
The employee's union continues to receive complaints, and to this day, The Bully remains in her position, and her subordinates continue to suffer her verbal abuse and administrative punishments. My children still vividly remember the incident with the Hospital Police, and they're now 18, 17 and 15. I haven't been back in the hospital or had any chest pains or sleepless nights since escaping with my life from that insufferable, suffocating environment. I do feel bad for my colleagues I left behind, and offer moral support whenever they reach out to me. I pray that one day, one of them doesn't snap and we all find out if The Bully can fly without her broom. God be with them all, and I especially do mean The Bully, because HE is the only one who can save her from herself.

This sounds like a case of NO leadership. To whom did she report? And what did she have on that person?

Ruby Vee, BSN · Oct 20, 2016

I don't think if anyone puts up their personal information on this board that they care who knows where their issues took place. And it is a warning to others looking for work. Just my opinion.

The poster has given enough information to be recognized in real life and to get herself into trouble if recognized. That's a very real possibility.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Oct 20, 2016

My experience on bullying both as a recipient when I was new and now as an observer on the side is that on my ward the bullies identify themselves as fiercely protective of our patients.
The culture of my ward is set that our patients have always received top notch intelligent, timely and life saving care and if you as a new grad can't make the cut and demonstrate that you make sharp observations and can critically think, you will be hounded (watched very closely and questioned) because you aren't trusted to keep the patients safe. Students/new grads that can demonstrate that if they aren't sure if something they will ask someone is trusted to work on our ward and not expected to know everything. Is it extreme? Oh yeah. Our ward DOES get recognized for above average care and good numbers in quality audits, but we are also known as one of the worst for 'eating the Young' and other wards, like PACU and other hospitals sending us patients, know as as the overly aggressive report takers because we ask lots of specific questions.
My own experience with being bullied is that I didn't recognize an anti seizure medication by its official name since we all call it by trade name on the floor. When I told the nurse orienting me that I needed to look it up before I gave it she said "really!?!? You've been a student and new grad on this ward for HOW long and you need to look it up!??" When I did and saw that it was a drug I had given regularly and new the side effects and risks for and said "oh! It's Tegretol" she stopped staring at me like I was the dumbest thing and carried on with her lesson (which was actually an excellent one that I still use today about nursing like a waitress. Never enter or exit a room empty handed)

The experience you describe as being "bullied" is nothing of the sort. It was an interaction with a preceptor in which you were quizzed about a drug you should have known. It may have been unpleasant for you, but it was not bullying.

Closely watching students and new grads to ensure the safety of the patient is not bullying either.

RN4vets · Oct 20, 2016

This sounds like a case of NO leadership. To whom did she report? And what did she have on that person?

The unfortunate answer is that HER supervisor was exponentially WORSE, and could clear a hallway with the sound of her voice! Within microseconds of her appearance, every living soul would scramble and scurry to find places to hide. My most effective tactic was to hurry up and get one of my patients on the telephone to conduct a lengthy medication reconciliation. I did file an EEO against THAT Bully once, but she abruptly retired before the process reached that stage. Her replacement was not much better and was great friends with The Bully. Both remain in their positions of authority to this day, and it was in fact the replacement person who struck the deal for resolving my EEOs.

1056chris · Oct 20, 2016

I don't know if it was bullying per say, but I have worked with a few problem starting people. One was a CNA who was pulled to our unit on a night when I was in charge. We needed a sitter for a patient. As soon as I walked in the room(happened to be my patient too) she told me when her lunch and breaks would be and told me since she was sitting she wouldn't be doing vital signs or patient care. I said ok. Came in to sit while she took her breaks and lunch. It was the craziest thing, by morning she had bathed the patient and taken vs for day light. She ended up transferring to our floor and was very good at her job. Never saw her exhibit that behavior again.

