What's the worst thing the workplace bully did to you? has done to you?

HarryPotter · Nov 14, 2004

I worked with a so-called nurse that took every monthly note out of the eight pts charts that I had to chart on and did God knows what with them. I couldn't prove it, but she was the only nurse at the nurses station when I finished up the very last one and said, "Pheeeew, thank God I'm done with those dreaded notes!" The next day I went back to one of them to check on something I wrote and it wasn't in there. Huh??? I checked another chart for the same thing and IT wasn't there either. "What the ----?" I checked the rest of them and not one was to be found! I went right to the head nurse and told her the story and then told her I wanted a transfer off the unit today because I could no longer work with that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH!!!.... I was outta there in 2 hours.
She did other things like taking my work keys and hiding them for a few days until she saw me ripping my hair out trying to find them. When I finally asked for the last time, "Has anyone seen my keys before I spend $25 dollars to get new ones?" ($5 a key) She would say, "Oh, these?" And open the narcotic box and reach up top and way in the back and pull them out. "Yeah, thanks, those are mine!" and yank them out of her hand and give her the dirtiest look. She could have given them to me the first day I lost them, but nooooooooo, she watched me squirm for three days. I wanted to choke the "B!"
Another time I was decorating the unit for Valentine's Day. (actually had time to do this years ago) I must have cut out 500 hearts of all different sizes, plus bought some really nice decorations from the hallmark store. She asked me to run some blood to the lab. I asked her to watch my decorations, tape etc that were on one of those little stainless steel carts we used for meds (way back when) so the pt's wouldn't mess with it. (Alzheimer's unit) "No problem." I come back from the lab and I couldn't find the cart or the decorations. Asked her where did she put it. She said "I didn't touch it." Yet I found the cart put away, but no decorations. I just knew she put them some place so I searched high and low for them and never found them. I wasn't going to let her spoil my plans for decorating our unit, so that night I went home and I cut out another 500 hearts and went back to the store and bought some more prettier decorations. The next day I did the same thing and she says I found your decorations. "Where?" I said. "Right here in this drawer." "The h*ll you did!" I said "I looked in all of these drawers and they weren't there! But thanks, because now I have double the amount and will decorate to the hilt!" She says to me, ''Who's azz are you kissing?'' I said "No ones! Especially NOT yours!" Oh she burnt me up! But I got her back with all the decorating. Those were just a few things she would do to torment me besides humiliating me in report, spreading rumors about me, undoing dressings I did. She died 8 months after I transfered off the unit. Guess what from? Ca of the brain! And everyone that knew her had NOT one kind word about her.
So tell us if you care to share, your horror stories with the workplace bully. Inquiring minds would like to know.[/QUOTe
Good God:
I can't believe all the horror stories.
What is going on that this toxic culture exists?
What can we do?
I am so saddened and angry that people went into our Profession because they want to help people and yet are treated this way. How many have quit? How many develop hard hearts? How many cry at night?
Please go to my poll about workplace bullying. I am gathering statistics in order to alter toxic environments in the Healthcare Industry.
thanks.
and so sorry for all the abuse u have had to deal with.
I encourage u all to go to your DON and ask for advise.
Lynne.
"people who are bullied think there is something wrong with them."

boulergirl, CNA · Nov 15, 2004

"people who are bullied think there is something wrong with them."

Ain't that the truth. And it's even worse when family and friends suggest that you're doing something to provoke the bullying. :imbar :sniff:

virmm1, LPN · Nov 16, 2004

This same bully was best buddies with our head nurse until the head nurse wouldn't write one of the bully's targets up for a run in they had over frivilous

BS. This target just happened to have worked at the same facility as the bully previously and had gotten a job tht the bully wanted.

Also, bully ws fired from tht facility for stealing time. She taped the termination meeting and forgot to take the tape out of a tape recorder she later gave me at a yardsell. She ws telling the office manager that the supervisor had no right looking at her timesheets because they were her property. HELLO,! Bully then accused her supervisor of being out to get her. Bully ws told by OM tht it wasn't just her word agains her supervisor's tht others had in fact testified to the same.

