New Nurse getting bullied at work

RN1982 · Aug 22, 2008

Find a new job.

RN1982 · Aug 22, 2008

Sometimes you need to work up the nerve to confront her. Like when she's giving you report and is conversing with other nurses. You need to say "Hey, do you mind, I'd like to get report finished so I can see my patients'" Don't feel bad about it but the more you let her do it, the more she is going to walk all over you.

And about her not liking you and saying rude things to you.."I don't appreciate the way you speak to me. Do not speak like that to me again." Why are you just taking her abuse? Because she's the ADON's friend? Do not put up with it. Stick up for yourself and stand your ground.

I had the same thing happen to me. I had to move a patient from room 11 to room 1. The only thing I didn't do was change the labs on the MAR and the flowsheet and the oncoming nurse made a stink about saying she could make a mistake when giving meds to a patient. After her ranting and raving about it for 10 minutes I finally said "So let me get this straight, you only look at the room number to pass out meds? Do you bother to look at the patient's ID number and name? Weren't you taught that in school? You know, everytime you come in, something is always wrong." I'm not saying its always good to go off on someone but she had it coming. She was a seasoned nurse with over 20yrs of experience which I respect. But I will not respect someone until they give me respect also. She never talked to me like that ever again.

1uvakindmom · Aug 22, 2008

Wow, I am sorry you are going thru that. I cannot offer much advice, as I am not a nurse yet (I start LPN school this fall), but to only give you 2 days orientation is a little rediculous. The LTC facility I work at gives nurses about 2 WEEKS orientation....I would try to find a new job....

lpnflorida · Aug 22, 2008

I am not so sure that after only 2 days of orientation I would not have left, but that is not your expressed concern. Let me say I admire your courage to remain and be the best you can be.

Some places are like dysfunctional families. And the perceived problem in the family, may or may not be the actual problem.

You can focus on the big mean sister (who you think mom/dad loves best ) says means things to and about you, is not perfect but points the finger at you. Don't forget this same mean sister at some point or another says mean things about others also. You do not yet feel strong enough of about your position in the family so you choke your tears, rather than saying. " You are being rude to me. We have to play nice in the sandbox or else "

You can focus on the tattle tail little sisters who appear to be telling you what is being said about yourself without their own confronting of the bigger meaner sister. You could stay in little sisters good graces by feeling closer to them , after all they did tell you all the mean things that were being said about you therefore on some level breaking a confidence, causing you to feel bad about yourself, making themselves look good to you as they stabbed someone else in the back for being a back stabber., or you could look at them and say, hey you are being part of the problem also.

Yikes, as expressed before. Keep your chin up. No one has the right to be rude to anyone. I would be saying in an assertive manner not aggressive.( look them up to discern the difference), there are those who can't pull off and what they call being assertive is highly aggressive to those around them

But I would say to this nurse. It's time for report, can we keep on topic please, is there anything more I need to know about OUR patient before I leave report? I would not comment unless she actually said something to my face about my being a dimwit. why you might ask? hey is hearsay in the first place. how do you know the accuracy of the account given to you. Down the line as you both get to know each better you might offer to go and have coffee together. Then at coffee I might say.. you have no idea , but when I first started working I felt so intimidated by you, when someone told me you have said I was a dimwit , I was actually enough of a dimwit to believe you had said that. etc etc.

Lesson number one:" new person on the unit...keep ones nose out of the fricass, you are new and therefore might not have a total grasp of who in fact can be trusted as opposed to who are the all seeming best friends of everyone, who tell every little thing they hear,; but of course it is never them, etc etc.

Do the best job you can, treat everyone as a professional on your staff no matter who they are. Give your patients the best you have.You be your own best roll model .

Avoid any inhouse drama.

