Wrote up for being negative?!?!

Nurses General Nursing

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Has anyone here ever heard of people getting wrote up at work for "being negative"?

There's a nurse at work that was wrote up for being negative at work.

I had never heard of such a thing, thought I'd ask you all.

Specializes in Utilization Management.

I feel like why waste my breath if I'm complaining to the wrong people at the wrong time about things that are out of my control anyhow?

Better to spend my time controlling what I DO have control over than getting all frustrated.

Negativity is difficult to work around, but negativity at work can go deeper than dissatisfaction with the actual work.

Some people are depressed about their life situations and projecting that depression. If someone is perpetually toxic to work with, it's probably NOT the job that's the root of the problem.

If it's just one person, you can sometimes have a talk with them and they'll realize their attitude is causing more problems than it's solving, and get the counseling and make the lifestyle adjustments that they need.

I agree about that one, Angie. I can think of some nurses that are always negative, but have life situations that they put up with or got themselves into that are contributing. One nurse has 5 young kids and a husband who can't even bother to help get her pre-schooolers to daycare, and she works fulltime to support his spending habits and so they can have 6 horses, in addition to his boy toys.

Another nurse who complains constantly also doesn't stand up to her husband who insisted that they buy an expensive house with acreage, she works nights, but if he needs help around the house or with the kids he'll wake her up. She's also had melanoma, which they caught early fortunately. She has 3 young children, and she had to up her ours to help pay for this house.

Specializes in ER/AMS/OPD/UC.

I think there is a difference between having a hard time in life, and having poor working conditions to being chronicly negative. I have worked with a negative person before, she never had anything positive to say about anything, to the point you would be hesitant to ask how her day was going. She brought everyone down, never was a team player but expected everyone to help her, I would dread the days I saw her name on the schedule just because I knew it would change my working enviroment.

There is a difference between needing to vent and moving on..then bringing everyone down every time you work. There is a time and place to vent about working conditions and for the most part I believe most of us need to vent, but the motive is usually to either improve our situation or get ideas bounced off in how to recitify the situation.

But with chronicly negative people this is not the core reason for them to tell people how horrible things are....they are negative about everything because they have issues with themselves, and that is no easy fix.

Specializes in Long Term Care.

I was once told that a person who smiles brings more comfort than the best nurse in the whole building. So, I adopted the whole smile and sing and be happy no matter what attitude.

I was reading something some time ago and the gist of the article was that you can be the best professional nurse, but if your patients perceive that you do not care for them, you are no better than a hack.

Toxic work environments are toxic to every one. I had a nurse write an incident report b/c a patient who refused to take her mylanta, told her that I had not given it to her at 8a and noon. (I had not appropriately documented that the resident had refused to take the mylanta.) That is just petty. I could have written four incident reports on that same nurse. One about leaving medications in a residents room, and three for not giving but signing that she had given three narcotic medications. I can find better things to waste time on. That same nurse is constantly complaining that she never has enough money, but she was able to buy a $500 dog and be thirty five minutes late to work on the same day. Go figure.

Why do we as nurse feel the need to be so competitive? The one up-manship, the backstabbing and the henpecking? I genuinely like all of my co-workers as people, and I beleive they are all good nurses. Why all the nastiness and negativity?

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