I am a travel RN and I began working on this particular med-surg unit in Oct. Around November I was asked if I wanted to sign a new contract that would carry me through Apr. '08 and I said yes. Shortly thereafter, I had a nightshift RN verbally assault me for no reason. I didn't report her but another RN did: nothing was done about it except the am charge nurse asked her what happened and she denied it. However there was a room full of nurses who witnessed this. The next week, the nightshift RN verbally abused me when I asked her which nightshift RN was getting my telephone. She began yelling and screaming at me telling me to find the list myself and this was again witnessed by a room full of nurses. This time no one stepped up. Fed up I went to the clinical team member and reported it. She immediately began defending the RN stating that it's her pet peeve for people to ask this when there is a sheet posted with this info. I began explaining that the sheet wasn't posted that's why I asked. The next week later the CTM told me that a patient had fallen that night and fractured her hip. So i reckon this was supposed to excuse her unwarranted act that night. A few weeks later, I let myself succumb to gossip. A nurse was telling me about her pca which happened to be my pca too. I normally refrain at all costs from gossip and i guess being on this unit was making me miserable and i temporarily lost my mind and told her the issues i was having with the pca (which were the same as her issues). Well the pca overhead us (even though we weren't loud) and came into the hallway and screamed at me then went to the CTM. The CTM was very harsh to me about it and right off the bat began defending the pca and told me i was unprofessional. I told her that if i was unprofessional then she was too because she screamed into the hallway at me and this happened around pt. rooms and everything. Yesterday was the last straw. the nurse manager told me to come into her office NOW. she tells me that 4 pca's have complained about me and that a confused pt. said i was mean to him, transportation was waiting for me for 30min to fill out a transportation sheet and i didn't answer my phone and that the confused pt was laying in a bed of urine saturated. she was very rude to me and i felt like they are on a witch hunt for me. I told her right at the onset "are you asking me or telling me" what happened. She then said i'm asking (although her tone said otherwise). first off i didn't ask this but if 4 pca's were complaining about me why am i hearing about this now (it's like a dumping-effect) why didn't she tell me as it happened? i am never mean to anyone. in fact i feel that people take my niceness as a weakness. i am very passive and people play on that. i told the NM that i am not this person she describes, i'm not mean to anyone. i told her that in fact the pca's are rude to me. when i ask them to do something they don't and i end up doing it. as far as the confused pt., i told her to check my charting. i focused my care with him and i was never rude to him. the pt. was lonely and didn't want me to leave the room. i told her that even though i was overloaded i stayed with him a while longer but he kept pushing the call light the moment i walked out and after the 3rd time, i told him that i had to go see my other pt's and that i would return but that he couldn't keep pressing the call light so frequently. he had issues with voiding freq. so i set up his urinal and told him i'd be back to check it. i also notified the pca and told her we both needed to check him freq. well he knocked it over. also i spoke to the pca about all of this and she told me that the pt said that it wasn't his nurse that was mean to him but the NM confronted me anyways. and about me not answering my phone well it was broke and I had been given 4 different phones that day. i told her that the unit clerks told me my 4th phone was fixed but i was still having trouble and that i didn't hear my name being paged. i also told her that i was at lunch and she said well why didn't you properly hand over your phone and give report to another nurse to cover your patients. i told her, on this floor i was told you keep your pt's and answer your own calls. i really don't want to stay on a floor like this. the NM was definitely trying to find fault with me. Is there any recourse that I have? can I go over the NM's head b/c this isn't right.