I'm a new night shift nurse at a large hospital, I've been there a year, but I took time off to raise kids so I'm older. I've told the following story to my husband over the past year, and he thinks this is bullying behavior. I would like opinions.
When I first began, I learned that all new nurses were to orient on day shift. I was placed with a preceptor who I could tell right off the bat didn't click with me. She was loud, overbearing, sarcastic, snarky, and talked about other nurses. She had me just watch her for the first two weeks, never showing me where anything is or how to contact anyone or how to organize my time. I requested from management to be placed with someone else. They told me this person "just has a big personality," and to stick with it because there was no one else. This behavior continued for the next two weeks at which time she decided she would point out my mistakes loudly, and in front of doctors, nurses, patients, and patients' families (basically in public) - although these were not huge mistakes at all: ordering supplies, back priming, flushing with the 10cc saline flushes and not the 5cc flushes, just dumb things. I went to management again and told them I couldn't learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end, and didn't appreciate being publicly humiliated. Again they told me the same thing, "She's just loud, and she can be intimidating, but you can do this." But in addition, they also told me I needed more orientation because I didn't have great time management skills yet (even though I asked for help). So I was done with her after six weeks, but she had already warned night shift people and gave me a reputation. On night shift orientation I bloomed. I had several different preceptors who told me, "You AREN'T unteachable," and "You really CAN make it," because clearly they heard otherwise. Management told me I had come full circle and succeeded. OK, I thought I was done with this person.
When I would find myself coming on nights right after her day shift, I would notice the assignments would be incredibly high in patient acuity in relation to my skills: starting one week off orientation and I was given an inordinate amount of contact patients, or neutropenic patients, plus several incontinent patients. Anyway, many times during my first six months off orientation my assignment was changed by other nurses because they saw them as inappropriate for someone so new. This happened frequently, and the last time it happened she simply said, "The assignment is this assignment and that's that." I've been there a year now, and she still tries to stick me with the most difficult patients. People would just roll their eyes. When I asked what is wrong with this person, they just say, "She likes control." OK, I'd just do my job and be safe about it with no complaints, and I didn't say anything to management or anyone else because I didn't want to be a complainer. My attitude was, "You're going to throw this my way and I'm still going to succeed despite you."
So two weeks ago, I had a family situation that necessitated me leaving at 7:15 am instead of 7:30 am. This was planned ahead of time and I spoke to all of the nurses on night shift to tell them what was going on, and they had no problem with it. Many nurses leave right after giving report anyway. There is no official policy stating I had to wait until 7:30 before I could leave. I made sure I had all my tasks done, all my charting done, absolutely everything but report done. This nurse was coming on that day, and I asked her if I could give report to her right away because I had urgent family business and needed to leave 15 minutes early. I got a "mmm" out of her. She decided to go talk to her friends for a while in between reports, then she came back and I asked her again, then she went to the break room in between report, and finally she came to me and it was 7:25. I told her I needed to get out of there urgently. She told me, "Uh-uh, 7:30 sister, 7:30." Long story short, I was late, and it had consequences on my family situation that I'm trying to deal with even as late as this week. My husband was absolutely furious and told me to go to management. I emailed my boss, no answer. I texted my boss, no answer. Totally ignored. I get that we are supposed to fight our own battles, but when this behavior has continued for a whole year and no one calls her on this because she is loud and popular with a few people (others are afraid to confront her), what am I supposed to do? I'm not overly sensitive, I'm not a whiner/complainer, and I've been around the block a few times. In the non-working world I wouldn't let this fly, but I don't want to lose a hard-to-get job. Opinions?