The second incident did not go so well. I worked in the float pool and on this particular day, I was working on a med/surg floor I had worked often and liked. I had a rough assignment. The CNA had it bad and I helped her as much as I could. We had a lot of complete care patients going for tests and no one would help transfer to and from stretchers. Apparently she had got another nurse on the floor mad on a previous occasion and now they had ganged up and decided no help for her. Ultimately the patient is the one that suffers. They lay on that hard cart, in their incontinence, or with a tray of food next to them that grows cold while the others sat at the desks answering lights on the intercom. I never got to the bottom of this I was so busy, and even after I told my manager it wasn't her unit. She quit a few weeks later. I wished I could have done more.

I wish you luck in resolving issues. I used ti think bullies ended in grade school. Not so, some of these people never grew up.

doodlebuttRN · Oct 20, 2016

I NEVER speak on these "bullying" threads. But Ruby, as always, you have hit the nail on the head. I wish I could quote this post to all of the new (and not-new) nurses I know and work with. As ever, THANK YOU for taking the time to create such an eloquent response on this highly debated topic. I wish I could say this to many of the long-term AN members who take the time out to respond to these types of threads.

I am aware that bullying DOES exist... in nursing, in medicine, in law, in construction, in library science, in child care, in LIFE.

I just want to thank Ruby Vee for her thoughtful response. I know I am not alone. We all just aren't as well-spoken as you are, Ruby.

Most bullies -- and there are a few in nursing -- don't think they are bullies.
I've encountered two bullies in nursing over the past forty years. That's probably about the same as bullies in the general population. I've encountered many, many people who swear they've BEEN bullied, and very few of them can describe incidents that actually rise to the standard of bullying.
A few of the incidents that led to complaints of bullying:
"She won't have lunch with me. She eats with her friends."
"She won't answer any of my questions about her family -- she talks to all the OLD nurses, but not to me." (They met last week.)
"She never says "hello" to me in the morning." (Senior nurse who drives to work wearing her glasses, leaves them in the car and puts her contacts in when she gets to the unit. Said newbie encounters her in the lobby every morning, but has never greeted the senior nurse who can't see well enough without her glasses to recognize the newbie as someone she ought to know."
"They never ask me to go out after work."
"She hates me! She never answers my questions." (Senior nurse who was attempting to foster independence in her almost-off-orientation new grad by getting her into the habit of looking things up.)
Over the years, I've found that often those most concerned about BEING bullied are the ones with bullying tendencies. "My nurse touched a patient without gloves! How do I report her?" (Not "SHOULD I report her?" Not "is that acceptable practice?" Not "I talked to my instructor about it." But HOW do I report her?"). Reporting someone without first attempting to talk to them about it is bully behavior.
Oscar is having a very rough time. His wife of 47 years just died, his son skipped the funeral to steal all the valuables out of his house, and his back is hurting so much he thinks he's going to have to give up his EVS position. Omar, the CNA complains that "Oscar is really nasty these days. He doesn't talk to me at all, and he's muttering to himself when he cleaned up the mess I left on the floor. I told HIM off, though, and now I'm going to tell all of my friends that he dissed me and they should diss him." Who is the bully? Oscar, who is just trying to put one foot in front of the other and get through his day to collect a paycheck? Or Omar who is trying to enlist all of the other CNAs to "diss" Oscar?
Bullies don't think they're bullies. They just think they're "giving back what he gave me" Or "giving them what they deserve."
I've been accused of bullying. I was "guest precepting" and orientee years ago. At the time, my father was dying about a thousand miles from me and my mother was sinking deeper and deeper into Alzheimer's and my sister and I knew that we had to do something, but we weren't sure what to do or how to do it. There may even have been some denial. I was on the phone with my sister, Dad's doctor, Mom's doctor and a social worker several times during the course of that day, and I was ever so grateful that the orientee was almost off orientation and very independent. Later, MY orientee, who was off that day, told me what her friend had been saying. "She was rude to me. She wouldn't talk to me and she was on her phone all day. When she wasn't on the phone, she was going over my charting looking for mistakes. I don't know how you can deal with her, she's such a bully." After my orientee explained the situation, her friend reconsidered "reporting me" for "bullying her."
My colleague Inge has a reputation for being a bully. Inge is bipolar, although usually well controlled. Her husband has heart disease and at the time he was in his sixth month of a CCU stay and was being worked up for a transplant or a VAD. Inge has a teenaged son who has drug problems. She begged not to precept, but there weren't enough preceptors to go around and she got tagged anyway. With all that she had going on in her life, some days she just wasn't a very good teacher. A whole orientation group complained about what a big bully she was -- no one was willing to cut her any slack. You can't just not go to work for six months when you're working to continue the health insurance your family needs. And some problems just cannot be left at home.
Sometimes the "bully" is just someone who is having a really bad day. Or month. Or year.

