How do you deal with passive aggression in nursing?

Nurses Relations

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I have a charge nurse that is not out and out mean to me. Instead, her meanness is subtle. In my face, she smiles. But then she is constantly doing things that later I realize were done to be mean like giving another employee a slew of gifts on her birthday. That went right over my head until I realized this employee that received the gifts was being mean to me all of the sudden and I hadn't gotten even a card for my birthday. We have a bulletin board where we can put up nice comments about people. She has put comments up about the people who suck up to her but I noticed there isn't anything about me. Hmmm. Another subtle attack? She is amazing at being able to put me down every single time I work and make me feel inadequate in very subtle ways. I could go on and on here. I mean these things by themselves mean nothing but when you put them together, they are downright demeaning and disrespectful. To go the management seems stupid because how can I pinpoint the problem? She would say it was all innocent. I know others have seen in though. Has anyone out there found a way to deal with this that works?

@redhead: I loved Bad Teacher! It was so funny!

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I appreciated this post. I had to work last night which is why I didn't respond. On purpose, I didn't share many pertinent details because I am always concerned that someone out there might be one of these colleagues. I don't want to give out so much information that they might say, OMG. But you explained very well how women can get together in an antagonistic clique, force the focus off of patient care, and leave others out of the clique. Young inexperienced nurses are easily sucked into the clan through gift giving, flattery, and just wanting to fit in especially when it is three full bags of gifts and a cake done in front of one of the people who will never be allowed into the clique and got zero for her birthday. I am not stupid and I'm not young. I have lived long enough to know how a gift can turn a young person to be your best friend. Do you think I care two straws about who gets gifts? I would never be offended at friends giving gift to friends. If someone is the friend of someone else, they are going to get together outside of work, give gifts on birthdays, and they might be invited to their wedding when someone else isn't. i could care less. The people who are nice to me have done that and I don't care.

Because I was happy to see her be celebrated on her birthday, I didn't even consider what had happened that day until nearly a month later when I realized that this young nurse who hasn't worked there more than a year and is not the best friend of the head nurse was starting to talk to me disrespectfully. And you're so right. Whatever our differences are, we need to put those aside and work together. We aren't there to be best friends. We need to support each other professionally and that is when I start getting concerned about this stuff. As I said, this has become a point of passive aggression coupled with gossip where my head nurse manipulates through these subtle things that when added up become very apparent and spill over into our unit and work ethic. And yes, she has treated me horribly professionally as well sometimes. Our unit is small. It is peds. It is like an ICU but a step down to it. Our parents are in rooms surrounding our nurse's station. She has manipulated some of the parents at times as well. This never happens when she isn't there. I mean the day shift head nurse even sees that this women gives new meaning to passive aggression but nobody knows how to handle it. She's a good nurse, which is why she got that position.

Some suggestions that have come up:

1. Transfer to a different shift or unit. I don't like that because I love my unit and I haven't done anything to deserve being transferred.

2. Write her up. Some people are highly offended at write ups and this could easily backfire.

3. Call her into the office with some of the leadership that are higher than her.

4. Or do as you suggest - nothing. Just do my job and hope this goes away at some point.

My only concern about doing nothing (which is what I've been doing for months) is that I can see this is escalating through these young nurses who are so easily manipulated to form judgments against me, which makes it very difficult to work with them. Plus, yelling nurse has been brought in to be in charge several times when others call in sick and when she comes, I can be sure that at some point in the night, she is going to raise her voice at me over nothing, snub me, and just generally be mean. If I say anything, I have to contend with more passive aggression.

SURELY you can see quite a bit of passive agressiveness in just this one post. You are seemingly looking for people's advice that you then have no intention of taking. However, your very own post is a glaring example. So I don't know if you are the passive agressive one who is transferring this onto co-workers, you need some self esteem work, or you are fishing. Best of luck in whatever you decide, but I think that you have more than enough pointers and a really good article on the subject to refer to.

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Specializes in L&D/NICU/Pediatrics.
Trust me, nursing needs a lot more nurses who are "the complete opposite" of passive aggressive.

Word.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
ruby, i have read your posts in the past and trust me, you are the complete opposite of passive aggressive.

​thank you!

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Sensibility, if this is the same location and group of co-workers you've posted about in the past, a cursory reading of the advice you got shows some truly excellent advice. I have to wonder why it seems you haven't been able to implement any of it, and keep returning to start threads as if it was a completely new problem.

I'm someone who would have a hard time with the "just do your job and ignore the petty and juvenile behavior" because I'm just the type who is sensitive to a hostile work culture, so I'm not unsympathetic. I'm just puzzled about why you seem so stuck there emotionally. If it were me, I'd probably throw in the towel at this point and seek another job. Your obsessing is just going to continue to erode away at your spirit and divert you from growing and moving forward on a positive track. I join the others who've wished you the best.

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Some suggestions that have come up:

1. Transfer to a different shift or unit. I don't like that because I love my unit and I haven't done anything to deserve being transferred.

2. Write her up. Some people are highly offended at write ups and this could easily backfire.

3. Call her into the office with some of the leadership that are higher than her.

4. Or do as you suggest - nothing. Just do my job and hope this goes away at some point.

1, 2 & 3 will most likely lead to MORE drama.

4 - No drama

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Specializes in Pediatrics.
​thank you!

:cool: de nada

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I found a solution that I think is working. With this one group that is nice in my face and mean in other ways (which proves they really aren't my friends) I am being nice in terms of any pertinent things I need to communicate with work. I am staying busy with work and minding my own business in terms of any chats that might come up. I am avoiding those types of conversations. It worked. I had a great night with them. I wrote four thank you notes to people who have been kind to me. Made me feel good to think positively about the ones who have been genuinely kind to me. I mean, you're right that I can't change people. It may be difficult to advance professionally in this arena. We shall see.

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