Nursing CAN be the very devil!

I think that is with any job title.. It's sad that some people wake up and prepare themselves to be jerks (other names I can't post lol). It's people like that on here & this is ONLY a message board for crying out loud. What I say to that is: let them hate, be jealous, talk about me all day, I must be doing something you aren't and I am glad that thinking about me makes your day that much more interesting. Frankly, I could care less for the drama I am here to do my job and the last thing that will worry me is you =)

I am an older nurse, and I can say that I did not see this kind of behavior in the business world that I worked in prior to nursing. The behavior I have seen would not have been tolerated, and the employee let go pretty darn quick. I did see this type of backstabbing, gossipy, nastiness in middle school, but thought most people would have grown out of it by now. I have been a nurse for less than a year, and I do NOT understand at all. I thought nurses were supposed to be loving, fair, kind, generous, giving, kind hearted, good natured. I get everyone has their days, but we all know thats not what I am talking about. The movie "Mean Girls" comes to mind.

Part of the problem is that nursing schools do not want you to know the truth about several in the nursing community. You come out of school full of hope and wanting to change the world. Wrong answer. Nursing is now a business. Due to the nature of, self protection of your license vs staffing requirements clash. You know what runs downhill, right? It's every man/woman for himself.....even in team nursing. They never tell you the down side of nursing. Nursing's dirty secrets are not conducive to the Florance Nightingale thing. There is a hierarchy of survival that must be adjusted to each nurse in each position. It's not personal, it's just business.

I am an older nurse, and I can say that I did not see this kind of behavior in the business world that I worked in prior to nursing. The behavior I have seen would not have been tolerated, and the employee let go pretty darn quick. I did see this type of backstabbing, gossipy, nastiness in middle school, but thought most people would have grown out of it by now. I have been a nurse for less than a year, and I do NOT understand at all. I thought nurses were supposed to be loving, fair, kind, generous, giving, kind hearted, good natured. I get everyone has their days, but we all know thats not what I am talking about. The movie "Mean Girls" comes to mind.

Coolpeach, I so get what you are saying. I too am an older nurse and this is my 2nd career after 25 years in the business world. The people who engaged in juvenile mean spirited behavior were LET GO and until they were let go, were avoided by the rest of the employee's. I too have seen that in nursing this behavior runs rampant and I don't get it. If this is the definition of professionalism than my world is on tilt. In my "old" world, employee's wanted to work together as a team and we may not have had a "professional" license to protect but we had our integrity, honor and self respect to protect. Maybe it is an "age" thing but as I grow older...I grow more compassionate and want to assist my peers rather than scowl, make passive aggressive remarks, throw temper tantrums, etc. And I see this behavior in Nurse Mgr's as well. Very odd.

I like my floor. We talk trash about each other, but that's just venting, and probably no one needs to vent regularly like nurses do. But when anyone gets in a tight, we drop everything we can and we're all there for her right away. OTOH, we don't DO nasty things to each other. That's just not tolerated. From what I hear, day shift is different. I'll never know because I don't plan to switch.

Always practice the art of CYA. Stay professional, document, help if you can, and stay out of cat fights.

I'm a new grad with a BSN from "one of the top nursing schools in the country" and I think school made it worse. I feel like they bred us to be so competitive and everyone was entirely to focused on "being the best". I start my new job in about a month, and I'm hoping it will be different when there's no competition for rankings or grades.

In most places I have worked - I view anywhere from 10 - 30% of nurses to be problem employees.

Catty, jealous, ill-mannered, petty, immature ... pathetic excuses for professional women.

The majority of nurses I work with are wonderful fine people. But I don't know how much longer I can tolerate the minority who create such a negative influence.

I am so tired of battling them ....they keep dishing it out.

Yesterday one of them attempted to blame me for something .... and I wasn't even at work until two hours later. I spoke to my supervisor - reinforced the fact that I couldn't done it because I wasn't there. Nothing will happen. She won't fix it.