. politics.. they never seem to end

I realize this is an over simplification of the problem. It may however help you to take a step back and look at your co-workers differently.

p.s. if you so called work family can't get healed together. I would be looking to be adopted out.

natrgrrl · Aug 22, 2008

compassionate 1, I have only been a nurse for a few weeks and had an absolutely horrible day yesterday. Everything you were talking about, I can relate to. I've only worked at the place for 13 days and had to leave a meeting yesterday because I couldn't stop crying. (DON is cold heartless old lady)

I did get 3 days of orientation on my unit and then 2 days on a different unit, so I guess you can say I had 5 days of orientation but that is for 60 res.

I'm sorry you were in tears. :heartbeat When they start, it is so hard to stop them! :icon_hug:

About the gossip hound, is there an HR person or nurse educator or anyone else other than the ADON you can go to for advice on what to do? When you find someone to talk to you might want to start out with, "I have a problem and I don't know how to handle it. Can you help me?" Otherwise, if you go in complaining about this person you might sound like you are whining or gossiping.

Sometimes, bullies just need to be confronted. I hope you can get this problem resolved because it sounds like you like you job other than the nasty nurses you have to deal with.

BelleKat, BSN, RN · Aug 22, 2008

Wow,it really makes me angry to hear that these older more experienced nurses are being so petty and nasty. Sometimes people can be their own worse enemies. We need new nurses yet people are behaving that way. I am so sorry that both of you are having this experience,it is not the norm but it unfortunately is much more common than it should be. Please hang in there and persevere if you can get some resolution. Nursing is a good and wonderful profession,don't let them take that feeling from you.:icon_hug:

CrunchRN, ADN, RN · Aug 22, 2008

You need to stand up for your self in an assertive manner. Tell her that you need her to give you report and not chit chat with others while doing so.

Take your concerns to the DON even if she is a buddy. Let her know what things are hindering your preformance of your duties and document the meeting and that was discussed. Go in to the meeting with a written list so that you cover the important things. You may forget them when you are stressed so have them in writing!

The worst that can happen is you quit. Before you do that you need to stand up to the bully and she may back down and even start to respect you.

Hugs and best of luck to you.

rn-jane · Aug 22, 2008

First of all get a new job. Unfortunately you are in a profession where women dominate. We can be the most compassionate gender but some of us love to gossip and make another feel less important in order for the attention to be on us. That being said this nurse is a bully probally has been all her life. Your job is hard enough and you don't need to deal with the likes of her and her tagalongs. I'm really sorry there has to be nurses like this in our profession but they do exist and you can either deal with the abuse(I would not). She is not only a gossipper but you say she does not do things appropriately such as report and some ethical things are in question. Keep a log and go to your director, the narc count really bothered me this nurse cannot be trusted not If she tries to fix the narc count infront of you how ethical is she, not someone I would want to be working with but you need the proper facts before you can go to your boss.

Jo Dirt · Aug 22, 2008

It sounds like you have a lot of stress and anxiety and this may be skewing your view of what is really going on.

It doesn't sound like you have too much on you as far as work goes. You will just have to get used to it. Night shift at a nursing home (you will find) is by far the easiest shift as far as patient load.

I work with some crummy nurses. One is known to talk about everyone behind their backs. She is terrible to try to make other nurse's look like they don't know what they are doing but she does. There is no telling what she says about me. But you know what? I DON'T CARE.

Another one is bad to leave a bunch of things for me to do on my shift. I came in one day to find a huge pile of nebulizers and O2 tubing piled on the desk at the nurse's station. She had dated and initialed them all (with her initials) and told me, look, I already took care of that part for you, the tubing and nebulizers are already initialed, all you have to do is switch them out.

WHAT???? All I had to do was switch them out...spend a significant amount of MY time changing out HER tubing which was supposed to have been done on HER shift. What was worse, it was going to look like SHE had done the work (it wasn't just a few, there are A LOT of people on O2 and nebs) because the tubing had her initials on it.

Now, if she had said, "I'm sorry, I didn't have a chance to get to this"it might have been different. But this nurse is notorious for doing this. And she is quick to point out any mistakes she sees others make, which is why I don't have a lot of patience for her...

I told my friend about it and we decided I should have just left the tubing on the desk for everyone else to find the next day. They couldn't have blamed me, after all, the stuff had her name on it. Ha ha.

