Charge nurse has it out for me...kind of a rant

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Specializes in Intermediate care.

i swear, this is this ONE charge nurse in particular that has it out for me. Really bad. I'll have been on this floor as an RN for a year on July 1st. And every time i work a night shift with her, she gives me hell. She is only a night shifter...im a 12 hour day/night rotation. On day shift we have the max of 4 patients per nurse. on night shift we usually have about 5-6 patients per nurse, depending on acuity.

So last night she decided it would be really fun to give me EIGHT PATIENTS!!! yes...8! And why?? because "Nurse ____ has a sore back and needs to be able to sit down" So instead of giving Nurse _______ 6 patients, she gives her 3 patients. Oh, and all three were super super quiet.

What do i get?????? Two elderly men with dementia who are obsessed with their bowels, a detox who has bugs crawling in his "lady parts", a fresh open heart, a palliative care patient, two COPD, and patient who had out of hospital cardiac arrest who had hypothermic treatment AND LIVED! (He was freaking me out all night with his telemetry strips. kept having runs of VTach that would subside)

What does nurse______ get? A patient going for a cardiac cauterization the next day,A heart failure who would be going home in the morning and the other one i'm not sure.

So charge nurse decides to chew my a$$ a new one because i was late entering my telemetry strips. She gave me a crazy hectic load of patients, she knew i was busy and instead of asking if i need help all she can do is yell at me about things i didnt get done or things i am behind on.

Not to mention last time i worked with her (couple nights ago) she said it loud enough so i could hear "I think it's a mistake to hire new grads on this floor. they just don't fit in. we are all so close here, why add a new grad to the mix?"

I am so annoyed and sick of working with her. I feel like she is purposely trying to get me to screw up so i get fired or something.

Any suggestions on what to do with a charge nurse like this?? I'm afraid to go to manager because my manager loves this nurse and i'm the "newbie"

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Specializes in ER.

talk w/ you manager and talk w/ hr, pronto. that old school nurse is committing the offense of horizontal violence. making your working environment hostile and i wouldn't take it. period.

do not meet any of her comments with anything, just walk away.

they (manager and hr) need to deal with her because she's being unfair, rude, unprofessional, and allowing for an unsafe environment. i'd be o v e r it quite fast.

let us know how it works out. new grad or not, don't take it. ever.

she's setting you up to fail. anyone would fail at that workload. a charge nurse is there to support you when you are overwhelmed. entering a strip late? what the *uck. i work in an er and there's no such thing as late, especially as your priorities change, that's why we can edit documents to the time that things were actually done. i imagine this charge nurse would not help you, or throw you a life ring, even if you begged for help. do yourself a favor and look for something else while you're taking these issues up with management. don't take the approach, either, that they'll just not schedule you on her shift, because that person is just being allowed to then sprinkle her *joy* to others whilst not addressing the problem. please, don't back down over this. but look for another job and have that in your back pocket.

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Specializes in ER/ICU/STICU.

I think your only recourse is to talk to your manager. Quite frankly I would have raised the BS flag as soon as I came on. If she still insisted on that type of assignment, my next call would be the house supervisor. If this other nurse's back hurt that much than she should be at home. Her assignment should have been divided up between everyone to spread the load.

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Agree with the others. Time to walk to H.R. They know how to deal with this.

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That sucks! Sounds like she is trying to drive you out, make you quit. Don't give her the satisfaction and power, stay strong, stick it out and try to learn from everything that happens. She may ease up when she sees how determined you are to excel, if she doesn't let up for another 6 months then look for something else. Just don't quit right away.

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

Is there someone over her in the house? You should have gone over her head and refused to accept that assignment.If the other nurse really had sore back she should have followed your facilities protocol-her friend can not just decide to give her half of an assignment and screw you. STOP giving her permission to bully you.You are obviously a great nurse because you made it thru that mess.Take her aside (with a witness nearby) and tell her you are not going anywhere and you are not going to play her game any longer.Tell her you have documentation and will go to human resources if the behavior does not stop.Good luck and keep us posted.

