I'm not welcome at my last jobsite

[Hospice RNCM]

Recently I resigned from my last job as an RN at a local Nusring home to take a position with a local Hospice provider. To the best of my knowledge I was not on bad terms with the management there, in fact the two ADON's asked me if I would consider staying on as PRN, but I didn't want to take any extra time away from my family.

When I began making ride-alongs with my nurse-preceptor with hospice, we made a visit to the nursing home where I previously worked, as there are 2 residents there that our hospice is following. My preceptor stopped in to speak to the administrator as is procedure when hospice staff stops to visit patients there, and they closed the door for about 5 minutes. I was absolutely floored when my preceptor came out after 5 minutes, motioned me to come outside, handed me the car keys and said "please just wait in the car for me, because the administrator says that she doesn't want you in the building." I could not imagine what I could have done to make me unwelcome, except that I had sort of promised her a couple of months ago that I would not leave the facility because they were so short, and I was at that time the only RN they had fulltime. My stomach was tied up in knots thinking that my job was on the line. When finally my nurse teacher came out, I asked her what was going on, she told me that the reason the administator didn't weant me there was because I had worked there previously, and was now working for the hospice. I said "oh so she's mad just because I resigned and left??" She said "What she said was 'everybody here knows him, and you know people here are going to want to talk to him and ask him is (Can't say the name) Hospice any better, how much more do they pay, and I just can't afford to lose any more of my staff, so it's better if he just not have an opportunity to entice them away.'" I do grant her that two of us did resign at about the same time to go to the same hospice. But it just seems to me that if the administrator is so scared of people leaving, then maybe she should take a look at the kind of working environment her present staff have to work in, and think of ways to make it more satisfying so people will stay. My preceptor said that she had never heard of such behavior and she was disturbed by it too.

Has anyone else encountered this sort of thing from previous employers?

Steve

[medsurgnurse, RN]

Yep, I've heard of it. Exactly as you described. At least the administrator was honest about his/her reason instead of telling some lie. You didn't do anything wrong so don't worry about it.

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

Sounds like the place needs to work on their employee relations if they are so insecure as to banish someone for having moved on.

[Pompom]

Sounds like you made a good career move.

[NurseCard, ADN]

My only concern would be that once you are off of orientation, is hospice going to want you to handle clients at that facility? What then? Or, are they willing to accomodate you and NOT assign you clients at that facility, due to the fact that, for whatever stupid reason, you aren't allowed back in?

[TazziRN, RN]

She could have had the decency to tell you to your face, rather than have you sent out to the car like a bad little boy, wondering what you'd done wrong.

[CseMgr1, ASN, RN]

This type of sleazy pettiness gripes me to no end. Once when I was supervisor of a private duty nursing office, I received a rather hostile phone call from the administrator of a local hospital. It seemed that one of my nurses, who was working a private duty case had once worked there and

was involved with some type of labor lawsuit against their administration. He was very profane and threatening in his attempt to make me remove her from the premises, and I informed him in my best professional tone: "Sir, I take my orders form Mrs.......". Well, that really made him mad, and he proceeded to inpugne my integrity in certain words that are not printable on this discussion board. When I asked him to stop, he began shouting. I hung up and immediately reported the incident to the owner of the company. She just laughed an ugly laugh and promised me that she'd initiate "a lawsuit which would shut that hospital down, if he even tried to keep us out of there". It's just amazing how people in power positions think they can get away with.

[romie]

It is rather unfortunate that you had to experience this, especially since you were under the impression that you left under good terms. Perhaps a call on your cell phone to the administrator on your way to the site with your preceptor would have prevented this? At least then the administrator would have had an oppportunity to tell you him/herself.

The other side of the coin-- I had an employee in long term care resign from a position for schooling purposes. She came back over the weekend to visit the residents when there were no management staff around and talked to the staff and said malicious things about management and gave opinions about who should have been her replacement. She said "---- should have gotten the position." I hired her replacement after careful deliberation and feel justified in my decision, but felt undermined by this person and felt she was only stirring up trouble and reducing staff morale. To make matters worse, she changed the activity schedule for the day and took over leading the group activities, bewildering the activity leader, who never even knew who this person was. State doesn't like capricious changes to activity calendars.

An onsite manager called me, informed me of what was happening and then escorted this person out of the building. There are reasons why former employees are not allowed in the building, especially not during regular business hours.