How do you deal with the fact that your coworker whom you had started working with at the same time now has been being assigned as team leader because she jives with the other senior nurses on the floor and mingling in the social setting with them
outside of work? It reminded me of my previous jobs where we call this "cigarette socialization" where you have cigarette smoke
with the charge nurses and you just might end up a charge nurse yourself. There is no leadership . If one appears cool and easy and effortless , and it is not because she did everything she needed to do for the pts such as turning q2, really assessing and not just copying someone else's charting in the computer and and not allowing pt to sit on their poops until 4 am when the night shift is almost over so that you only clean once. How do you get past this advancement when you know things are not done right. What everyone sees is that a nurse who appears effortless, or not panicking when there is a code when other nitty gritty things of the job is not done , a leader? It seems like the name of the game is to show off a certain image not necesarilly doing the job thoroughly and socialize more and you will end up advancing. When you do the right thing ensuring nursing tasks are done as right and as complete as possible you are viewed as a neophyte , or a new inexperienced RN? Is this backward thinking or am I the backward?
Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.
All medical organizations work the same but differently and it is hard to know until you get into that organization. No matter where you go, in or out of medicine/nursing, you will find the same kind of people that you will find anywhere else. People that gossip, are lazy, that get in your business, that write everyone up, just sit around a let others do their work etc. The problem is that we are dealing with lives and what we do can kill someone. People are the same everywhere. You just have to learn how to work in spite of them and how to put them in their place.
Putting them in their place is a skill. I feel like if you put them in their place, there is a feeling of animosity and I do not like that feeling where I am working. Not putting them in their place without causing this animosity or ill feeling is a skill I still am trying to learn...I hope one day it comes to me as I get older... I have my share of people I have ill feelings with. I don't like it but If I didn't do what I did, they will just walk all over me.
And you are absolutely right. It is the same no matter where you go just different faces but same ol things...
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
some food for thought:
1. it is human nature to gravitate toward people we that we perceive share our outlook/vision/point of view/etc. this is not unique to nursing, and is not necessarily an altogether bad thing.
2. proficient or even excellent performance as a staff nurse is not the same skill set as being in a supervisory or managerial position.
nevertheless, it seems wrong to reward shoddy care and laziness by promoting the individual to a supervisory or managerial position.
as a staff nurse, i've always found it extremely difficult to take it seriously when an assistant manager known for calling in sick every sunday morning and for shoddy care, messy rooms and laziness would attempt to take me to task for calling in sick the day i put my dog to sleep, forgetting to change my suction cannisters or not bathing my patient on an especially busy night.
diane227, LPN, RN
1,941 Posts
All medical organizations work the same but differently and it is hard to know until you get into that organization. No matter where you go, in or out of medicine/nursing, you will find the same kind of people that you will find anywhere else. People that gossip, are lazy, that get in your business, that write everyone up, just sit around a let others do their work etc. The problem is that we are dealing with lives and what we do can kill someone. People are the same everywhere. You just have to learn how to work in spite of them and how to put them in their place.