This is a long story so I'll try to leave out all but totally necessary details. Basically I try to lay low at work, not to have conflict with anyone, or confront anyone unless I really have to (for patient safety reasons, or because, well, I'm not a doormat). I have a co-worker (we are both LPNs) who started out when I was new by being extra nice to me. She took me under her wing, taught me, etc. For reasons I never understood, that changed dramatically after about 6 months. She started snapping at me, making accusations about me, and I got the feeling she was TRYING to find me doing something wrong just so she could call me on it/"tell" on me.
Well, we've since had "conflict resolution" with our unit manager, and she said she's over it, we can be friends, yada yada. I've met privately with my unit manager and DON to discuss the issues that this person and I have, and I made the mistake of trying to be mature, acknowledging that experiences are subjective and possibly misunderstood by perception. Big mistake. They basically ended the meeting implying that it was all in my head. I couldn't backtrack. I felt like screaming, "No, she really DOES hate me! It's NOT my imagination!" But it was too late.
OK - Fast forward. She was awarded a very distinguished clinical award (basically the best you can do at our place of work). Honestly, I'm not sure how she managed to even get nominated, except that she has made it her business to made MAJOR buddies with our shift supervisor (we work evening shift). My shift sup is very young and immature, and I noticed that when they became buds, she started really riding me and giving me a hard time (she actually blamed me when one of my patients fell while I was ON BREAK and I had left all his alarms intact, etc... not only that, but when I returned she stood up from the nurses's station, stuck her finger in my face and made this huge scene in front of visitors and patients and everyone. It was so humiliating).
OK, since this person has "won" this award, her work-ethic has basically gone kaput (and it was sliding downhill fast to begin with). We work as a team a lot - one person grabs vitals for the floor, one grabs blood sugars, one fill waters - but we all still have our own assignments. She has basically stopped participating, lets other people fill her waters, do her sugars, vitals, etc, while she sits around and sucks up to the charge nurse (and surprisingly, none of them ever tell her to DO anything). This is the kind of stuff she does all the time. Then tonight...
I was team leader, and she reported to me when I got back from break that one of HER patients had reported chest pain. I asked her what the VS were. She said she didn't take any. Right in front of our [young, immature and spineless] new charge nurse (who said nothing). I grabbed my stuff to go get a set, they were WNL, we determined it was likely a GERD type reaction and she said it was subsiding. I approached my co-worker and simply said: "How come you didn't take her vital signs?" She replied, "She's a code 5, hospice, what are you going to do for her?" And I was stunned. I said, "Are you telling me that because someone is DNR we shouldn't assess their chest pain?" She rolled her eyes, said she'd already talked to the charge nurse (who witnessed this but again, said nothing), and said "I'm not getting into this with you." and promptly left the scene.
Later on, one of her patient's bed alarms was going off, and she sat at the nurse's station looking at a piece of paper while an aide raced around the corner, and I followed close behind. As soon as the aide entered the door, I heard a THUD. The patient had fallen backwards into the chair (not on the floor, thank god). I helped the aide get him to the bathroom, and came to find the person he was assigned to. She was standing in front of the desk talking to another nurse. There was no way she could have NOT heard the screaming loud bed alarm, and no way she could have missed the THUD or myself and another staff person running after the alarm. I confirmed that it was her patient, and said she might want to get in to the bathroom to relieve the aide that was helping the patient.
Then she said she was going to make a "quick phone call," but she couldn't make it at the desk for whatever baloney reason....
SHE WAS GONE FOR OVER AN HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the meantime, her patient got up AGAIN, and this time I left the alarm on because I was up to my ears and falling behind as TL. This was before I realized she'd disappeared. Another poor nurse came to answer the alarm and she ended up taking care of him so I could continue.
So the situation is:
She doesn't do her work. She neglects her patients (since I had to do treatments on her patients, because she chose not to do them herself, which she should have, I got to observe that NONE of them had been bathed as they were supposed to have been). She wont assess chest pain in a patient who is a DNR. She leaves the floor for over an hour at a time. Nobody says or does anything. My sup must know she does this and has befriended her to the point of forgivability for almost anything. My unit manager and DON think I have this "crazy" perception of her being unkind and hateful to me, and since she was given this outstanding worker award, (comparable to employee of the year), I think they might have trouble swallowing any of this stuff if I was the one to report it. Not to mention, because my brain-tainted supervisor is the one who provides basically ALL of the information for my performance review, and she has been fed all of this hateful garbage about me for the last six months, I got a poor performance review, so it wouldn't even look like it was coming from a respectable employee.
I can't be the only one to notice this complete laziness and lackadaisical style. But nobody will speak up. There is only one other nurse who has ever admitted [privately] to me that she observes the same behaviors. Granted, she is an RN and sometimes charge, but works on another unit and it is rare. Am I just going to have to live with this, or get another job? I don't know what to do!
