Please help us deal with problem co-worker

weetziebat · Feb 22, 2005

wow! what a world class manipulator. i can't believe she is still working if your manager knows all about her. there may be a nursing shortage, but she sounds like you would be just as well off without her 'help'. in my opinion, you need to go up the chain of command. would be great if most or all the other nurse did this together, since she is affecting everyone. but i would have a sit down conference with the manager, and keeping a paper trail of her breaks etc. and if nothing got done, i'd move up the chain of command till something did get done.

good luck! these kind of nurses make you dread going into work, don't they?

dbsn00 · Feb 22, 2005

Does your DON have any idea of what's going on? This woman should not be working as a nurse (doesn't really sound like she WANTS to be a nurse) :rolleyes: . You & a few co-workers should do some detailed record keeping of her activities & enlighten your DON to this situation. Loose this manipulative dead weight "co-worker" - she is jeopardizing patient safety ( & ultimately you & co-workers licenses)! If your DON doesn't listen go to the administrator and keep moving up. Good luck!!

medpsychRN · Feb 22, 2005

Funny because I also work with a nurse that drives everybody NUTS! Slow as molasses unless she's tired and wants to take a break. One reason she's slow is so she can say she's too busy to help on the floor. Of course never too busy to nag the tech's about their work or monitor other people's break times to make sure they don't go over (which she does all the time). She complains about her schedule saying she needs two consequetive days off a week but the days she wants off are on the weekend. She requests all vacation time on her weekends to work and then moans when no one will work for her. When you are accomodating she presses for more favors. When you gently confront, your mean. And she's a nag!

I have had enough. Management knows about her. She's worked there 15 years. I have stopped accomodating her. When in charge, I give her an assignment and when she complains I tell her she'll have to manage. And I'm waiting for her next bout of being manipulative behavior because I am going to let her have it!

For your smoking friend, I would not cover her patients unless it was her scheduled break time. If I had to follow her I would insist she clean up her mess before she leaves. If she's sleeping, I'd call the nurse manager at home and report her.

It gripes me to no end that people who get paid the same or more than me expect to sit around while others do their job!

proudmommielpn · Feb 22, 2005

When I was reading your post I felt like it was me that was writing it. Myself and this other nurse have always been close. You might say that we have been the black sheep of the unit. If anyone remembers some of my posts about the nurse that emptied the sharps container and such you can see what I have to deal with at work. This girl that I am talking about is only 27 y/o and not married, and she is seeing a dorm counselor at our facility. He also works the same shift we do 3-11. He is always back there in Medical or they are on the phone. The days that he doesn't work and she does he either calls her or she goes back in the break room and goes to sleep while I do her work. I didn't want to say anything to her because we have been through thick and thin together but I like you feel like she is taking advantage of me. I spoke to my supervisor and she said that she would talk to her and she did and it is getting better. I kept a log of times the guy was down to medical or they were on the phone or that she was sleeping. I gave this to my supervisor and she was appalled. She told me not to pass her meds or do anything for her. Problem is that if this nurse gets behind she stays until midnight charting or catching up and then she gets upset with me when I leave because shockingly I get done on time. But I have a hubby at home and a child, she just has a dog. I don't mean to make fun of her because of that fact but I like to get home to my family. Anyone would. So my advice is keep you a little notebook in your pocket and document when that nurse goes to smoke or on the phone and it will come in handy!:)

Antikigirl, ASN, RN · Feb 22, 2005

We have some staff like this (mainly CNA's sadly), and despite documentation and telling managment...nothing has been done. Guess it is the old "a body is better than none".

As far as the smoking...okay I smoke (doing well at cutting down at work..YEAH!!!!! I am shocked..I can do this!!!!!), but I NEVER take another break to do so, only during my assigned breaks..and I leave time for 'refreshing' myself (tooth brushing, mouthwash, fabreeze on my clothing, putting on the parts of my uniform I don't wear while I smoke so they don't get smokey...it may not be all, but at least I do this!) as well!