I don't know if the bully did these things or not but I wouldn't have put it past her. Given her record for low down dirty deeds.

Someone went to the office on a Sunday ,used an ex employees security code to get in and broke into the office manager's office and desk, riffled through the employee records. The one file that ws out of place happened to be the head nurse's.

When we had a meeting about this ,who was the most apalled tht someone would do this ? You got it ,THE BULLY. She had recently broken up w/ her boyfriend and later in the same meeting mentioned tht she had came in after hours and did some coding but tht she didn't clock in. This was out of her own mouth.

The head nurse went on vacation and someone ordered $300 worth of stickers( the kind for kids) and signed her name to the request. Unfortunately, the company that sent the stickers no longer had the request w/ the signature so we couldn't see who forged her sig.

We've had keys disappear tht the late nurse needed to put blood outside in the lab pickup box. No where to be found, keys just happened to be in the drawer the next morning after the bully got to work, same thing happend w/ inhouse strep test. Three people looked in the lab ,one ws the doc, none to be found by any of them but they were right there in the cabinet the next day when bully ws at work.

one of the bully's targets had a SUV where the side mirrors give way when hit to prevent them from being damaged, the passenger side mirror mysteriously got moved to a position so tht cars in the right hand lane couldn't be seen in it.

The day this happened, the SUV ws parked in a place where there ws no room for anyone to be on that side of the vehicle to accidently bump it. They would have been walking in bushes. Could have caused and accident and it would have been the SUV owner's fault.

Head nurse's DH was killed on the job, not his fault, she had a lawyer in another city, only one she could find to take on the big company he worked for. Lawyer's office would send her faxes to work, This ws something very important, HN found a fax to her from the lawyer in a trash can in the back hall. several feet away from the fax machine. At that time all of HN's co-workers knew what was going on .No way was this an accident.

People got flat tires from sheetmetal screws .Several of the targets and then the bully too.

What to do about people like this? They don't quit being that nasty they just learn to hide it better.

Sometimes it was just petty things, But some of these things indicate a very sick mind. Its scary.

I'm not saying tht the bully did all of these things but you have to wonder.

virmm1, LPN · Nov 16, 2004

Ain't that the truth. And it's even worse when family and friends suggest that you're doing something to provoke the bullying. :imbar

In the article I read from bully.org, one only has to be competent in their job, well liked and respected in the workplace to become the target of an insecure inadequate feeling bully. The problem isn't tht you are provoking the bully but

merely being yourself. Of course in the bully's mind I guess anyone who's competent in their work is asking for it.

funny how some bullies have their bosses believing they're perfect :saint: ' s,and tht the nit picking and constant pointing out of co workers mistakes, (real or manufactured by the bully)are just a result of the bully is just being a very conchenious ( grossly mispelled) person.

