Maybe this has been covered previously, but I am finding that it doesn't matter where I am, Nurses and CNAs are not very friendly to new hires.
My first experience was in clinicals. Not one of the CNAs working there introduced themselves to me or anyone else in my class. Only one spoke to me-to yell at me for bringing someone who was NPO into the lunchroom. How could I have possibly known that?
I volunteered in an ER and on a Med-Surg floor and had the same experience. After a few weeks, I got friendly with the Nurses and commented on the atmosphere and they all said that they also had a hard time in the beginning.
My first job was in a Nursing home and my God, it was/is unlike anything else. Everyone has negative things to say about their colleagues, shifts are very cliquey, passive-aggressive notes indicating what a failure everyone else is are the norm, and the supervisor is totally worthless. When I began training new hires, I made it a point to be supportive of the new hires, friendly to them, and gave them a heads up that people were frosty to me in the beginning, too. I ended up going to part-time overnights and taking a second job in another nursing home to get away from it. It is better, but I just can't believe that this is the norm everywhere.
I'm sorry your experience was so crappy. It sounds similar to that of my a lot of my fellow CNA class students during our clinicals. We, however, had an awesome teacher who really prepared us both before and after our clinical days and she went above and beyond to see that we succeeded, even offering students with transportation trouble rides home at the end of the day, and she worked out a signal before she put us on the floor between us in case things were going badly and we needed to step away for a few because she knew how awful a lot of the staff at the nursing home could be to newbies and each other. She'd let us come hide out with her for a few minutes and vent and she is where I first heard that phrase; "nurses eat their young" from and gave the advice to try not to let it get to us too much but she would be there if we needed a break from it. We all met up at the end of the day to vent about what bothered us and/or talk about any good things we saw/learned. I also know how you feel about the negative vibes; at the nursing home we were at I noticed staff talking bad about each other behind their backs, being snippy to both the CNA students and the nursing students who were there at the same time, even the residents could feel it as one said to me; "Why is everyone always in such a bad mood." They can see right through those fake smiles everyone pastes on for them. Other than the nursing home staff my own experience at clinicals was actually all right. I was very nervous going into it having never worked at a nursing home before but we were paired up with another student in our class and we shadowed a CNA from the facility. We were lucky enough to get one of the nicer ones and learning how to use the lifts, (under supervision!), and stuff was actually kind of fun.
This has completely been my experience. The CNAs at the LTC facility I worked at for 3 weeks treated me like absolute dirt. They gave me dirty looks, badmouthed me, talked down to me, screamed at me and cussed me out, one even called me up on my phone and threatened me over something I didn't do. I remember one time when I had just started, I accidentally put a resident's brief on wrong, an aide came into the room to look at it... I'd swear, she must have thought of me as scum of the Earth, the way she looked and talked at me was so dirty and hateful. But nah, I'm sure they were "kind" and "caring" aides who were just stressed out having to put up with the likes of me, an incompetent. My short experience working in LTC has just further solidified my conviction that I'm a an idiot and loser who will never get anywhere in life.
Skayda
191 Posts
I'm sorry your experience was so crappy. It sounds similar to that of my a lot of my fellow CNA class students during our clinicals. We, however, had an awesome teacher who really prepared us both before and after our clinical days and she went above and beyond to see that we succeeded, even offering students with transportation trouble rides home at the end of the day, and she worked out a signal before she put us on the floor between us in case things were going badly and we needed to step away for a few because she knew how awful a lot of the staff at the nursing home could be to newbies and each other. She'd let us come hide out with her for a few minutes and vent and she is where I first heard that phrase; "nurses eat their young" from and gave the advice to try not to let it get to us too much but she would be there if we needed a break from it. We all met up at the end of the day to vent about what bothered us and/or talk about any good things we saw/learned. I also know how you feel about the negative vibes; at the nursing home we were at I noticed staff talking bad about each other behind their backs, being snippy to both the CNA students and the nursing students who were there at the same time, even the residents could feel it as one said to me; "Why is everyone always in such a bad mood." They can see right through those fake smiles everyone pastes on for them. Other than the nursing home staff my own experience at clinicals was actually all right. I was very nervous going into it having never worked at a nursing home before but we were paired up with another student in our class and we shadowed a CNA from the facility. We were lucky enough to get one of the nicer ones and learning how to use the lifts, (under supervision!), and stuff was actually kind of fun.