Oh well...of course I changed it and never said anything to her about it. But it can be fun to dream about revenge.

But I'm rambling...thing is, you will eventually settle in. Don't act like you are bothered by this rude nurse, just ignore her attitude. Eventually, she will get it.

lpnflorida · Aug 22, 2008

compassionate 1,have you asked this person if you can privately speak with her? this would be the first place to start. see if you can clear this up between the two of you first before going the next step.if no satisfaction from this, then go to the next chain of command.i do not know if you are both lpn's or not, but no matter where we work. there are either policies in place or hiearchy in dealing with problems on the unit.i belive in going to the person i am having the problem with first. it is how i would want to be treated and expect to be treated.others may not agree with this. nothing may change with this person. it will show others and yourself. you are capable of good communication skills, of being prepared to resolve problems, rather than perpetuating problems. getting to the bottom of disfunction is difficult. as i do not know your facility personally, nor know your don or anyone, who knows how high up the disfunction may go. so follow proper channels, maintain your dignity ,be professional, cover yourself.good luck

i found this definition perhaps it will help not only you but each of us in our day to day dealings with people.

assertiveness definition

assertiveness is the ability to express your emotions and needs without violating others rights and in the same time without being aggressive. people who are not assertive do their best to please others violating their own rights. they just step on themselves in order to make others feel happy or in order to avoid being rejected. (see the guide to overcoming fear of rejection)

assertiveness is not shouting at people nor trying to show them that you are mad, it's something in between being aggressive and being passive, it's demanding what you want in a confident way that harms no one but in the same time preserves your rights.

do's and don't's of assertiveness

there's a fine line between having confidence and having an ego. there's as well a fine line between being assertive and being aggressive, which is often taken offensively. sometime's being too assertive or asserting at the wrong time can be taken as being rude.

timing:

when someone else is speaking it is generally a bad time to 'assert' anything. wait until they finish their point/sentence/speech/etc before inserting your opinions. on the other hand, if you are being badgered without warrent it's okay to speak up.

hostility

don't be hostile. being calm as you speak can make a big difference when offending people. also avoid unwanted sarcastic language and tones.

demands

being overly demanding is almost always poorly received. if you have something to ask, make requests, regardless of the situation. even a supervisor or boss is not a ruler and still needs to treat others with decency.

be polite

again, assertiveness does not mean rudeness. politeness can go along way in getting others to accept what you are saying or even to take the time to listen. other than obviously faked politeness, it's rarely an offensive trait.

eye contact

look at the person you are talking to, this shows them your confidence. breaking eye contact or staring in other directions shows insecurity or even fear.

empathy

show some understanding for the others situation. for exmaple, "i know you have been really busy with work lately, but we still need to get that fence fixed, could you do that please?". empathy does not mean that you should back down every time someone else has had any troubles, but if you have a request to make you should acknowledge their condition and situation, taking that into consideration.

"i" language

this is a good thing to practice at all times. don't go around placing blame. if someone did something that offended or bothered you, don't say, "your comment was rude and you offended me.", say, "i was offended by that comment and i feel it may have been a little too rude." when you come across less accusing, people are less likely to be offended or to react aggressively in return.

skittlebear · Aug 22, 2008

. I just dont know why she is making me look bad to others and trying to turn others against me? It really hurts my feelings and makes me mad.

She is doing this because she knows it gets to you. I know it's hard but you gotta act as if she doesn't phase you one bit, and assert yourself more when she belittles you or is rude. The others she's gossiping to about you probably know what kind of person she is and don't give much credit to who she's gossiping about. After all, she talks about everyone. I'm sorry your going through that...I know it must be hard, especially because your new.

I think there is a person like this in every work place. There is definitely one in mine who thinks she's all high and mighty and a "super nurse"...she belittles others to their face and most definitely behind there back. She also goes to the DON for every little thing. The thing is, is she has very low self-esteem. I bragged to her one day about how great of a nurse she was and she almost cried. It was like she needed to hear that.