AND IT WILL PROBABLY END UP TOO LONG. SORRY. VENT.
I do hate to use the term "nurses who eat their young", but I am DEFINITELY dealing with one of those nurses. Actually, she eats everybody!! I work on a very busy med/surg, cardiac floor. There is one particular older nurse that absolutely talks about everyone, this includes all our other nurses, techs, secretaries, housekeeping, our boss, other floors' bosses and nurses...the list goes on and on. She thinks she is perfect, and if someone does not do something how she thinks it should be done, you will definitely be talked about behind your back. She has talked to me about others (I just sit there and listen, kind of look at her in a glare). I feel like I am in high school...actually worse than high school. The thing is people pretty much know about how she is, and it just still happens, just tolerated. The weird thing is she says nice things to my face, like she has told me before, "I love following you b/c I know everything will be done and thorough. You are a great nurse". Well, I had a situation about 3 weeks ago with a patient, and she thought I should have handled it differently. I overheard her talking to another nurse about me behind my back. Well, I decided to get a backbone, be assertive (not aggressive or rude), and I told her she needed to say it to my face. I did not like the backstabbing crap. She then had the nerve to say, "Well, I am talking to you now". I said to her, "Yeah, after I confronted you about it and overheard you". I did end up crying when leaving work, but I would not let her know that! Thought the situation was over. So wrong. She has told some of the other nurses on the floor how I handled it, and I should have handled it this way. Luckily, they let me know she was doing this. Most ignored it knowing how she is, but it got back to me, of course. I was fuming mad. I confronted her again, and I told her that it had come to my attention that she was discussing/gossiping to other nurses (and probably anybody that would listen) about something from 3 weeks ago, and she had no business discussing it with anyone, but me. She was turning nothing into something! It literally was nothing at all...just a different way of handling a situation....and I am a big document, document, document person, so I had the whole thing documented. I KNOW I am a good nurse, and I did the best I could, just like every day that I work. I have never heard of any complaints against me, and we all know that is tough with patients and families, understaffing, etc... I know I am definitely not perfect though!! Anyway, I let my boss know about everything, and she did bring up in a meeting that all the gossiping had to stop...it had got out of hand. It really has on this floor. I just want to go to work, do my job, go home happy (very tired, but happy). This nurse picks on others as well, and she keeps complaining about one particular tech over and over again. I walked into work one morning after not being there for a couple days, and she started gossiping/complaining to me before the day even got started on how her day yesterday was horrible, and this tech did this and that, and she was going to write it up to this person and go higher up. There is no telling how many people she writes up or tattle-tales on for absolutely nothing. She even got caught telling a lie on two of the techs. I could go on and on with her horrible, manipulative, evil actions. I can get along with anyone, but I have never encountered anybody like this. A couple months ago, she even had the nerve to tell a group of us about another nurse not starting a much needed intervention for a PE patient ASAP, pt was transferred to ICU, and pt died. It is not her place to tell that to everyone!! SO...to give you some background on this nurse. When I first started working on this floor, she seemed so nice. She has admitted to me she had to get some help last year or year before, but I thought nothing much of it....preferred not to dig. But, one day people were talking like they do, and it is known on the floor that she had been reported for coming to work impaired. She was fired, got help, and rehired. I am wondering...and others too keep saying that she is trying to compensate for her actions by trying to appear perfect now, and she has a reputation or history now, so she tries to get others in trouble at any means. She feels good by bringing others down to bring herself up. She lies, manipulates, exaggerates, etc... I am told not to worry, people know how she is, even our boss. She literally talks about everyone. Wish they had warned me a year ago when I started there. haha! It seems like something all the time. I dread working with her. She really scares me! How do you handle this type of personality? I am definitely living and learning!
SORRY SOOOO LONG! Thanks for taking time to read my post and respond!
Part of the problem is that this is tolerated. The best manager I ever had asked me during interview: "Do you like to gossip? Because we don't tolerate that here and I will fire those who do." The unit had a policy that no one was to say anything nasty about another employee. If you had any concerns, you could only express them with the other person and the manager present in a meeting. Sounds odd, but it was the best place I've ever worked in terms of morale. The manager followed through and fired the one gossiper we had. Part of your yearly raise was based on how supportive and helpful you were of your colleagues.