HarryPotter · Nov 16, 2004

This same bully was best buddies with our head nurse until the head nurse wouldn't write one of the bully's targets up for a run in they had over frivilous
BS. This target just happened to have worked at the same facility as the bully previously and had gotten a job tht the bully wanted.
Also, bully ws fired from tht facility for stealing time. She taped the termination meeting and forgot to take the tape out of a tape recorder she later gave me at a yardsell. She ws telling the office manager that the supervisor had no right looking at her timesheets because they were her property. HELLO,! Bully then accused her supervisor of being out to get her. Bully ws told by OM tht it wasn't just her word agains her supervisor's tht others had in fact testified to the same.
I don't know if the bully did these things or not but I wouldn't have put it past her. Given her record for low down dirty deeds.
Someone went to the office on a Sunday ,used an ex employees security code to get in and broke into the office manager's office and desk, riffled through the employee records. The one file that ws out of place happened to be the head nurse's.
When we had a meeting about this ,who was the most apalled tht someone would do this ? You got it ,THE BULLY. She had recently broken up w/ her boyfriend and later in the same meeting mentioned tht she had came in after hours and did some coding but tht she didn't clock in. This was out of her own mouth.
The head nurse went on vacation and someone ordered $300 worth of stickers( the kind for kids) and signed her name to the request. Unfortunately, the company that sent the stickers no longer had the request w/ the signature so we couldn't see who forged her sig.
We've had keys disappear tht the late nurse needed to put blood outside in the lab pickup box. No where to be found, keys just happened to be in the drawer the next morning after the bully got to work, same thing happend w/ inhouse strep test. Three people looked in the lab ,one ws the doc, none to be found by any of them but they were right there in the cabinet the next day when bully ws at work.
one of the bully's targets had a SUV where the side mirrors give way when hit to prevent them from being damaged, the passenger side mirror mysteriously got moved to a position so tht cars in the right hand lane couldn't be seen in it.
The day this happened, the SUV ws parked in a place where there ws no room for anyone to be on that side of the vehicle to accidently bump it. They would have been walking in bushes. Could have caused and accident and it would have been the SUV owner's fault.
Head nurse's DH was killed on the job, not his fault, she had a lawyer in another city, only one she could find to take on the big company he worked for. Lawyer's office would send her faxes to work, This ws something very important, HN found a fax to her from the lawyer in a trash can in the back hall. several feet away from the fax machine. At that time all of HN's co-workers knew what was going on .No way was this an accident.
People got flat tires from sheetmetal screws .
What to do about people like this? They don't quit being that nasty they just learn to hide it better.
Sometimes it was just petty things, But some of these things indicate a very sick mind. Its scary.
I'm not saying tht the bully did all of these things but you have to wonder.

as I said, Holy S...! I thoought I had heard it all...these things sound beyond bullying, they sound criminal. :angryfire

HarryPotter · Nov 16, 2004

Vicky - here in Australia some of the bullying came from the turn of the century - it dates back to when nurses were little more than kitchen hands. I remember wne I started my training (many years ago) we were greeted by our immediate superiors ( nurses who had started thier training 2 moths previously) with the words "Oh good now you are here we are no longer the dirt on the floor merely the grime on the walls."
Some of is was a learnt and inappropriate managment strategy where a person does not "fit" because of altered - not neccessarily poor but altered work performance and because there were few other options to "sack" the person they were bullied into leaving. Thus the covert justification began.
Bad management practices that were learnt behaviour. One teaching the next - the "hidden curriculum" Saw it glaringingly at a recent workplace where people I knew would not be bullies elsewhere had fallen into the behaviour because that was the norm.
I am stiing here trying to formulate a simple answer to a difficult question. To really understand it you have to realise that there are three levels of bullying. Single bullying - where it is mostly just one person usually in a postion of power. Cohort bullying where there are two or three close friends who "back them up" and finally mobbing - where the culture supports "us" and "them".
Needless to say the fewer people involved the easier it is to adress the situation. Sometimes it does go back to the bullyig finding a better home life. Even in single person bullying there will be main tarets and those who are close and those who are neutral. The target often looks to the others for support as I did and it was a long slow learnig process that showed me that many of my "supporters would not and could not speak up for me as they were afraid of being targeted.
Cohort bullying will often dissipate if you can divide and conquer but dividing them is difficult - true "cliques" Possibly the worst form of bullying to deal with as your actions can and will be misreported. The cohort bullying I encountered was classical - my boss was actually rather a weak and ineffectual person who was not capable of doing her jog efefctively. She relied on two others to "shore" he up and it was these two who spent hours pourign venom in her ears. Without these two she was alright with them she bacme the worst bully I have ever encountered.
The last - mobbing is the most difficult it is endemic and cultural much like what I first described. Although it can have a "vindication" to "Get rid of " underachievers it soon becomes a tool to get rid of anyone who does not "fit". I think my last place of employment was classical for this. They would employ new graduates to ICU in large numbers - OK if you have enough older more expereinced staff as "leavening" but when you have ahigh turnover there is not enough expereince to pass from one group to another and so the "practice wisdom" becomes less. There is so much not written down in nursing or written in only a few places that we do rely on practice wisdom in the workplace. This lack of cummulative expereince led to a large number of nurses operating only at the "novice" end of Benner model and thier thinking as a group became very balck and white. Example every patient in the ICU whether they were vented and sedated or awake and aware whether the blink reflex was intact or not, had to have 2nd hourly eye drops!!! To not do this was to be classified as a "lazy nurse" regardless of what else you did. This mindset had an underlying insecurity and anyone who had expereince elsewhere did not last long in that unit because they were able to challenge the "by the numbers" nursign routines that had become sacrosanct.
I have rabbitted on a bit here but I think that we are near to findign a solution. On the board here I lookout for threads that rant about "lazy" or "stupid" coworkers and unless they are in jest I read them and see if there is a bully looking for justification in thier actions lurking behind the post - if there is I will gently try to show them a better way of resolving the problem than "telling that stupid witch what I thought and making her pay!!!" (note this is an exam
ple sentence and has not been copied from any post.)