So I would certainly bring that up to managment because that is wasting their time and money and a severe neglect of patients...it is a patient safety issue big time! Bring up money and patient safety to a managment team and they should listen..if not...OUCH!

If she is rude to patients...have them fill out a comment card or write their greivences. Patient comments hold more weight than anything staff has to say (sadly...too true) so use this to illicit change for the better if you can find a patient willing to do so.

Good luck :)

FutureNrse · Feb 23, 2005

We have a co-worker who is driving us (entire staff) nuts. She is extemely lazy, manipulative, and just plain annoying. It would take me all day to address every problem concerning this nurse, so I'll just try to hit the high spots. First of all, she goes out of her way to get out of work. She goes out to smoke at least 15-20 times in a 12 hour shift, and that's being conservative. She'll ask me all the time "You don't have a problem with me going out to smoke do you?" The thing is, I don't have a problem with her actually going out to smoke, but I don't get a break other than 20 minutes, maybe, for lunch. When she is gone, she usually stays gone for at least 10 minutes, and usually we end up needing her for something, ie, phone, lights, etc. It causes us to have to pick up a lot of slack when she is out. And the next thing is, if she did her job, maybe 3 breaks per shift would be in order. But she does not do her job. She constantly needs to be reminded to do simple things. The other day I had to remind her to discharge a patient that was waiting on HER so that she could go home. She had been waiting over an hour while this nurse was piddling around, not to mention she took 2 smoke breaks within the hour. We get very, very busy because we are so short staffed. I try to delegate very easy tasks to her when I am swamped and have no choice. I asked her to go and put a binder on a patient the other day and she had the nerve to tell me that the patient wanted me to do it. She had not even been in the room so I knew she was lying. One of our nurses was sick the other day and called to find out what the next day was going to be like since she was scheduled to work. When she found out it was going to be busy, she said she would just come on in. The "problem" nurse was talking to her on the phone and kept telling her that she needed to stay at home, and she assured her that she would work for her if needed. As soon as she hung the phone up, she told me that she was not working the next day, she would not be at home if the phone rang. :angryfire This made me irrate and I said "Why did you tell her that you would work then?" This woman is rude to the patients and to the patient's visitors. Her teenage kids call the unit constantly and it is very distracting to have to take time out from what we're doing and go and find her to take a nonsense phone call. They also visit her on the unit at least 1-2 times in a 12 hour shift. So the other day, our phone starts ringing constantly as it always does (we don't have a unit secretary.) She makes the statement "We're going to have to tell these people we can't have all of these phone calls, we're busy." I responded to her that I wouldn't be telling anyone anything of the sort. It is not my business how many phone calls my patients receive. Later that same day, her kids start calling non-stop over ridiculous issues that we have to hear every last detail about, and of course, takes her away from the work at hand. There have been numerous complaints about how rough she is with the babies. And just a few weeks ago, a patient complained that this nurse told her she would probably be too tired to care for her infant in the nursery that night, being that she was a day shift nurse and she was working nights that night because we were short staffed. Her main job is the nursery while she is there, and ALL of the on-coming nurses dread following her because the nursery is ALWAYS left in disarray after she has worked. She leaves things undone for the next shift to do (hearing screens, baths, PKU's) because she is "so busy" although none of us can figure out exactly what it is she does. The other day, I caught her sleeping while the rest of us were running our asses off. She told me that one of the other RN's would be making her work if she were there. This comment was a wake up call to me. I realized that I had been allowing her to take advantage of me, and had fallen prey to her manipulative ways. For the past few months, I have felt sorry for this woman, because she is so hated by the rest of the staff. I have tried my best to be kind to her because I am one of those people that looks out for the underdog. I have heard all of the talk from other nurses about how this nurse operates, but chose to form my own opinion. Well, it seems that she has taken advantage of my kindness, and I have seen her deviant behavior firsthand on more than one occasion. I don't want to put up with this crap anymore, and would love some tips at handling this person. I'm afraid I'm not a very aggressive, nor assertive person when it comes to something like this. But I'm tired. My co-workers are tired as well. I don't understand why our manager puts up with her. She too voices her disgust with this nurse and often schedules her days opposite of her so that she doesn't have to deal with it. Any pointers with this type of personality would be greatly appreciated.

