Crazy Co-workers

Spaniel gal · Aug 20, 2003

YES!!!

My unit is seen as the 'easy' unit so we regularly get nurses who are having mental health troubles. We are joked at being the dumping ground. Please don't flame me for my comments/views.. please!

We have one nurse who spends 6 out of every 12 months as an inpatient at our local mental health hospital. She is rude, the children are petrified of her, she does nothing but write lists of all the 'wrong' things each nurse does during the day. The various lists are then left for te sister. As a new grad I was sat in the office, she came in (first time she had met me, my first day) and said really rudely 'who are YOU? Why are you here' I was so upset her tone was rude and unprofessional and downright scary. She is allowed to be-little parents and is allow to do as she pleases as she is 'fragile'.

Then another nurse when asked whats your name looks down at her badge and goes 'oh yeah my name is x' (she not joking) she sits on the floor in the office mumbling and writing lists as the other nurse does.

I do want fellow nurses with mental health problems to be treated well and work but there is a limit. when the rest of the team suffers and has to carry that person its unfair. I am currently going for interviews for a new job as the first mentioned nurse is making my life a hell, as she tells me she hates the way the new nurses are trained. She wants me and fellow newish nurses to go and more courses and be better nurses. Five of us started from class of 2002 they have all left because of this nurse and I vowed to stick it out. I cannot anymore, my mental health is suffering I hate the job I used to love.

WinkRN · Aug 20, 2003

You betcha - mine sounds a lot like yours!! Scary.

tgibson3770 · Aug 20, 2003

No matter what occupation you may be involved in, there are many dysfunctional people out there that have no aspiration in life to be successful and happy. Therefore they choose to attempt to create a semi-hostile work environment for the co-workers involved. My advice is to counteract on a positive note and do not allow yourself to become entrapped by the snares of the negativity at hand. You have the power to decide what kind of day you will have. Let no other outside influence bring you to a level that will decimate your overall goals!

WhiteCaps · Aug 21, 2003

I would suggest documenting the behaviors & problems you see and taking it to your nursing director/supervisor. Are there other nurses who would do the same? Surely management is aware or needs to be aware of these problems.

pickledpepperRN · Aug 21, 2003

I work registry sometimes. One night I had a transporter telling me his father had killed his mother. He told of witnessing many acts of violence at home and an alcoholic father who fell out of his electric wheelchair blocks from home etcetera.

He told me he raised fighting pit bulls and owned many guns. This guy had tatoos on his hands and neck.

When a patient needed to be transferred I did it myself asking the supervisor if he could stay to help the unit.

When I got back he picked up the phone and called (or acted like he was calling) the President, the Mayor, and other elected officials. The staff told me he leaves messages at the 800 numbers all the time.

This night he gave my name on the phone saying I wanted to get him fired.

I wrote an "unusual occurance form", giving one to the supervisor and one the the nurse manager in the morning. One I kept for my records. The incident report with the same information went to the risk management department in an envelope.

A few weeks later when I went back there the staff told me the man was in jail awaiting trial. He had been arrested as a suspect in the of killing his girl friend.

JillR · Aug 21, 2003

Wow. This is weird stuff. While reading this stuff I kept thinking that some people act this way because they can. They act innappropriate and when called on their actions the either admit themselves to a psych unit or do something to get admitted. Then people either feel sorry for them or are afraid to call them on their behaviors and the cycle go on and on.

I have had 18-20 yr olds that frequent our facility that have never worked a day in their lives and don't have to because they are disability for depression. Well, must be nice. I wonder how the nursing shortage would be if all of the nurses that are clinically depressed quit working and went on disablity. I am sure the tax payers would not stand for that for long.

I may just have a bad attitiude today, but I feel that if some people were told that their behaviors would not be accepted because they are just plain unacceptable, there would be lot less of this stuff happening.

I do realize that there are people out there that truely suffer from mental illnesses, but the crap others are expected to put up with from co-workers is just too much. There has to come a time that people in administration have to say, hey you can't perform your job either take a leave of absence and get help or you will not be allowed to work here.

If these people either don't understand or don't care what behavior is unacceptable, then do they really have the judment required to determine other (patient) health and adequately do care planning and intervene in unhealthy and maybe even dangerous situations for the patient? There really needs to be a serious question of competency in these cases and maybe the best place to go about this would be the Board of Nursing. Only because we all know that in many facilities, a body with a heartbeat is the requirement for employment.

pickledpepperRN · Aug 21, 2003

Other states have such programs. The young man I reported had dropped out of an LVN program. I was afraid to let my patient be alone with him.

http://www.rn.ca.gov/divprgrm/divFAQs.htm

CseMgr1, ASN, RN · Aug 21, 2003

Originally posted by spacenurse
When I got back he picked up the phone and called (or acted like he was calling) the President, the Mayor, and other elected officials. The staff told me he leaves messages at the 800 numbers all the time.
This night he gave my name on the phone saying I wanted to get him fired.

Can you spell delusional??

8ntth · Aug 22, 2003

JillR hit the nail on the head.

Sick or not unacceptable behavior is just that!!!!!!!!!! Document such behavior and maybe the employer needs to be reminded that patients sue!!!!!!!!!!

night owl · Aug 22, 2003

Originally posted by NHLPN
Oh my! I think I work with the craziest, absolute most bizarre co-worker - she has a real personality disorder!! She thinks everyone is out to "get her", she thinks she is always right

I work with her too! She thinks management is out to get her all the time. She's so busy looking for other nurses mistakes and writing up incident reports that she can never get out on time and stays well over 2 hours after the shift is over doing things she should have done the previous eight hours. I always said she's covering up all her mistakes by trying to find fault with everyone else. I also said that she'll get her own butt introuble one day for a mistake she made and didn't cover it up well enough. Lo and behold, last week she did it. She worked a double shift and left two MSO4 tabs in a patients med bin. Signed them out on the narc sheet, signed that she gave them. The next nurse that came on found them in the bin and told her about them. I had to hear her rant all night long and how she tried to blame everyone else but herself. When the unit manager started to question her about it, she kept saying, "I have to leave on time today" :rolleyes: which is unusual for her.

Janet E Groll · Aug 22, 2003

You know with this nursing shortage, management is hiring a lot more people "off the street" and putting them at bedside. This is a strange and dangerous practice. If someone is acting crazy or constantly blaming others for their behavior they become a liabilty for their instituion. I think if your immediate management doens't help you with this crazy individual go to HR or administration with you valid complaints. Some people should just not be at "bedside". I was in a case once where we were performing a routine laporscopic procedure that took a terrible turn, we had to scramble to open the patient to get the bleeding under control,(about 15 people hurried into the room to help) anyway during the change of disposing of the laporscopic stuff and opening the laporotomy equipment things were flying off the scrubb nurses table. One bloody trocar ended up hitting an orderly on the foot, now the scrubb nurse didn't mean for it to happen but during an emergency things get chaotic, as we all know. Now the orderly wasn't hurt and his OR shoes were protected with shoe covers, but what he did next surprised even me, who has worked level one trauma centers most of my career, in a busy metropolis. He got really mad and tried to"jump bad" at the scrub in the middle of this emergency, he raised his shirt like he had a piece tucked into his pants. No one else seemed to see this, but first rule of thumb in nursing is be subjective at all times so as not to miss important information when caring for your patients. I immediately sent him out of the room for some piece of equipment that I knew we didn't need. After the emergency was under control and my patient was safely in the PACU, I not only went to the immediate supervisor, I went to administration. I didn't know if the guy really had a gun or not, but I didn't want to find out. So I say speak up if this person is a nut, until someone hears you. The life you save just might be you own!