Cra Cra co-workers

[NursesRmofun]

I know you have had them. Ones that drove you crazy, acted off kilter, and just made things either more interesting or more difficult. If you can write about them without IDing them, go ahead.

I had one several years ago....omg...I would get to work and had some time between duties. She had a different position, but she also had some seat time. I sat near her and she told me how her meds. weren't working and her whole personal history in a matter of just a couple work days. Then, at some point, I know she was gossiping how *I* was sitting and doing nothing but talking to HER. My mistake was I sat near her. I changed seats after that...to another sitting area all together.

[Nurse Leigh]

I think we have to vent appropriately so that we *can* offer our pts and their loved ones support.

Sometimes we may behave in macabre ways that would seem awful to outsiders, but it can release our stress and help us compartmentalize so that we don't get so emotional we can't do our jobs. I'm willing to bet that those NICU nurses' geatest professional triumphs are sending the little ones they cared for home with their parents.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

I remember one who was also bipolar and did cartwheels in the hall. But at least she kept her clothes on.

[Nurse Leigh]

I don't know about *crazy* per se but prior to nursing I seemed to have a run on supervisors and managers who found themselves fired for things like stealing, and, in the case of one interim top dog, arrested for prescription fraud. Hmm...that guy *was* awful.....

[amandakayern]

Like I said, I'm not above being tired or annoyed. I'm human. I've been in many nursing situations where I've felt that way.

I know that NICU nurses aren't angels. No one is. This is just so personal to me because I was there. I know what that's like, to be the parent, to be out of your mind with so many emotions and to be so trusting of the nurses that are there with your kid in the moments you can't be. If I knew that someone was cursing at my kid when I wasn't there I'd be horrified. That's all I'm getting at- it's a breach of trust. I considered many of the nurses in our NICU to be friends and it would just hurt to find out they had been saying I was crazy behind my back.

It just struck a very personal chord with me.

I worked three years in peds primary care/ community health through the health dept. I had many many non compliant parents I was frustrated with a lot. I know the feeling. It's not for me to talk bad about them though to their face or behind their back.

[Emergent, RN]

By the way, as the unofficial Allnurses post critic, and contributor to this otherwise excellent thread, it should have been titled "Cray Cray Coworkers". The 'y' at the end of the word makes the 'A' sound long.

[OrganizedChaos, LVN]

By the way, as the unofficial Allnurses post critic, and contributor to this otherwise excellent thread, it should have been titled "Cray Cray Coworkers". The 'y' at the end of the word makes the 'A' sound long.

Yes! Thank you! Ahhhh it's been bothering me!

[Nurse Leigh]

Remove the "r" and it could be Ca Ca....a thread on poopy coworkers!

[24gaDalek]

It's not for me to talk bad about them though to their face or behind their back.

Good for you. Obviously, you are a paragon of virtue.

I'm sure the NICU nurses you worked with were totally different than me and my coworkers. We are trollish people who only come up from the underground on night shift to care for innocent babies and their unsuspecting parents. We live to subject the uninitiated to unspeakable horrors because hyper-vigilant parents decided to go home and go to sleep while their tender babies are at our mercy.

[NuGuyNurse2b]

Like I said, I'm not above being tired or annoyed. I'm human. I've been in many nursing situations where I've felt that way.

I know that NICU nurses aren't angels. No one is. This is just so personal to me because I was there. I know what that's like, to be the parent, to be out of your mind with so many emotions and to be so trusting of the nurses that are there with your kid in the moments you can't be. If I knew that someone was cursing at my kid when I wasn't there I'd be horrified. That's all I'm getting at- it's a breach of trust. I considered many of the nurses in our NICU to be friends and it would just hurt to find out they had been saying I was crazy behind my back.

It just struck a very personal chord with me.

I worked three years in peds primary care/ community health through the health dept. I had many many non compliant parents I was frustrated with a lot. I know the feeling. It's not for me to talk bad about them though to their face or behind their back.

you're still not getting it. that's not what's happening here. please just get off your high horse. thanks.