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Specializes in ER.

ckh23,

and ya know, one person's disability doesn't mean that another nurse has to suffer an obscene amount of stress/workload/grief. That is not how to divide patients, by giving them all to one other nurse.

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Specializes in Intermediate care.

I've been wanting to go to my manager for a while, but im afraid i am overreacting about this. Yea i agree the patient load i was given last night was not only unfair, but not safe for the patients.

Especially my post cardiac arrest patient. His tele strips were making me really nervous, and i wanted to be able to keep a close eye on him. But everything else was keeping me so busy

I couldn't get my COPD to keep her sats above 85

my detox...is detoxing! enough said.

ugggh it was just NOT NOT a safe environment for these patients.

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Specializes in Intermediate care.

Well thanks for all support. I really just wanted to make sure i wasn't over reacting before i brought it to anyone elses attention.

i have said things to her before, but she just makes my day more hell if i mention anything.

what makes it even more frustrating is when my post cardiac arrest patient had his biggest run of VTach, i called in a nurse im closer with for assistance to look at his strips. charge nurse decides to come up to us, fully knowing what we are looking at, and asks if the other nurse can take over for 15 minutes so she can go have a smoke. Because clearly thats what i would do in a situation like that. :uhoh3:

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Specializes in ER.
I've been wanting to go to my manager for a while, but im afraid i am overreacting about this. Yea i agree the patient load i was given last night was not only unfair, but not safe for the patients.

Especially my post cardiac arrest patient. His tele strips were making me really nervous, and i wanted to be able to keep a close eye on him. But everything else was keeping me so busy

I couldn't get my COPD to keep her sats above 85

my detox...is detoxing! enough said.

ugggh it was just NOT NOT a safe environment for these patients.

please do NOT think you are *over reacting*.

You are not.

You have a legitimate complaint. I would imagine you are not the first with her. Don't tolerate that bully mentality, then she'll know not to mess with you, at least, if not change her completely. (yeah, right...) Complacency just sets them up to be paranoid about their own security and lack of workplace integrity, professionalism, work ethic, fairness, and really compassion for coworkers. A new grad comes in and shakes things up and makes those older, insecure nurses a bit nutty/defiant.

There's too much of this crap in nursing and I hate to hear about it. I have been at the receiving end of this SOOO much, I cannot even tell you how well I relate to your story. Nip it in the bud, take it from someone who has been there. Be confident in the fact that you and your patients are worth it.

You HAVE been there a year, so you can take that and move on to any other place having that year of experience. So go ahead, keep you chin up and knock 'em dead!

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Specializes in stepdown RN.

Definitely talk to your manager. You shouldn't have to put up with this . We have a certain charge nurse on night shift that gives certain nurses (always new grads) a hard time, she talks about them, yells at them, makes them cry. She does it because she knows she CAN. So, I don't know if you have ever just stood up to her but maybe just one time of putting your foot down and saying "I'm not going to take this anymore" and she will change. It's worth a try. Have other nurses noticed her behavior towards you? Definitely DO NOT put up with this, our jobs are stressful enough without having to put up with this type of behavior.

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Specializes in Intermediate care.

There are a few nurses i am close with. I'm the youngest nurse there. there is one nurse in particular that is close to my age that i went to nursing school with (well she was the class 1 year ahead of me.) so we have started to get really close.

She tends to try to stick up for me while keeping the peace. When this charge nurse is giving me a hard road to go this nurse im close with will say something like "Well i think Jen is doing a wonderful job" or "You know you gave her a really difficult assignment. This would be difficult for any nurse"

whereas i tend to keep silent to keep the peace.

we have an education training tomorrow. Maybe i'll see if i can have a word with my manager tomorrow. I'd like to do it when this night is still fairly fresh because that was just awful last night. It just makes me cringe even thinking about it.

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