Ever work with one of these?

[SCRN1]

I work nights and we usually help each other out a lot. But there is one nurse who is constantly asking for help with everything you can imagine...to the point it gets others behind in their own work. She's always whining & complaining about her assignments even though we've told her we've had the same patients or have a similar assignment ourselves and we just have to accept it and do the best we can. It's to the point that another nurse & I have realized that on the nights we work with her, those are the nights that seem the most stressful.

She can be a very sweet person and fun to be around sometimes, but most of the time, she is a big annoyance and brings everyone down. Her excessive neediness and negative attitude about almost everything is wearing us down. She has been a nurse there longer than most of us and you would think by now, she would have gotten better about it.

Do you ever work with someone like this? If so, how do you handle it?

[TazziRN, RN]

Unfortunately, you have to tell her when she asks, "I'll help you when I can, but right now I'm tied up." You need to stop helping her. I know it means her pts might suffer for it, but the more you help her, the more you're letting her slack off.

[SCRN1]

I only wish it were that easy. However, sometimes she doesn't just come up and ask, "can you help me with...". Sometimes, she'll press the call light from a patient's room and tell the secretary to send one of us. Somebody's gotta show up because you never know when it will be a real need for assistance. Many times when we're all finally getting to do our charting, she's saying, "come look at this, what does that say?", "come show me how to put this order in", "what would you do about this?", etc. I know this doens't sound like much just giving these few examples, but it's on & on & on & on. Then there's her negativity. She's always complaining on & on about everything and wanting everyone to talk about it. We've tried saying we can't talk right now because we're behind and have such & such to do. But it's like it goes in one ear and out the other.

[TazziRN, RN]

Ah, I see........

Have you talked to your NM about this? Sounds like something needs to be done. If we had a staff member like this and it got to our NM, it would be nipped in the bud.

[SCRN1]

Actually, the other nurse I was talking about earlier did say something to the NM about her once. She said she told him that she needed a break from working with this person because it was just wearing her down too much. So, he put the two of them on different nights for a month. But that's all it lasted. This nurse & I both work per diem and usually pick Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays to work. Well, the negative nurse has decided to go per diem now and she is picking the same nights as us. So there's always the three of us, plus an extra. Maybe it's time for me to go to the NM too. I just don't want to look like somebody who's hard to get along with or being a complainer myself though.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

frankly, it sounds like she needs counseling......

[TazziRN, RN]

If more than one person complains and they're all complaining about the same person, it ain't complaining.

[Bammy]

Perhaps she could talk to someone about having a little extra training or putting aside the assignments for a while?

[AfloydRN, BSN, RN]

OMG... do you work on my floor? Yes, unfortunately there is always at least one nurse who tries to push her work onto others and we are usually stupid and see it as helping the patient and give in and do it. Thats just our nature. We had the similar c/o w/ a float nurse and we all went to the director and she was told to go to employee asst. to get some help w/ her organizational skills.

[flashpoint]

Yep...I can relate. We have a CNA who wants help with everything from walking an ambulatory resident to the bathroom to draining foleys. It is to the point that I dread working with her. My only consolation is that her boyfriend gets out of the pen in a couple of weeks and she is planning to move. I don't have any words of wisdom for you, but I can relate!

:)

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

I always found ways to be busy, so that when i said "i can't, i'm busy with ________", it was the truth.

[Sue Damonas, BSN]

I worked with someone like this for a number of years and we all groaned when we knew we were working with her or getting her assignment because she always left lots of stuff for the next shift or claimed that she never saw those orders,etc. She kept asking me to enter orders for her because she just couldn't get them in correctly and became very angry with me when I tried to show her how to do them so she would know how to do them herself. She ended up making numerous errors and our boss was the type who made everyone suffer for one person's mistakes. We were so relieved when she retired!!:smiley_aa :biere: