NuggetRN23

Although it's really hard to do, kindness honestly works. I try to practice this as much as possible. Walk into the room with your head held high and a smile on your face, it's hard for people to be nasty when you're genuinely smiling. Sometimes I'll start complimenting something about the patient and that will help the situation because anyone with a genuine heart should feel bad about being so mean to someone so nice. Also-have you considered having one of the "respected" nurses introducing you? Hey I'm your nurse ... and this is ..., your caregiver for the day. They're great at their job and will be taking excellent care of you, you can trusted in their care!" It helps to have a boost from someone else if you're struggling. Keep doing your job as you are, and hold your head high...we all deal with rude patients but it's how you interact back with them that can make a huge difference in your day. Good Luck!

So, after probably the worst day I have ever had, I thought I would try my wonderful fellow nurses for some perspective/advice. Basically to start off, I have a job that I love working in the ER with an awesome group...except for the weekend night shift people that are contracted and so they're always there every friday, sat and sun night. After the very first weekend I worked with them I brought to my assistant directors attention the attitudes that were present with this crew. The charge nurse is a male who always seems to want to pick me apart, ie- telling me every chance he can when he thinks I'm doing something wrong, not helping me when it's needed. I've tried speaking to him and all I get are condescending replies that go no where. I work every 3rd weekend so I figured just start writing down every occurrence and then go to my director with all of them at once (not to look like I'm whining). So I worked an awful weekend with him per usual and wrote it down. Today I walk in and my director is usually super friendly to me and nice, well she pulls me aside and lets me know that we need to talk later because I got a bad complaint letter. Basically the letter takes a lot of conversation pieces out of context and paints me to be a horrible, unprofessional person-I'm floored because I remember this patient and she HUGGED me goodbye! So my manager is upset with me about the letter, and also says that I need to have a meeting with her and the charge nurse who hates me; but also that she needs to speak to me about my work because other charge nurses and peers have been complaining about me lately. I literally had my biannual meeting with my director about a month ago and everything was fine, just needed to work on perfecting our immediate bedding process. I am so unbelievably upset with this news all hitting me at once (and on a day where I have never seen so long a wait/so many people in our ER. I'm from the north and have had problems communicating with patients as I'm now living in the south and my personality has been deemed as "rude"...I was taught that calling someone sweetie/baby/honey is rude and shouldn't be done. It is very different in the south as that is the norm but I have a conflict in changing my personality and the way I speak, I feel like I would be fake doing that and I don't think it's an appropriate way to speak to a patient. This day was awful, but these issues seem to be following me from hospital to hospital (worked at 2 since moving down south 3 years ago). I'm afraid I'm going to be fired for all this, and that I'm becoming not well liked with my co workers. I asked my director if I was being considered for termination but she said no...but really, I'm afraid she is just saying no so I will work though the holiday and then they're going to cut me loose. I guess I'm just seeing if there is anyone out there with a similar experience, or even give me some advice or perspective on this mess. My stomach is in knots and has been the whole shift I worked. I already have anxiety and this is just amping it up...