Nasty co-workers

poppy07 · Jul 14, 2008

I have been fighting this issue since I was off of orientation last year. The preceptor and a couple of her buddies created a very toxic environment in which they would gossip, isolate, give dirty looks, not help you, even be sarcastic and make problems worse when you were in need of help with a patient situation. We have finally reached a turning point! Several weeks ago, one of these people left. This little group threatened that they would leave if the manager did not...they blamed our unit's problems and high turnover on mgmt. When the manager was forced into a new position, they suddenly decided to leave! How funny! Since the first, 2 others have quit, and the last is going to be finished with a contract keeping them there in about another month and a half!! It will be so nice to have these attitude problems out of the unit, and have positive staff left. It is actually slowly changing for the better. It's crazy what a small group can do to a unit with their toxic attitudes.

mamason · Jul 14, 2008

Yes...I work with a few princess's of doom. The few who try to suck the life out of you because they have inadequate feelings about themselves. Mainly I:

1- Ignore them, unless it concerns one of my pts or if they need my help with a pt

2-Giggle at them when walking away from their obnoxious comments.

3-Or, I take them aside and explain to them that I will not tolerate their behavior towards me(if it's bad). Politely of course!(wink)

I have a very strong personality. I just want to go to work, do my job, and come home. I don't get caught up in all the politics. I don't let it get to me. I'm not there to make friends. Instead, I'm there to take care of sick people to best of my ability. Now, if I happen to meet a nice coworker at work, that's dandy! Gotta love it. But, I do have a life outside of my hospital job. That's just the way I look at it.

Also, while at work, I'm always respectful to everyone even if some don't deserve it. It's easy to be negative but difficult to be positive most of the time in our stressful line of work. :smokin:

mamason · Jul 14, 2008

One of the nurses I started with in orientation is just highly rude -- if not just rough, mean and nasty. I had sort of hoped for some friendliness among those I started with -- but since she's got her big few years of nursing tech experience, she seems to strut around like she's the "thang" and is rude and nasty to me every chance she gets. A lot of her stuff is crap she mutters under her breath at me while no one's looking. I've tolerated it while on orienation, but now that i'm off, she's going to really get it right back frm me if she continues it.
She's very loud and obnoxious in the nursing station as well -- and come to find out, she's routinely behind in her assignments from so much yacking all day long at the top of her voice to every who will listen. Just total diarreah of the mouth is how I describe it.

If I were you, I'd just sit back and watch her self destruct. Because she sounds like she's her own worst enemy. Ignore her. Smile at her. If you want, give her a little evil twinkle at the same time. Keeps them thinkng. Just go in, do your job. Most people that act this way don't feel good about themselves. So, in order to make themselves feel superior, they must put others down. It's a personal problem with her, not you. She'll crash and burn soon. Just watch. They always do...... :twocents:

mpenzipoa · Jul 14, 2008

i feel you capecake 25, take it easy .............

ERNurse03 · Jul 15, 2008

Nasty I could deal with, but right now I'm trying to deal with a passive-aggressive co-worker. It's not a female either. It's a 40 yr old single homosexual male. He's worse than any woman I've ever met. He sets people up for failure, back-stabs, instigates and worms his way out of doing anything while he makes the comments that he's the only one doing any work. He does all this and at the same time he makes himself appear completely innocent. He can be extremely nice to you at the same time he's screwing you over. He doesn't take responsibility for anything. It's so bad that I searched the internet trying to teach myself how to deal with it, the bad news it...you can't change them...you just have to make the best of it. :banghead:

poppy07 · Jul 16, 2008

Nasty I could deal with, but right now I'm trying to deal with a passive-aggressive co-worker. It's not a female either. It's a 40 yr old single homosexual male. He's worse than any woman I've ever met. He sets people up for failure, back-stabs, instigates and worms his way out of doing anything while he makes the comments that he's the only one doing any work. He does all this and at the same time he makes himself appear completely innocent. He can be extremely nice to you at the same time he's screwing you over. He doesn't take responsibility for anything. It's so bad that I searched the internet trying to teach myself how to deal with it, the bad news it...you can't change them...you just have to make the best of it.

How does he manage to pull all this off? Can you give some examples? Do u ever say anything to him?

ERNurse03 · Jul 16, 2008

Well, we work on a small ward and the RN's take turns being in charge. When anyone else is in charge they assign the RN's work equally and include themselves. He doesn't. He assigns everyone else all the work and he does hardley anything. We work on an acute psych ward where the length of stay is supposed to be only 3-5 days. So needless to say we do a lot of admission data bases and a lot of discharges and transfers off of acute.

One day, neither of us was in charge and the assignments were made out that I did discharge #1 and then he did #2 the charge nurse did #3 then it was back to me for #4 etc down the line. He spent all morning in treatment team and knew we had tons of discharges to do, and knew they all had a bus to catch at 1pm, so right before all the discharge orders came through, he waltzes by the desk and says "I'm going to lunch now." While he was gone the other nurse and I did 7 discharges in a row. He came back from lunch just after all the work was done, and when I asked him to do a referral assessment note to extended care on another patient for me he replied "That pt is not on my treatment team." I ended up doing that too. I argued with him a little bit, but realized there was no point. He did agreed to do but insisted that he had to get on the internet first and check out what was playing at the cinema, then he acted like he was doing me some kind of huge favor and he was the only one working and speaking sarcastically and acting like I wasn't capable of handling all my work or something.

The very next day, I was in charge and assigned the discharges the same. I was #1 and he was #2. I did the first discharge while he was still in treatment team, and when he came out of treatment team, I went to lunch. I had just sat down to eat and the phone in the breakroom rang and it was the LPN who stated "He wanted me to call and tell you to come out here and do this discharge because you have assigned yourself to the first one." This time, I simply replied, "Tell him to do it, because I've already done one."

The next day after that, he brought me lunch that he'd made at home. It's really weird.

Last weekend, he was in charge and just refused to do the charge nurse duties and made me do everything.

I don't know if this is all making any sense to you, but It's just really hard to explain.

MrsMommaRN · Jul 16, 2008

believe it or not there are some great supportive nursing environments out there. the op is dated june 5. i hope the poster has had some iterviews and is in a better workplace.

to deal with the petty and the inane it's best to stay out of it. be friendly to everyone and don't feed into the bs.

kendel · Jul 16, 2008

i work with some miserale people with lots of attitude

i tune them out most of the times.. i have to ..to survive but some times it gets tiring

i am thinking of home care ..that way i will be independent