Hello to all my fellow nurses. When I was a nursing student, I was always warned of old (referring to age and experience) nurses eating their young. I experience this when I was in my first year in nursing, but I feel like the "eat your young" thing is way beyond to an old term "bullying". My background... I'm a 31 y/o male and been a registered nurse for 6 yrs. now (2 yrs in Telemetry and 4 yrs in ICU).
I decided to post this to hear from what you guys experience in the work place. The story goes... when I was working in telemetry, I kept getting pick-on and teased by my co-workers. I guess, I was the ONLY young and the ONLY guy in the unit. My co-workers in telemetry always love to talk about family, relationship, and what's annoying, their life in the bedroom. I'm a joker and am always known for bringing smile on everyone and to all my patients. I had 2 confrontations with 2 female colleagues during my first years of my nursing career. The first one was a miserable woman who always had an argument with everyone. I always stood up for what was right. One day, we were assigned on the same team. I already received my assignment and wanted mine. When I refused to give up my assignment, she reported me to the nursing supervisor. I was mad and I told her, "I don't know what's your problem. Why are you so miserable to everyone? Maybe you don't get enough attention from home." She flipped, rubbed her breast in front of me and my charge nurse and told me "honey with these big breast I have, I get them every single day." I was not even referring to whatever she was referring. That was one incident. Another incident was I was joking with my good friend about a fart joke and this other lady was ease dropping. She told everyone that I make fart jokes because my butt-hole maybe big and that I get it down there. I was mad for such assumption. Apparently, my hospital is small and ghetto that if I bring these problems to human resource, nothing would be done. I kept my skin tough and I left telemetry to go to ICU. I was hoping to have a peace of mind, but I'm getting to realize, no one is nice in nursing. Everyone eats each other.
I've been in the ICU for 4 yrs. now. My goal for going to ICU was to get my experience and go to CRNA school, but I don't know about that anymore. I took my CCRN last year and felt so motivated, but my gut is telling me to do something else. Anyway, let me get back to my story. When I went to ICU, I thought that was it. My dream job until I retire (LOL). I love ICU, but I don't like my co-workers anymore. In our ICU, I am the youngest and ONLY male nurse. People always ask if I have a girlfriend. They constantly try to match me up with someone. There's this one particular woman who always ask me when I will get married. I think relationship and marital questions are VERY personal. My answer to my co-workers were always... "why are you so concerned about my life when you're not even my mother?" (Too defensive, I'm just tired of it.) My 2nd year in ICU, people speculate whether I am gay or not. I decided to post this on allnurses because last month, 2 of my co-workers told me the most HURTFUL thing anyone can say. The flu was a big thing this year and apparently I caught it. I got sick for a while, and recently got over a nasal infection. One of my co-worker made a comment about my cold last month. She told me that I should get checked for AIDS because of my cold. Then 2 weeks ago, I asked another co-worker regarding azithromycin and nasonex. She was so ignorant and told me, "OMG, maybe you have HIV now." I told all my friends and my sister because I did not know how to deal with it. It's VERY HURTFUL. I have not DONE anything to my co-workers. I'm so nice to everyone. My sister and friends advised me to "IGNORE" them and that I should just focus on my work, no socializing. I've been doing it, but it's not a good working environment when you don't like anyone. WHAT SHOULD I DO??? ANY ADVICE???
One of my old co-workers was being bullied too, but she decided to leave, go to school full-time and work per-diem 2 yrs. ago. I'm in the process of applying for my masters in nursing right now, but I'm sure I won't be staying long with this hospital. I have no one to report the problem to.
I LOVE nursing and I LOVE to work in a VERY professional environment.