I can think of a couple different ways to handle this. If you want to do an abrupt about face, the next time she asks if you mind her going out to smoke, simply say, " Yes, I do mind.". If that is too harsh for your comfort, you can add in an explanation, " Yes, I do mind because we are far to busy right now. Ask me again when we're all caught up." From what I can gather, nurses are never caught up so that should let you off the hook for the remainder of your shift.

If you want to take a more gradual approach, you can say, "No, I don't mind of you smoke, but I need you to do this one thing first." Then after a few times of handling it that way, you can ask her to do TWO things first, then three, etc. It at least insures that she does something that day, right?

As for the phone calls from her kids, that can be tricky. Is there a policy against personal phone calls? If there is, you can notify a "higher up" and ask if a memo can be circulated reminding employees of the policy. If there's no policy, and you answer one of the calls, ask if it's an emergency, if they say it isn't, inform them that mom is busy but you'll pass a message along to her. Then when you give her the message try doing it this way, "Your child called and since you were busy I took a message. So after you're finished doing this, this, and that, he/she wanted to know what's for dinner." Doing it this way lets her know that she shouldn't drop everything to answer a personal call, and that you know the call is non-urgent and expect her to finish her work before she calls them back.

Hope this helps.

cabbage patch rn · Feb 23, 2005

Thanks for your suggestions. After reading, I'm thinking that now I need to figure out how to deal with my manager. :uhoh3: She is VERY aware of this problem but her unique way of handling things is to turn a blind eye and avoiding any chance at confronting this nurse about her behavior. She keeps saying things like "I need to talk to her about..." but she never does. Very passive-aggressive if you ask me. The thing I wanted to avoid was being mean to this woman. I have noticed that most of the RN's have a very short fuse when it comes to this nurse, but I guess I'm going to have to take a tougher approach myself. For instance, when she comes up and asks if she can go out and smoke, after like the 5th time in 2 hours, most will tell her "no" not until she completes a certain task. One of the RN's will tell her to start cleaning when she finds her sitting idle. I just don't have the time or patience to babysit and wish that management would do their job. Plus, I can hear her whining right now when I tell her that I'm no longer going to allow her to leave the floor 15 times a day. She will think I'm kidding, seriously. Ugghh! I guess I need to know how to switch gears with her?? Since the nice approach is not working, how do I let her know that I mean business? I don't want her to think that I am the nurse that she can get away with anything, like not doing her job. I don't want to overstep...how do you go about setting limits with a person like this? "No you can't leave AGAIN because when you're outside, you leave us shorthanded, not to mention we don't get ANY breaks? I feel like you take advantage of us by taking breaks too frequently." Do you say "Please be careful with your tone while speaking to the patients?" Or "Clean up your area before going home and don't leave a mess for night shift." Am I on the right track or does this sound *****y? Any other suggestions would be great because I've never had to handle a person like this.