[angeloublue22, BSN, RN]

We had one nurse that was ultra cra cra as I call it. I worked in psych so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. She told me that she had been abducted by aliens and had an implant in her legs. I thought she was joking but then she insisted on showing me and the PATIENTS. Oh yes, you read correctly. She was showing acute psych people her implant scar from an alien abduction. We reported it to our supervisor and they said she wouldn't be back. Well, just like with admin, what they say is not what they do. She came back and we were talking about male nurses since my father in-law worked at the same facility. She said all male nurses only get in the field because they are perverts and want to see women naked. I know, WHAT!?! Once again, I made the mistake of thinking she was joking and I said my father in-law is a nurse and believe me he is not a pervert nor does he enjoy seeing his patients naked. She asked if he had a mustache and I said yes. She then said, "well, than he's a pervert. All men with mustaches are perverts." I can't even! Once again, I reported this and she finally did not come back.

[Rocknurse, MSN, APRN, NP]

I work with someone who's completely crazy. She's got a very loud and colorful personality but cannot be trusted with the slightest thing because the moment you tell her anything it's all around the department, usually with embellishment. She tells everyone her husband was in the CIA and died in a fiery car crash, and that her daughter works for the FBI but the story changes each time she tells it. She tells everyone she has a Master's from an Ivy league University, but a search revealed she went to a community college in Florida. Lots of ideation of grandiosity.

She runs to the boss every 5 minutes and has tried to get so many people fired. She's incredibly manipulative and is always trying to make people do things they don't want to make her life easier, and then complains about how hard she has to work. In reality, all she does is talk, put her nose in other people's business and then make it look like she's doing something by getting involved, but somehow cleverly manages to palm it off on someone else. In meetings she just talks over everybody, even though it's plain to all in the room she has absolutely no idea what she's talking about, but nobody ever calls her on it. Sometimes I just cringe because it's excrutiatingly embarrasing how little she knows but she never stops. I've wasted an entire hour in a meeting where all she did was flap with the mouth full of hot air, and wasting everybody's time. Complaining about her is pointless as management always turn it back on the complainer, as many people have discovered.

If anyone works from home, she will bombard them with messages to make sure they're doing their job just in case she can find a reason to get someone in trouble. She takes small innocuous situations and turns them into massive dramas and then inserts herself in the middle of the drama to make herself look important and pivotal. It's exhausting. I keep away as much as I can but she is determined to suck you in and before you know it you're in the middle of it. I don't know where she gets the energy.

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

I work with someone who's completely crazy. She's got a very loud and colorful personality but cannot be trusted with the slightest thing because the moment you tell her anything it's all around the department, usually with embellishment. She tells everyone her husband was in the CIA and died in a fiery car crash, and that her daughter works for the FBI but the story changes each time she tells it. She tells everyone she has a Master's from an Ivy league University, but a search revealed she went to a community college in Florida. Lots of ideation of grandiosity.

She runs to the boss every 5 minutes and has tried to get so many people fired. She's incredibly manipulative and is always trying to make people do things they don't want to make her life easier, and then complains about how hard she has to work. In reality, all she does is talk, put her nose in other people's business and then make it look like she's doing something by getting involved, but somehow cleverly manages to palm it off on someone else. In meetings she just talks over everybody, even though it's plain to all in the room she has absolutely no idea what she's talking about, but nobody ever calls her on it. Sometimes I just cringe because it's excrutiatingly embarrasing how little she knows but she never stops. I've wasted an entire hour in a meeting where all she did was flap with the mouth full of hot air, and wasting everybody's time. Complaining about her is pointless as management always turn it back on the complainer, as many people have discovered.

If anyone works from home, she will bombard them with messages to make sure they're doing their job just in case she can find a reason to get someone in trouble. She takes small innocuous situations and turns them into massive dramas and then inserts herself in the middle of the drama to make herself look important and pivotal. It's exhausting. I keep away as much as I can but she is determined to suck you in and before you know it you're in the middle of it. I don't know where she gets the energy.

Ah, personality disorders. The black holes of the mental health world.

When I worked Psych, I told one of the docs I would rather be in a room with 5 paranoid schizophrenics than with one personality disorder.

They can suck the will to live out of any room, and make people want to stick their heads in an oven.

You can't cure 'em; the best you can do is teach everyone around them how to avoid being sucked into their world of drama.