Your former manager sounds awesome! That's a very effective way to build trust among members of the team and increase morale.
I once had a manager who claimed to dislike gossip but was the biggest gossip of them all. Morale was low, staff didn't function as a team, and there was a general attitude of distrust at all levels. High turnover too. Duh.
Once worked with one of these tattle tales. What was so disgusting about her was that she would create mistakes and errors for others, so that she could report them. It all backfired, when she killed a patient, trying to screw over the assigned nurse. The DON finally fired her and her reputation preceded her around the area when she tried to get another job. She deserved to be criminally prosecuted, but I doubt that happened.
Criminal prosecution, loss of license---this nurse's actions should have resulted in consequences beyond firing. It is heinous and, you're right---downright criminal---that someone's little ego games could result in an innocent person's death.
Maybe it's a guy thing but I don't pay attention to nurses like that . . . maybe if everyone just told her to shut the **** up every time she started in, things would improve.
I agree 100%. I was taught by a very wise person that if someone is talking about others when they aren't present I should just say "I'm uncomfortable with this" and then change the subject or walk away. Let her reaction to this be her problem. If you and the people you work with do this when she starts, you will cut off her oxygen.
It takes two people to gossip, one to speak and the other to listen. So, anyone just sitting there letting her drone on, is giving her permission to gossip and participating in it by listening.
Gah! It's people like this who make nurses look like baffoons rather then the professionals they are, and I can't believe management puts up with these people. Behavior like that absolutely kills morale and is ultimately harmful to patients. While I'm here, I'm really ambivalent about "killing" someone like that "with kindness". While I've used this technique myself a number of times, because it effectively diffuses the negativity and leaves me feeling like the superior being (which is good) it also doesn't do much to stop the behavior in the long run and in a way you are actually rewarding the person for acting like a jerk.
This garbage happens everywhere, not just with nurses, in pretty much every work environment.
I never give into these people. They want to irritate you and they want to see you angry. They do these things and talk like that because inside they hate themselves. It's always a reflection of how they feel about themselves.
Instead, stay out of her way, and just keep smiling. Stay professional and don't get involved in what she says, just ignore it. Let her do her talk. If she sees it doesn't bother you, after a while, she will give it up.
Just always remember that the reason she is saying this stuff is because she wants everyone else to be miserable with her. Miserable people always want to bring down the happy people, and people at work they may feel threatened by professionally speaking.
I have a good friend who's barometer of gossip is if she would say the same thing with the person in the room/conversation. I feel that's a good way to judge whether I'll listen to it as well... if I would be embarrassed on behalf of that person should they overhear it - I want no part of it lest they think I was an active participant.
I like the "I'm not really interested in that. How was your weekend?" response, it was good....
or walk away and start your rounds/meds/vitals/etc. away from her.
Specializes in CT stepdown, hospice, psych, ortho.
So you ever notice that (with the rare exception) the nurse that will "eat her young" or be a catty snot to everyone wouldn't DARE talk to a doctor like that to his face. Now how she goes on behind their back is another story.
Its just a case of nurses that are trying to dogfight their way up some perceived hierarchy among the other nurses.
It really is up to us as professionals to quit letting this behaviour slide. I've been guilty of just letting stuff go too but we all need to take a unified approach and stop the backstabbing and the lateral violence and the cattiness that we all witness by just saying "Its not ok." And sticking to it.
And yes, there are sometimes people that cry wolf about being picked on but even if someone is the equivalent of having a potato with a stethoscope around its neck, we need to address those issues in a professional manner with peer mentorship and education and managment backing us up to remove those that can't or won't come up to standard after being assisted from our work environment
Maybe it's a guy thing but I don't pay attention to nurses like that . . . maybe if everyone just told her to shut the **** up every time she started in, things would improve.
Ditto... I actually had something similar to something like this on our floor. Our floor was w/out a floor manager for approx 6 months b/c the former manager stopped caring b/c she was transferring out. Because of this there was no accountability for anybody, and the floors morale went through the drains.
