Have any of you ever worked with someone who feels like they do everything and everyone else is lazy? I work with a great bunch of nurses. We just have one that thinks she is the only one that works, she's the fastest, everyoe else is lazy, she's the best IV starter, etc., etc.. She has been a nurse for sometime, I would say about 15 + years and tells me (I've only been a nurse sine 06') and another nurse (who has been a nurse just over a year) how lucky we are to be working in our department. We work in the surgery department. She tells us that they rarely hire new grads to the department and we should be grateful to be there. She normally only works the pre op area and gets mad if she does have to float down to post op (which rarely happens) she says she can't stand being in endo (it's gross: per her), the PACU nurses have cake jobs because they only have one pt at a time, I have never seen her do a procedure (chest tube, bone marrow bx, etc.) until the other day when she was made to go in to see how to assist in a chest tube placement. She is really bringing everyone down. We have tried to go to management and they did pull the pre op, post op, PACU, and endo nurses together for a meeting so we could all vent our concerns. We have not seen anything come of the meeting yet and its going on three weeks now. She like to go to our department manager alone and voice her concerns. She can turn the tears on at the drop of a dime. The sad part is that I have really liked her up until the last couple of months. She is always saying she needs a new job...I say GO! I have told myself to just avoid her and only have a working relationship with her but her rude remarks and how she treats us is getting crazy. What to do?
The way I deal with people like that is right up front. If she must run her mouth do not sit there and take it. If she criticizes you and she is wrong about it, come right back at her with why she is wrong. If she says something stupid and petty just say, "Well we can't all be super nurse like you". By saying something like that you will expose her for the know it all that she is and hopefully embarass her into shutting up. By giving it right back to her she will probably back down, but if you let it go, it will keep happening.
Or just do what we do. Settle it with fists, right then and there. Beat them DOWN. Dont worry about who see's it, heck, the more who see it the better, teach'em to get mouthy when you embarass them...........................<_ oh wait had a flashback to my landscape worker days. we cant do that.>
what really burns my hide about people with this supernurse type mentality is that the majority of them are a hypocrite. they think that just because they strive daily to out do the rest of the staff, and work dilengently to bring their so called (expertise) to the attention of the unit, that rules don't apply to them. they think that they can critique everything but yet they are above criticism. but i do love it when they fall flat on their butts and are proven wrong. esp. loved it when one failed the ccrn last spring and tried to keep it a secret...normally i would have comforted her, but everytime i stand by her i always poke my chest out hopeing my badge will stare her in the face.....
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
sadly, many of these supernurses have a lot to offer, but it gets lost in the drama of their interpersonal skills (or lack thereof). ours is a very bright woman who could teach extremely well -- if she weren't such a bully.
i understand that her homelife sucks, and i've been in sucky marriages and know the toll it takes. but no one else wants to even give her report, and i understand that, too. she scares me, and i've been a nurse twice as long as she has!
Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
Does she take break alone and/or seldom talk social chit chat and home life?
Does she treat male patients differently to female patients?
Does she react differently to male authority staff than female ones?
Does she avoid situations that may involve clinical/professional conflict?
I'd guess the first colleague to sit down and talk to her as a human is likely to get a flood of tears and an insight into a not so pleasant life.
I guess I've gotten selfish and self- centered in my old age but the days in which I would inject myself into a co -worker's personal life and dramas are long over...I'v seen entire units focused on someone's drama to the detriment of everyone's safety and these situations can also have a negative impact on patient care. Today I'll take you aside and suggest you go to Occupational health.If I feel you are not safe on the job then I'll follow through my chain of command.The LAST thing you want to do is bring her possible domestic abuse into the workplace -it's her safe place (if Mr Ian's suspicions are correct)
I guess I've gotten selfish and self- centered in my old age but the days in which I would inject myself into a co -worker's personal life and dramas are long over...I'v seen entire units focused on someone's drama to the detriment of everyone's safety and these situations can also have a negative impact on patient care. Today I'll take you aside and suggest you go to Occupational health.If I feel you are not safe on the job then I'll follow through my chain of command.The LAST thing you want to do is bring her possible domestic abuse into the workplace -it's her safe place (if Mr Ian's suspicions are correct)
I dont like to, cause it sounds so..........detached........but I agree. When I was a CNA, there was another CNA who had the entire unit wrapped up in her drama with ther BF. He was using drugs, stealing from her, cheating and everything else. She'd come to work in no condition to carry out her duties and tie up half the nursing staff with her horror stories. The schedule was constantly changeing to accomodate her, she often had to leave mid-shift. Her work availability changed from hardly being able to come in at all to wanting to work 12 hour shifts every single day to get enough money to move away from him.
While this was all going on, everyone wondered "Why does she stick around and put up with that?". We got our answer when she quit showing up for good after being pulled over for a traffic violation on her way to work. She was high as a kite. That was why she wouldnt leave the "abusive drug useing boyfriend", she was using too. Everyone shock their heads and said things like "I cant believe I gave her money for lunch so many times" and stuff like that.