BETSRN · Feb 23, 2005

We have a co-worker who is driving us (entire staff) nuts. She is extemely lazy, manipulative, and just plain annoying. It would take me all day to address every problem concerning this nurse, so I'll just try to hit the high spots. First of all, she goes out of her way to get out of work. She goes out to smoke at least 15-20 times in a 12 hour shift, and that's being conservative. She'll ask me all the time "You don't have a problem with me going out to smoke do you?" The thing is, I don't have a problem with her actually going out to smoke, but I don't get a break other than 20 minutes, maybe, for lunch. When she is gone, she usually stays gone for at least 10 minutes, and usually we end up needing her for something, ie, phone, lights, etc. It causes us to have to pick up a lot of slack when she is out. And the next thing is, if she did her job, maybe 3 breaks per shift would be in order. But she does not do her job. She constantly needs to be reminded to do simple things. The other day I had to remind her to discharge a patient that was waiting on HER so that she could go home. She had been waiting over an hour while this nurse was piddling around, not to mention she took 2 smoke breaks within the hour. We get very, very busy because we are so short staffed. I try to delegate very easy tasks to her when I am swamped and have no choice. I asked her to go and put a binder on a patient the other day and she had the nerve to tell me that the patient wanted me to do it. She had not even been in the room so I knew she was lying. One of our nurses was sick the other day and called to find out what the next day was going to be like since she was scheduled to work. When she found out it was going to be busy, she said she would just come on in. The "problem" nurse was talking to her on the phone and kept telling her that she needed to stay at home, and she assured her that she would work for her if needed. As soon as she hung the phone up, she told me that she was not working the next day, she would not be at home if the phone rang. :angryfire This made me irrate and I said "Why did you tell her that you would work then?" This woman is rude to the patients and to the patient's visitors. Her teenage kids call the unit constantly and it is very distracting to have to take time out from what we're doing and go and find her to take a nonsense phone call. They also visit her on the unit at least 1-2 times in a 12 hour shift. So the other day, our phone starts ringing constantly as it always does (we don't have a unit secretary.) She makes the statement "We're going to have to tell these people we can't have all of these phone calls, we're busy." I responded to her that I wouldn't be telling anyone anything of the sort. It is not my business how many phone calls my patients receive. Later that same day, her kids start calling non-stop over ridiculous issues that we have to hear every last detail about, and of course, takes her away from the work at hand. There have been numerous complaints about how rough she is with the babies. And just a few weeks ago, a patient complained that this nurse told her she would probably be too tired to care for her infant in the nursery that night, being that she was a day shift nurse and she was working nights that night because we were short staffed. Her main job is the nursery while she is there, and ALL of the on-coming nurses dread following her because the nursery is ALWAYS left in disarray after she has worked. She leaves things undone for the next shift to do (hearing screens, baths, PKU's) because she is "so busy" although none of us can figure out exactly what it is she does. The other day, I caught her sleeping while the rest of us were running our asses off. She told me that one of the other RN's would be making her work if she were there. This comment was a wake up call to me. I realized that I had been allowing her to take advantage of me, and had fallen prey to her manipulative ways. For the past few months, I have felt sorry for this woman, because she is so hated by the rest of the staff. I have tried my best to be kind to her because I am one of those people that looks out for the underdog. I have heard all of the talk from other nurses about how this nurse operates, but chose to form my own opinion. Well, it seems that she has taken advantage of my kindness, and I have seen her deviant behavior firsthand on more than one occasion. I don't want to put up with this crap anymore, and would love some tips at handling this person. I'm afraid I'm not a very aggressive, nor assertive person when it comes to something like this. But I'm tired. My co-workers are tired as well. I don't understand why our manager puts up with her. She too voices her disgust with this nurse and often schedules her days opposite of her so that she doesn't have to deal with it. Any pointers with this type of personality would be greatly appreciated.

Start with JUST the issue of bing caught sleeping! I believe in most institutions, that is grounds for dismissal. maybe if you can get nowhere with your manager you have to go up the chain of command.

