John Marcus

Could it possibly be that you are not a fit for the job, or did something change with the job that you have not been made aware? Is it you or are the managers at your location playing dirty? Yes, this happens and don't beat yourself up over it. Do not put them on your resume and move on. After 3 years as an electrical engineer, 4+ years of schooling and 25 years in the IT industry, I went back to school for nursing because of the demand. In my area, so many schools were producing grad nurses, it was difficult to find a job available for a new, inexperienced nurse. I found a job, in a hospital, in the OR, 50 miles away in the next state and jumped at the opportunity. After all, it was as an ortho OR RN. This seemed to be a good fit for what I wanted, and I began the orientation program. After several months with my preceptor, he left the OR to totally change his role in another department. I saw him 2 weeks later and he subtly mentioned that I watch my back with management. Weeks later my manager of more than 20 years was reassigned, but re-assured me she chose the move. To me it seemed like a downgrade. In fact, I should have trusted my senses. She was forced to take a lesser position to remain with the hospital. Later, I was assigned to a new preceptor and was moved to other disciplines. I, a male nurse kept being thrown into the gynecologic surgeries. I was told was that was where I was needed at the time. This too was a lie, but I was oblivious and kept working hard. As it turned out, and I later learned, the hospital hired 2 contract managers to take my bosses position and she was moved, "out of the way". They were hired to cut costs. The 20 new orthopedic surgeons they hired on, (whom left their clinics), had their terms suddenly re-negotiated at half the pay. They all left, back for their clinics. Management subtly mentioned that half the new nurses, (8 were hired for the new load), would choose to leave. One day I was told I was not able to pick up my job quickly enough. They confused me and mislead me constantly to the point I was starting to believe them. But then I realized that I managed the tasks as well as any other OR nurse. Then suddenly their motives became clearer. I went to HR and stated, "I was hired for Orthopedic surgeries, not Gynecology". Some of the new requirements seemed to only target me. They told me that if I was not happy I was free to leave. I decided to look for something else. I resigned. I put this position on my resume, but I think it hurt my chances at the time. One day I came across one of my preceptors from that hospital who told me what was going on. They told her to be mean to me, to try to force me to resign. They did not want to pay unemployment and were doing everything in their power, except ask nicely, to get new nurses to quit. Again, many employers play dirty and will not be truthful in what they tell you. If you feel you have been learning things and picking up the pace as expected, and you were blindsided, consider that the employer is not being truthful with you. If this is the case, they also may hurt your chances in getting a new position. My advice is, take it off your resume, step back and take even a lesser position and prove your skills the right way. I have done this and now, (10 years later), I am with an employer that wants me so much that I have worked overtime every week for the past 1.5 years. I average 50 hours per week and have worked 75 hours in a week at times. Now I have so much work I have to beg for time off.

I personally believe the problem stems from a misguided perception of race due to cultural differences and poor communication skills. For example, say you were raised to live together with generations of family, and family was most important to you. And say you met someone that was raised to believe that distant family members shouldn't live in the same household and success is how well you can make it on your own. How might the group's understand each other's needs? Is it possible to, based in cultural differences, become distrustful of the other cultural groups ways or beliefs? Of course it is. And if the two groups fail to communicate effectively you have segregation. Is this because of different races? What if they're there same race? I believe it's cultural differences that play a bigger role than color. Color just unfortunately seems to be the easiest way people tend to identify different cultures. And yes, it is wrong. How do we correct it?

I am a male, white nurse. I'm on 3rd career. I went back to school for nursing at 49. I've been a nurse now for 10 years. And I partially agree with your statement. In nursing, I worked in the OR, nursing homes, (one predominantly consisting of black staff), assisted living (as director of nursing), on the board of home hospice and lastly in dialysis. I'm currently an acute care dialysis nurse working in 3 major hospitals. In one nursing home I worked with a white trans-sexual CNA. Here planned on going to nursing school. He wanted to be called Becky and some patients refused his service. But I liked working with Becky because Becky was one of the hardest workers. At that same LTC facility, with predominately black workers, I'd say thay many were lazy workers, but it was about equivalent to the percentage of lazy white or Asian workers at the same facility. It's just there were more black workers and hence, more lady black workers. So staff and patients noticed that more black workers were lazy and began to discriminate based on race. In the assisted living home we had 5 or 6 black employees out of about 20 employees. Our facility was located in a predominately white, wealthy community. The administrator, (not a nurse), and 2 of my 4 nurses were black. One was Filipino and one was Indian. A couple aides were also black. Wait, the black employees weren't black, they were all African. Is this different? Of course it's different. Their culture came through clearly. I cought my older African nurse stealing narcotics. I reported this to the African administrator. The African administrator tried to protect the African nurse but got fired for not observing state reporting regulations, but I had to get involved. My 2nd African nurse, cousin to the thief, started bullying other employees. The company was afraid to take action against both African nurses because they claimed racism. Actually I never dealt with such incompetent people. I scheduled those nurses when I needed them, not when they chose to work and they quit. An African, male aide hugged me and told me I saved his life. My nurse that stole narcotics threatened his life. He told me she had a reputation in Africa, for having people killed for not behaving the way she desired. While I believe there is racism present and I have seen it occur for no reason except color, note also that some differences in culture may well lead to racist attitude at work and at home regardless of situation. Once exposed to such culture diversity, it's difficult to appear to be fair and not racist. When I see an African person, it's difficult for me to forget the attitudes the Africans had at that assisted living facility. While I have met some lovely Africans, I'm still leary when meeting a new African person. However, I try to give every new person I meet, an equal chance.