dec2007 · Oct 20, 2016

Your post sounds racist. There is no need to mention the race of the colleagues that you claim to have bullied you.

Unless race is the REASON they are bullying you!

BeenThere2012, ASN, RN · Oct 21, 2016

A task force? Of course. There's one for everything. A toxic work environment, where people are allowed to run roughshod over one another, is always a function of weak leadership. So instead of managers doing their job and promoting a culture of professionalism, they form a "task force". Doesn't surprise me that there are now bully task forces.
There are morale committees when it's management fostering poor morale. Shared Governance committees that aren't allowed to govern anything. After 35 years, I've been committeed and task forced to death. Hours and dollars wasted accomplishing nothing. Supposed to make people feel like they're part of something.
With a few egregious exceptions (read previous posts) we really don't need to be afraid of our peers. They can't discipline or fire you; they are not in charge of your schedule. A decent manager will not encourage petty tattling, but will want to know about serious performance or patient care issues. If your manager is not running a tight ship, you are going to have workplace issues.
Unless there is a "Hold Management Accountable" task force, you've got nothing.

In principal, I agree with all you said here.

The problem I see is that there are people who do "bully" through the back door by running to management...and yes, a mature

manager would/should investigate for the issues which could be safety related, but many do not.

I once worked in a unit where one nurse, who by the way was an excellent nurse in general, began running to management complaining about several nurses. She had been there many years and was in good standing. She had a very charming and funny personality. Most

liked her a lot (including myself, until....)

For reasons I cannot explain, she began to complain and literally tattle on a few nurses. These nurses did have some issues...One new to the specialty who was not "catching on" quickly, but had amazing abilities and potential. The other, an assistant manager who was in the most important ways an excellent manager, but wasn't the most diplomatic. As time went on, the "tattler" got 2 less experienced up and comers, to join her band wagon.

The first nurse was run off. The assistant manager was demoted to staff nurse, and stayed as she was a few years close to retirement and would loose so much if she resigned at that point.

I felt both were severely "wronged".

1). There was a time when we valued those who made it as far as the first nurse and at least tried to give people like her more time or more specific attention to help build her skills. In my opinion she had traits that were very valuable and she was thrown out with the bath water, if you will.

2). The assistant manager was far better prepared to manage and had high expectations that many were simply too lazy to uphold. When she gave council to them, they took offense instead of trying to do better. She worked her butt off for us defended and stood up for us many many times. She was not given the respect she deserved.

In conclusion, I feel the 3 who complained, lead by the "well-liked" whiner, were bully's in that they effected greatly the work life of 2 very valuable people who did not deserve what happened to them.

KezrockRN29 · Oct 21, 2016

Thanks for the grammer lesson

jennifer johnson · Oct 21, 2016

How can we contribute something to this request without being read by someone else publically--in case the situation and its result is recognised by someone involved like the bully.

In the Middle East I find bullying in nursing is rife. Esp when someone comes from another country and just acts in such a manner that would never be tolerated in their home country ( and in some cases has not been and one founds out they had trouble in their own country over it) but then carries out their bullying in the new country and its tolerated because they are bringing their 'nursing expertise".

Wuzzie · Oct 21, 2016

Thanks for the grammer lesson

It wasn't a "grammer" [sic] lesson. When you write a huge wall of text like that without paragraphs people tend to not want to read it. If you want your story to be heard you need to tell it in a manner that invites the reader in. Also, for professional safety reasons, you might want to ask the mods to edit your personal information out of it.