Bullying in the workplace

RestlessHeart · Oct 2, 2016

As someone who could have been that third nurse, please don't take it personally. She may even like you, and likely appreciated the silence. I'm the kind of person who goes weeks without talking to my best friend.

All....and Im the type of person that hates that. LOL. I dont like not speaking to my bffs / kids / sisters / bro et al for long periods of time.

I was actually called the "Bully" at work several years ago. A couple employees from my unit actually tried filing charges against me with HR /ES. It fell through because they had no proof and couldnt name a single incident where or when I had "bullied" them. After a couple of long chats with my immediate supervisor.....I realized what was happening.

One of my Nurses had complained to the Boss and apparently everybody shy of Jesus Christ himself because I did not take breaks or lunch with them. I did not do the meeting after works for drinks thing with any of them. I didnt do the baby / wedding shower thing either. I spoke to them during working hours about work which basically meant I answered their questions and helped them with whatever they needed help with. I had been there for 17 going on 18 years and NObody in the entire department (we were only 10 strong at the time.) even near as long as I was (the closest in job time was less than 5 years) so they had to come to me with questions, I had trained most of them when they first started in the dept. I told HR / ES and my supervisor and manager that I was not there to make friends and socialize with them and I truly didnt care whether they liked me or not. None of them signed my pay check.

The one nurse who started the mess was a new nurse, and figured she had the world by the tail. She never missed a day of complaining about some staff or other supervisors. She'd say someone looked at her mean, or somebody was whispering and she knew who or why they were whispering. Shed tattle that somebody had an attitude and she didnt like it. She'd go unit to unit tattling or spreading rumors. She actually started an entire gossip group to pick on others....be it the way the walked, how they dressed, if the way they'd clock in or out. It was endless.

Once I told HR / ES my view they backed off. But it did force me to do some serious reflection on MY part in all of it and allowed me to make some much needed self improvements. Was it bullying? Nah...just some strong personalities locking horns. I still dont understand how she figured I was being a bully but to each their own

Have a great week people.

EquinoxSolstice92 · Oct 2, 2016

As someone who could have been that third nurse, please don't take it personally. She may even like you, and likely appreciated the silence. I'm the kind of person who goes weeks without talking to my best friend.

The thing is, other CNAs and nurses don't have anything nice to say about her. A lot of my co-workers don't like this third nurse I was referring to. One CNA said, "the charge nurse is mean."

I didn't really have an opinion on her because I only worked with her once. On the other hand, my mom knows her and told me that this nurse's knees hurt and that she's always in pain. She does have a hard time walking. Also, she's going through a lot of stress and shocker... her mom was recently admitted to the very same facility that she works in. Her mom is diabetic and confused. She's been sick as well.

EquinoxSolstice92 · Oct 2, 2016

Uh huh. The fact that you've encountered three nurses that you don't like (or who don't like YOU) does not mean that you've encountered bullies.

I honestly don't care if my co-workers don't like me but the problem is how they act.

Or even, and this may surprise you, dumping on the pM nurse.

This isn't the first time that she's ever done this. This nurse I was talking about doesn't even clean up the medcart right after her shift which is sometimes understandable but it's not an excuse at all. I'm not the only one who's complaining about her. Other nurses are too.

And as for the nurse who eats her young -- being "infuriated" -- if she actually WAS infuriated and not just annoyed at your slowness -- that doesn't constitute eating her young or being a bully. So what you've managed to do is produce anecdotes about three nurses you don't get along with who are all older than you. Perhaps it's not bullying on their part (because you've shown us no evidence of bullying) but ageism on your part.

I'm gonna highlight this because I really love how you just jumped to the conclusion that I'm ageist towards older nurses when sometimes, it's the other way around. I'm not the only one she treats like crap. There's another nurse that she used to bully as well. I don't know if she's still bullying that other nurse but she doesn't like new nurses and tends to be hard on them. Do you expect me to be fast when I was a new at the time? I hadn't been working that long so of course I'm bound to be slow. The nurse who eats her young, also eats her old.

Please, for goodness sake, stop jumping to conclusions and assume ageism all the time.

About the third nurse, she's not really a bully, just someone that almost everyone at my workplace don't like. I don't really know her so I don't have much to say about her since I only worked with her once.

Except there's one older nurse that you DO like . . . It's like saying "I'm not a racist. I have a black friend."

Not just one, I get along with two of the oldest nurses at my workplace. Heck, I get along with almost everybody.

I apologize if I sound rude but I felt attacked by you.

TriciaJ, RN · Oct 3, 2016

You know what we need in nursing? More men. I mean, us women can't get through a shift without battling it out over tampons.
If we're going to play the b-tch card, you also have to recognize men are less empathetic and less verbal. See, you can't indulge one gender stereotype and just close an eye to the one you don't like.
Men can be bullies. Don't kid yourself, honey.

"Battling it out over tampons"? I have had many jobs in my time, the vast majority in female-dominated work places. I have never seen this. Please tell me what such a battle entails.

SmilingBluEyes · Oct 3, 2016

"Battling it out over tampons"? I have had many jobs in my time, the vast majority in female-dominated work places. I have never seen this. Please tell me what such a battle entails.

I am thinking she was being facetious.

stealth rn · Oct 5, 2016

In my personal experience, true bullies are not all that common in nursing. I've encountered a couple of them. However, two bullies is a very small sample size out of the countless nurses I've met during my career.On the other hand, malicious gossip seems to be more common than real bullying.

Malicious gossip IS bullying!

heron, ASN, RN · Oct 5, 2016

Malicious gossip IS bullying!

But much harder to prove.

Buyer beware, BSN · Oct 7, 2016

There are bullies in the workplace. In the past forty years, I've encountered two of them. Of course, if you go looking for bullies, you're going to see them everywhere -- even if there aren't any bullies at your workplace.
When someone complains about how awful it is to work with other nurses, how many bullies they're encountering or how "it's all because nurses are females and females are caddy", they're telling us much more about themselves than they are about their colleagues. They're telling us that not only are t hey finding it difficult to get along with others, they're laying all the blame off on everyone around them instead of accepting some of the blame themselves.
In fact, I often find that those who are screaming the loudest that the workplace is full of bullies are, in fact, the real bullies.

That may be valid but it's just one POV and has the crowd mass effect of dismissing the honest complaints of those, granted few, who may feel they have no one to turn to with legitimate grievances.