Our floor is definitely "sink or swim"... It makes me really sad. I'm eager to become a team at work. There's a huge age/cultural/lifestyle divide with my group from Monday nights.
We've had a make shift charge nurse (started 3 months before me but has more than a year of experience as an RN, but I'm 2nd in line... scary right now). She'll direct any questions in the wrong way and doesn't care to know the right... She'll ask you to administer her meds she forgot to give that are due at 7a... Or even better take her A.M.S. patient off the call bell as she steps off the floor... She'll leave new grad questions unanswered with silence. She'll call you "her staff" in front of the day staff... And the best, she'll always wave goodbye as she assigned you the dreaded nervous nancy day RN that will keep you in report or calling doctors or showing her a pump... This large and in charge RN... she never even thanks anyone.
GRRR...
I've been so frustrated, I don't know what to do?! She's got several buddies and they talk all night... Sit around, laughing loudly at 3a as we're scattering trying to get a procedure done. I'm really scared of her too... I hate it.
With all the new grads coming up how can we overtake the queen... Turn the tables... I'm scared of her! I don't think reporting her to our manager will do a thing, SN is her only possible charge (required 1 yo experience)... Is there hope?
The divide is getting wider, and I'm starting to HATE floor nursing... how do you deal with these incompetent super nurses and stay positive?
I have found that frankly managers just don't deal with this stuff no matter where I have worked. You make complaints and they go no where. To me this is a huge problem--management just has no clue how to deal with these nurses either so they just don't. I think they are intimidated by them too--lol Hell I have a doc where I am now that has all of staff hating her in both hospitals she works in --I have worked in both of them-- try complaining about a doc!! That doesn't get addressed either!! I really wish that all these "nurse managers" would actually ummmm......oh maybe MANAGE!!! and GET A BACK BONE!!! That "nurses eat their young" mentality will never end until people do something to stop it....and that starts with the managers!!!
Do you work on my floor? With the same people I do?
Do you have a hospital-wide clinical manager on night shift? If so, get to know her, make her your friend, Then one night when 'supernurse' is sitting on her big fat tail, call your new buddy to come see for herself.
My new friend came to our floor & caught 'supernurse' playing solitaire on the computer & talking on the phone while the rest of us were running our butts off & the call light had 4 calls backed up, ringing like there was no tomorrow.
She was chewed out in front of us all, written up the next day & gone in less than 3 months from that night.
We do, but most of the house supervisors worked with the "problem children" at one time or another, so it wouln't and doesn't get very far. They also just don't give a crap as long as it keeps them off the floor and away from the bedside.
Our nursing supervisor doesn't really do much besides take care of staffing for the next shift... I think he's sleeping in his office until 2a. My 3rd night off orientation, my large and in charge helped unload my new admit (my first heparin drip) with a bad IV and didn't tell me the patient had arrived. She turned the pump off and left her. Since it was right at bedtime scheduled meds time, she said she had to take care of her patients first... I asked every other nurse on the floor, which looking back, i'm shocked there wasn't a single RN that could tell me what I needed to have together for it. I killed myself reading over our policies, got a new IV started, when there was a bolus and rate change needed, I tried to decipher the protocol pages... Then after the supervisor circulated and asked how I was doing, I told him I needed a second look to ensure I had done everything correctly... He then found her in the med room, reamed her and she yelled at me in front of all my coworkers after he left the floor. I cried... haha, and never asked him for help again!
I just have to wait for the right incident and I'll email my manager. Lack of support/team work won't get me anywhere will it? All the small things have just added up but I haven't kept track of all the incidents.
Now I've got a posse of new grads haha... Maybe I'll feel a little more confident. I helped one of them start a Hep drip the other night and it felt good.
I just wish I had one good experienced nurse to resource... I have to call off our unit for help to friends.
There's nothing quite like being thrown in the deep end before you've learned to swim.
God bless you. Carry a small voice recorder in your lab coat pocket, be clear about your needs as a new nurse & let her hang herself.
A nurse in Memphis got her charge on tape screaming "I could give a fu*k less what you need, figure it out for yourself." she replied "I've been here less than a month, please, it's your job to........"
The less than helpful charge nurse found herself unemployable.
Evidence of verbal abuse is the last thing your facility wants a reputation for tolerating.
Send the tape to Oprah, post it on you tube......that'll show 'em.
Allnurses is wonderful, this is the first time I've been really able to vent about my SN!! It felt good!!
And instead of fighting back, a treaty is impossible? I really just want to get along and work as a team... lol... but you know, I do have a camera/vid phone. If I could just catch one of her "oh Father's"... while she mumbles the f-bomb under her breathe if she gets in the weeds, barking orders, pushing everyone out of the way to be first...
I swear if she ever calls me "her staff" again, its on...
:banghead:
eriksoln, BSN, RN
2,636 Posts
Or just do what we do. Settle it with fists, right then and there. Beat them DOWN. Dont worry about who see's it, heck, the more who see it the better, teach'em to get mouthy when you embarass them...........................<_ oh wait had a flashback to my landscape worker days. we cant do that.>
Yeah, just do what meluhn said.