My coworker, God bless her, has been a psych nurse for twenty something years. She describes herself as old school and is not afraid to admit that she tortures new staff because she doesn't trust them. She has been through some difficult emotional situations recently as well as ailing health, and as a result has been even more difficult. She doesn't like change, doesn't do some of the work because it involves new learning styles she is not willing to take on at this time, doesn't listen to your report (or write report down!) and then will turn around and complain in a passive-agressive style the next time you report off to her that things aren't being passed along that need to be. She gets in every dig she can at me because I'm a young nurse, and she purposely drags out report so that I can't leave on time. I have to repeat myself several times and really explicate the important things to make sure they sink in. When I work a day shift and she's giving report from the overnight, everything is rushed and we have to get things done quickly because she has to go somewhere or has plans, but she has no problem not being on time for me or interrupting my report several times to socialize with other staff.
Tonight she came in, got her coffee, settled in and started talking with a counselor. I tried several times to catch her attention but she would just continue. At 11:15 I finally had to flat out tell her I wanted to get report going. I started going over the shift report reminders and she interrupted me to tell me that things aren't being passed on, that she had to talk with the nurse manager because the overnight nurse (her) is missing out on a lot of things. I asked her to specify and she couldn't give an example, she just said "oh you know, things." My nurse manager gave me a little public note of acknowledgement for being proactive about taking an extra admission over census capacity, and this nurse took it as a dig at her for some reason. She then went off about how she talked with the nurse manager about admissions this morning and clarified the extra admission policy and how she used to always take an extra patient above census but then they change things and blah blah blah. I refocused her again to try and get report finished and she interrupted me to go back to the very first patient I reported on and then reiterated the "things aren't getting passed on thing," to which I somewhat snapped that this is me passing it on so please pay attention. I'm about four patients in and she interrupts me to talk to a counselor. I interrupt her and say "okay, so this patient" and she talks right over me. I tried to restart report THREE more times and then she held up her finger and told me to hold on one minute, this is important...she starts talking to him about her television and how she couldn't figure out the tuner!!! I looked at her and told her I really needed to get this going, that this was my 7th day of work in a row and I was getting a little squirrely. She told me "Oh well, you're young. Welcome to the world of nursing." I told her I didn't care how young I was, I was tired and wanted to get home. She let me get through report that time but not without going back to each patient when I was on another patient to ask the same things I'd already reported to her because she doesn't write it down. She LOVES to use the line on me that I'm young, and when we have really hectic nights with several difficult patients (it's one nurse for the unit with 12 patients max on a pedi psych unit) she tells me "Welcome to the world of nursing. This is what you get when you want to run with the big dogs." And that's fine, except that I don't make any comments to precipitate that statement. I don't complain when we have aggressive patients or express my frustration, she'll just take it upon herself to make a comment when I'm reporting on the patient's behaviors. I feel as though she wants to punish me for going into nursing. Other staff find her difficult to work with as well. She openly comments when she has all women staff on, she'll frown and "tsk" because there's no male if things get out of hand. She has one staff member who is a clear favorite and will tell him loudly in front of other staff "Oh, XYZ, I wish you were on tonight, I'm working alone with these other two staff."
Tonight she also made it a point to sit across the nursing station from me and say "I'm not sitting near you because I don't want to offend you with my breath." Last week she came in with a really fruity smell on her that hit you the second she walked in the room, like someone who's been drinking or a patient who's in DKA. She's diabetic and I was concerned so I asked her if her sugars were okay. She said that they were and asked why, and I told her that I was worried because I know she's diabetic and she has a sweet, fruity smell like a patient who's in DKA. I didn't say it offensively, I didn't tell her that her breath smelled or even that it was her breath (it wasn't!), but she made it a point to make that a dig tonight. I told her to cut the crap, that I was worried about her last week and wanted to make sure she's okay. Lately she's been coming in disheveled with stains on her clothing and wearing slippers to work, and wearing a ton of bright peach blush. She had a recent major loss in her life and she's more irritable than ever, so it does concern me that there's a possibility she could be drinking, but I'd never say that to her. It isn't my place to confront her on something like that.
There are so many more examples I could give but I feel like I gave enough to show the big picture. I'm not looking for advice, I just needed a place to vent with people who understand what I'm going through! Thanks so much if you got through this.