I sure would like u in my corner! I love your post. You are indeed a hero. And a very smart one at that. I understand that iin Australia they have more expanded harassment policies that include bully behavior. Is that true. I am on a camaign her in California that would expand our harassment policies to include bully harassment. (Which will mean legislation). I am putting u on my buddy list (unless you would rather me not). Keep on truckin! Lynne

mattsmom81 · Nov 16, 2004

It is so strange. Nursing is suppose to be a profession of kindness, compassion, patience, understanding, and acceptance, but many Nurses have a hard time applying these when it involves their fellow coworkers. I can honestly, say I have met more mean coworkers in Nursing than any other job (not that all of my coworkers are mean to me, but I have see how they treat others).

This is so very sad but true. Some of this behavior can be explained by oppressed abused people become oppresors and abusers themselves. These types get into a position of power and its a recipe for disaster, unfortunately.

mattsmom81 · Nov 16, 2004

Ain't that the truth. And it's even worse when family and friends suggest that you're doing something to provoke the bullying. :imbar

Ya know, I think this phenom happens to kids and can be soooo devastating. My 10 yr old son who has ADHD and was also experiencing GI health problems (diarrhea, cramps gas, due to undiagnosed lactose intolerance) was being bullied in school. His teachers told me it was because he was perceived as 'weak'. When I challenged that and asked what we could do to counteract that , they had no answers for me. Now these bullies ganged up on him and physically hurt him during school, before and after and the teachers response was 'we can't be everywhere.' When my child fought back, he was punished right along with the aggressive boys who instigated the fight. It was a no win situation for my child and I ended up pulling him out and home schooling him. He STILL angrily remembers this period and it has affected his adult life.

Kids are horrid to other kids who are 'different'. Some of these kids grow up to bully as adults cuz they got away with it as kids. Girls bully too (we've talked about this here before..the hidden culture of aggression in girls....they do it too but it is more 'sly'.) As women, we know how they operate and we see some of the worst in nursing don't we. :rolleyes:

cabbage patch rn · Nov 16, 2004

Mattsmom81:

Something similar happened to my son when he was only in the 1st grade. He was bullied by these 2 boys, one who had been held back the year prior so he was much bigger than my son. He would come home every single day, telling about the harrassment on the playground and how he hated to go to school anymore. I could tell that he was becoming depressed. How sad to watch. While I am more of a peaceful person, I would advise him to try to avoid these kids, or let the teacher know what was going on. I called the teacher, the PE coach to no avail. Got the same response as you, how they can't be everywhere at all times. My husband on the other hand would tell him to "bust them right in their noses" which he thought would take care of the problem. I tried to explain to him that would only get our son in trouble and make the other children look like the victim. This went on for months and then finally I got a phone call from school one day. My son snapped, decided to take his dad's advice and blacked one of the boy's eyes, the other one ran far away not wanting any part of what was being dished out. Of course, as I suspected, they punished our son and the others got away with almost a year of bullying. The best thing that came of the situation was they never bothered him again. He told me soon after when I was asking him how things were going, "Mom, they do anything I tell them to do"