We got a new manager that whipped everybody back into shape, but this one particular RN's attitude never changed, and her negativity and (sorry) bit***ness was getting absolutely out of hand. There were multiple times where we had reported her attitude to the supervisors, and they eventually started telling us to write incident reports for bad attitudes and to keep letting them know to document these events.
Nothing was done for quite a while from OUR standpoint on night shift (she's a day shift-er), and the attitude persisted. We ended up taking this issue up with the floor manager, and she finally took issue with this RN. Things definitely improved after this (I don't know if her unhappiness w/ work was r/t what was going on at home ... she was a single mom w/out a sig-other). After things improved she ended up meeting a guy. After that we started to see actual smiles and she started being courteous towards us!
End result, get the managers involved. If this doesn't work, get the unit manager involved, if this doesn't work, then HR might need a call. SHE is the reason why jobs are stressful. SHE is the reason people hate where they work. SHE needs an attitude adjustment, or needs to get a new job / home life so she can ****, as said above.
FWIW If you DO tell her, "You know I realize that you feel like you need to complain, but I'm sick of hearing how bad your days are. Go home and tell someone there, or keep it to yourself...
I guess from the last post, we should see that all complainers meet a nice SO. Too bad there doesn't seem to be enough of them to go around for all the grouchy people we meet in life!
Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, Neuro, Ortho, Med/Surg.
Thanks for all the input and opinions. Will take them all in!
I even thought about calling her out on it if she was talking about someone that was there, maybe embarrassing her would stop it. An example of one of her actual complaints about our wonderful secretary that goes out of her way for us (even when secretary is crazy busy with phone, call light, putting in orders) and what I should have done: Secretary sitting at her desk, she had the nerve to complain how the "last order sheet was almost full" and "the least she could do was put a new order sheet in the chart" in her rude tone. I should have said to secretary sitting on other side of wall, "Hey, ____ has a complaint for you she mentioned to me. Just thought she should take it up with you since it does not involve me". Hehehe. That would cause drama though, so I am just kidding!! It is even petty stuff like that though. I just have to not let her get under my skin, ignore her lies, complaining, gossip, bad-mouthing, and keep on moving on.
If it had been one or a few incidents, I would not be so peeved about it, I guess. I confronted her on another incident where she was my preceptor when I first came there. Should have learned right then! She told me to take 4 out of our 5 patients. I took the ones she assigned to me. I was doing my daily duties, and I just happened to walk up behind her on the phone. She was saying how if she was me, she would be taking all patients by now. I was SHOCKED! I did exactly what she told me to do! I waited for her to get off the phone, got my backbone (which, by the way, has taken me a while to get...haha), and I told her that I heard what she said. I told her I would appreciate her saying it to my face, but I did what she told me to do by taking the 4 patients she told me to take. I told her it was not right for her to talk behind my back, and I did not like that type of stuff, but again, I did what she told me to do. I was so mad. It was like a set-up or something weird. What in the world is her problem by doing that? I do think she is just an evil, manipulative, vindictive person with a definite personality disorder or something. This is not normal gossip and stuff....she is a pro at being her devil self! She may really be the devil! Hmmm.... Oh, I could tell so many more stories, but you guys get the point. Thanks again for taking time to read and respond!!
I have handled this type of situation this way..."I'm not a psych, therefore, I can't help with that problem"......"If it concerns you, please take it to the Supervisor, I'm sure He/She can help you, It is none of my concern".....sends them packing right away...Drama...were not in High School here folks.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
it doesn't sound at all like anyone is "eating their young." it sounds as if one nurse is a miserable tattletale. that's not eating your young. that's just one nurse being a miserable tattletale.
Oh, I could tell so many more stories, but you guys get the point. Thanks again for taking time to read and respond!! 
Moogie
1 Article; 1,796 Posts
Your former manager sounds awesome! That's a very effective way to build trust among members of the team and increase morale.
I once had a manager who claimed to dislike gossip but was the biggest gossip of them all. Morale was low, staff didn't function as a team, and there was a general attitude of distrust at all levels. High turnover too. Duh.
Criminal prosecution, loss of license---this nurse's actions should have resulted in consequences beyond firing. It is heinous and, you're right---downright criminal---that someone's little ego games could result in an innocent person's death.