I started working at a small rural hospital after leaving my first nursing job at a big teaching hospital in May. I am just over a year experienced in med-surg/telemetry and am three weeks away from completing my first semester in a full time FNP program. When first hired for the job, I was full time but at the time was accepted in the part time cohort of the FNP program. Not too soon after starting I found out that a position was available in the full time cohort so I made the switch and let my boss know that I needed to go PRN. I don't know if this ended up being my downfall. Today I go into work to discover that my name was not on the board for patients, didn't get worried I'm PRN so I figured maybe the supervisor forgot to call me off. So I go look up my schedule only to find out that all my shifts for this month have been crossed out. I call the housing supervisor and she tells me to call my floor manager because she is not aware of what's going on either. So anyway I proceed to do that and the floor manager (who lives up the street) tells me she'll come talk to me. Well of course when she comes she informs me she is letting me go because of complaints by other night shift staff members. I'm flabberghasted, I've been at the job going almost three months, have never been called into the office, and have never had a disagreement with my coworkers AT ALL. They are all real cliquish, I stay away from that aspect but I always help when asked. Anyway she listed off some issues that were mentioned to which I had a refute to everyone of them.
1) I leave the floor without telling people I am gone
I have always let people know if I was gonna leave the floor. Several nurses are smokers and leave the floor constantly to smoke. I always notified somebody and EVERYTIME I came back I made sure none of my paitents had needed assistance while I was gone. None ever did because I always made sure to attend to them before leaving. I usually never spent 10 to 15 mins off the floor and I defintely didn't leave more than 2 times for my 15 mins breaks (2 are permitted). We HAVE to clock out for our 30 mins breaks so I always went out to my car for those but was back within the time frame. The boss, who actually is a pretty nice lady (pushover), is a smoker so she had nothing to say because she knew others went outside constantly for their smoke breaks
2) I left the floor one night when specifically told to stay on the floor because two of the nurses were in the PCU
Now this one was just plain ridiculous and here in lies the clique part of it. I was never told to stay on the floor. The charge nurse and another nurse walked around the corner to the PCU nurse's station (a new concept at the hospital and the PCU nurse's station is acutally an old room of our floor so that tells you the distance to the main nurse's station). The two nurses went to the PCU to talk with another nurse in which a group of them were going out of town to get the same tattoo together. They were looking up hotels to stay at on the internet!!!!! Maybe I'm crazy but how I was I to know that I couldn't take my break for that. The monitor tech was there and the call light is answered by them anyway. Every nurse has a phone and he was aware of the other two's location. I thought they would be back on the floor within 5 mins, it was not an emergency situation. Told the monitor tech I was taking my break, the other two weren't even clocked out therefore not officially on break.
3) Lastly I "supposedly" refused to relieve a monitor tech the last night I worked
I rarely refuse to do anything but the last night I worked all three nurses were getting admits at the same time with the MD coming to the floor to write the orders. There was no way to relieve an MT for a smoke break at that point. This MT is usually a joker so I made the statement "I don't care if you don't get a break" in jest and he's so full of it if he reported I said it in a mean tone. We always laugh and joke together but he is quite addicted to cigarrettes to the point he shakes if he doesn't get his breaks in a timely manner so maybe he got upset. But my problem is although I was a telemetry nurse previously at my big hospital job, I had never found out if I was going to be able to actually sit for the man. I took a test but it was never graded, and the guy who administered the test quit two weeks ago. Every night I worked, I relieved this guy at least once sometimes three times to smoke, BUT I'm reported for the one night I'm too busy to do it.
This was my first time even hearing that staff were complaining, never received complaints from MDs or patients. And not one staff member ever came to me to say they were preceiving my actions the wrong way or that I didn't need to take smoke breaks. Never once has anyone ever not had a 24 hour chart check completed, orders in the system correctly, etc. I feel I just didn't blend with the clique, and the boss kind of told me this in so many words. She admittedly stated that night shift was close knit. I expressed my thought that this was all "mob mentality", one person took a dislike to me and it spread to the others by simple talking and gossip. I'm still in shock and really questioning my nursing career at the moment because I enjoyed this job. Nursing politics was prevalent at my previous job and I thought I had escaped by coming to a smaller rural hospital, just to find out I hadn't. School is my main focus right now but I don't know what to do, I know this happened for a reason but that reason is not clear. I know this is long but I felt all details should be necessary in case any one had any advice on what happened and where I should go from here. The boss said she would provide me a good recommendation so I'm prone to believe I just didn't fit into the clique and I have a feeling me not being full time was ammunition as well.