I too have been a victim of workplace bullies. I hate the word (victim) and I used it for lack of better wording. I don't think of myself as weak, and I do stand up for myself when push comes to shove. I was bullied at my last place of employment, it was a horrible experience and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. This nurse had an obvious dislike for me, right from the beginning. It didn't matter how nice I was to her, or if I stood up to her, she was on a mission. Eventually we worked opposing shifts and you would think it would be better right? No, she made it her job to go behind me and find petty things that I would do or not do and bring them to the managers attention. I loved my job but this person was making me absolutely miserable. The day before I would be scheduled for a shift I would begin to dread it. I became so depressed, almost had a nervous breakdown. I still don't know why I let her get to me the way that she did. I finally ended up quitting because it was severely interfering with my home life. :crying2: I really feel for anyone that has been in this situation, and I for one can honestly say it's nothing that "we" do to encourage or illicit from the bully. We may be an easy target for them because we're nice and maybe they perceive us to be weak, but that is no excuse for this behavior to be tolerated by upper management. Their should be a zero tolerance for workplace bullying. The punishment should be equal to sexual harrassment, as bullying is harrassment in itself and the effects can wreak havoc on a person's psyche, severely hinder their job performance, and follow them into other aspects of their life.

Quickbeam, BSN, RN · Nov 16, 2004

When you are picked out of the blue to be the target, it is hard to understand or explain. I was a new (albeit middle aged)RN when my bully chose me. She'd find reasons to cast doubts about my care, she'd steal my lunch from the breakroom, gossip about me, generally make my life miserable. I was caring for a dying child one shift and I heard her in the hall saying loudly " such a shame he didn't get better care!". I once worked a double shift and got my first break at hour 15. I was in the bathroom and she pounded on the door, yelling "we're not paying you to read magazines in there!". Our only bathroom was in a public hall so a lot of visitors heard her.

I documented everything but found she was a darling of the administration and I was told I lacked the humor necessary to be a nurse. I quit the job and told them why. Later in a re-org she was laid off. Karma.

tiroka03, LPN · Nov 16, 2004

I have two stories. I haven't had many problems with bullies until I moved to this town.

The first bully both works with me and attended the same church as I. I really thought she was a nice person. But, she was telling lies at church, saying I was sleeping with so and so. According to her, I slept with everyone in the church at least once or more. Then she would talk her comments to work and spread them all over again. She would corner the chaplin and the upper management. She had attended the church for 20 years and held her position for the same lenght. Because of her, I quit the church, and have had to deal with a lot of crap from my peers. Mean spirited b....

The second was a CNA. How much trouble can one CNA make? She would call the upper management at home at 2am. Wow, you think she'd be in trouble - No. They would actually come in during the night to comfort her. She would cry I didn't like her. I didn't hardly know her. Then she developed a lust for emergenies, as she was studing this kind of stuff in her school. All of a sudden peoples NG tubes were falling out at an alarming rate, or IV's falling out, even foley caths falling out. She even cut one foley's tubing in half with a sissors. This provided great excitment for her. If we had an emergency not precepted by her, she would be such a hinderance in getting this person help. Once she even got a hold of the supervisors keys and threw them behind the refridgerator during a code. Unbelievably she is still working. Managements little love child I quesse. I have been told to be more understanding and kind to this sweet thing.

mattsmom81 · Nov 16, 2004

I've reread the scenarios thr past 9 pages and cannot understand what drives people to do things like this, nor do I understand why it is tolerated by nursing management. Really burns my tushie.