FutureNrse · Mar 1, 2005

Thanks for your suggestions. After reading, I'm thinking that now I need to figure out how to deal with my manager. She is VERY aware of this problem but her unique way of handling things is to turn a blind eye and avoiding any chance at confronting this nurse about her behavior. She keeps saying things like "I need to talk to her about..." but she never does. Very passive-aggressive if you ask me. The thing I wanted to avoid was being mean to this woman. I have noticed that most of the RN's have a very short fuse when it comes to this nurse, but I guess I'm going to have to take a tougher approach myself. For instance, when she comes up and asks if she can go out and smoke, after like the 5th time in 2 hours, most will tell her "no" not until she completes a certain task. One of the RN's will tell her to start cleaning when she finds her sitting idle. I just don't have the time or patience to babysit and wish that management would do their job. Plus, I can hear her whining right now when I tell her that I'm no longer going to allow her to leave the floor 15 times a day. She will think I'm kidding, seriously. Ugghh! I guess I need to know how to switch gears with her?? Since the nice approach is not working, how do I let her know that I mean business? I don't want her to think that I am the nurse that she can get away with anything, like not doing her job. I don't want to overstep...how do you go about setting limits with a person like this? "No you can't leave AGAIN because when you're outside, you leave us shorthanded, not to mention we don't get ANY breaks? I feel like you take advantage of us by taking breaks too frequently." Do you say "Please be careful with your tone while speaking to the patients?" Or "Clean up your area before going home and don't leave a mess for night shift." Am I on the right track or does this sound *****y? Any other suggestions would be great because I've never had to handle a person like this.

I think you're on the right track. You can say all of those things, and as long as you use the same tone you use with everyone else, I don't think you'll come off as b**chy. If you're really concerned, you can always try a little manipulation yourself. I'm sure that there are others who feel the way you do, so recruit someone to help you put on a little show. In front of this problem co-worker, have someone ask you if they can go smoke, make a call, do whatever, and then tell them no in the same way you plan to tell Ms. Lazy no. Let her see the other person handle it like a professional and get her work done first, so when you tell her no she'll have an example to go by. This might sound childish, but some people need to be taught at that level to truly understnd. A bonus is she won't feel singled out, even though you have every right to single her out.

Good luck and keep us posted, I'm very interested in how this turns out.

BETSRN · Mar 1, 2005

I think you're on the right track. You can say all of those things, and as long as you use the same tone you use with everyone else, I don't think you'll come off as b**chy. If you're really concerned, you can always try a little manipulation yourself. I'm sure that there are others who feel the way you do, so recruit someone to help you put on a little show. In front of this problem co-worker, have someone ask you if they can go smoke, make a call, do whatever, and then tell them no in the same way you plan to tell Ms. Lazy no. Let her see the other person handle it like a professional and get her work done first, so when you tell her no she'll have an example to go by. This might sound childish, but some people need to be taught at that level to truly understnd. A bonus is she won't feel singled out, even though you have every right to single her out.
Good luck and keep us posted, I'm very interested in how this turns out.

You need to sit down and review the problem with her just as you have here! You need to list the problems and what happens because of her actions. Then enlist her aide in attempting top solve the problem. It is only right and fair that you go to her first and confront her DIRECTLY.

If you speak with her PRIVATELY, she won't feel singled out because you are speaking ONLY to her (which is what you would do for anyone). That is just common courtesy.

If her behavior does not change, then you take this grievance further. You do not need to pussyfoot around and "show" her by playing the scenario with someone else as an actress. In my book that's pretty passive-aggressive also. Confront the problem head on. You will get far more respect that way. Playing a game and recruiting someone else is immature. Then you'd be playing games as well and that certainly is NOT professional.

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Mar 1, 2005

I would document a "sample" shift. Document when she goes out, when she comes back, and what you asked her to do and whether or not it was done in a timely fashion.

Day after that, I would be prepared to give her fact-based reasons why she can't go out to smoke. For instance, "You need to limit your breaks to 2 smoke breaks per shift, so plan them wisely. You went out to smoke for 10 minutes yesterday 4 times on top of your 30 minute break, which left us having to cover your patients so that SuzyQ & I couldn't take a lunch break at all."

Practice. And think about this: if you lose your good workers because of this person, the problem will only get worse.