Question for experienced nurses about dealing with problem co-workers.

[aee1977]

Hello everyone! I should have said problems with co-workers - not problem co-workers but I can't edit that part.

I'm new and very close to starting my ASN program. I have a question (or two) and would love some insight or advice of any kind that you might have any to offer.

I am currently a licensed CNA. I love my line of work and want to move forward, but I've had a few problems, mainly with co-workers and only once with someone in a supervisory position...

I've worked in 3 separate jobs as a CNA - 2 in nursing homes and one in home health. The home health care job was short-lived as I was very bored. I need a much faster pace.

While working in both of the nursing homes I had problems with other CNAs complaining about me. In the first job the supervisor simply worked with me on a shift to "see how I was doing" and "be there to answer questions I might have". Two hours into an 8 hour shift she finally told me that she was going home and that the reason she was there was because of some complaints from the other CNAs that I was "too slow". She also said that the reason she was going home was because there was nothing I needed to do differently and that the reason I took longer per room than most of the other CNAs was because I didn't cut corners and that she had absolutely no problem with my speed because the quality of my work and attention to the residents was "above and beyond". I experienced a LOT of problems with the other CNAs after that - although I never brought the subject up to anyone after that.

In the second nursing home position (I had only been there 5 weeks) I was working with someone who ended up causing a skin tear (nothing was done wrong, it just happened and I witnessed it). She decided not to report it. I urged her to report it repeatedly and told her that I would have to if she didn't because I felt I had to. She never filled out the incident report so I filled one out. I was never questioned about it and never heard anything else. One week later I received a call on my day off from human resources with a laundry list of false (in fact things that I could prove false) accusations and was fired over the phone on the spot without so much as a question or chance to speak. Every attempt to speak as to how I could prove these things were false was ignored. A visit and 2 letters to my immediate supervisors were ignored as well.

Can anyone tell me what I should have done differently, how I could have avoided these problems, or what the problem even is? I do have a strong personality and I am very no-nonsense about my work, I seem to have problems working with a lot of other women. I do not play the gossip game nor do I discuss anything unnecessary about the residents I care for. I wonder if this is making me more unpopular - even though I feel its wrong and unethical to do these things????

Please respond if you have any ideas. I am open to hearing ideas - even if they might not be what I really WANT to hear. I want to try to avoid these things in the future, but I'm not sure what I'm doing.

Thank you so much for reading and/or responding!

[iNurseUK, RN]

I'm English so procedures are different here. But OF COURSE you should report a skin tear and maybe go to the head of nursing? Face to face and not by letter.

I really feel for you. You are an excellent nurse and the ******** gossipy culture of a lot of nurses turns the best right off.

I'm sorry for your troubles.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

You are moving by forward by working on your ASN. If you CNA co-workers want to be petty, then that is their problem....I know it sticks to not be popular at work, but it is more important to stand by your principles. Also, if they want to gossip about residents--well this is just plain wrong and possibly illegal. You are right to stay out of it.

As for the supervisor who was following you--she went home early because other CNAs said you were slow?? Sound pretty silly to be, but I'm guessing this is common. When I was a CNA, our supervisor/schedule maker (who was also a CNA) was petty, immature (at least mentally), and a horrible 'team leader.' Unfotunately, you just have to live with it and be aware that something better is in store for you.

Good luck with your work issues and good luck with school!

[aee1977]

I'm English so procedures are different here. But OF COURSE you should report a skin tear and maybe go to the head of nursing? Face to face and not by letter.

I really feel for you. You are an excellent nurse and the ******** gossipy culture of a lot of nurses turns the best right off.

I'm sorry for your troubles.

Thank you for the response!

In retrospect I probably should have talked to my immediate supervisor face-to-face the very next day. I think I assumed that if I didn't hear anything then it was "taken care of". That could have made a big difference.

[Up2nogood RN, RN]

Keep your morals, it will serve you well in your career. Always report a skin tear or such, its wrong in my book not to report an unusual occurence.

Your fellow cna's are reporting you because you're making them look bad. Scr*w em if they want to do a half a** job it will come back to bite em in the butt.

[BrookeeLou_RN]

Very good and dedicated nurses face this alienation all the time.. AS you do a good job this makes them feel guilty so they do not like you..One would think it would make them want to improve but it does not work that way. They just want to continue their laziness and report you so management will fire the one rocking the boat. Totally wrong but it happens. I actually got fired once as DON told me.." I do not like your face!" But what she was really saying is she did not like that the families of residents in LTC were asking Admin for me and refusing her. See I would try my best to find a solution to any family problem and she blew them off.. So by firing me, families could not ask for me!! She did get fired 3 weeks later but I was still out of a job. Totally wrong and unfair.. But nursing I am sad to say is not a fair occupation, not that every occupation is fair.. but nursing just seems to top the list.

Stick to your morales, and keep being a great nurse to be. Good luck with studies and your future!

[caliotter3]

Keep up your high standards and move forward on becoming an RN. Do not give in to these people. Do you want to get paid for doing your job or for being popular? Even if you played their games, you could find yourself on the losing end anyway. People of that caliber will pick on another lazy worker when they tire of running off the good workers, or if it amuses them. Just keep on doing a good job and you will be able to keep your conscience clear.

[TexMex22]

I'd agree with most of the other posts. Sloppy co-workers are looking for ways to get rid of you. If they are rule-breakers, inefficient and/or lazy, they won't want you around making them look bad. It's that simple.

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

Maybe you are slow. I'm not sure I buy the "others are just threatened by your work ethic" argument. In my experience the lazy people love good aides because they can continue to be lazy while the other aide runs circles around them. I work with a few slow, disorganized people who can't get out of their own way, and the lazy ones don't seem to mind them either. What they don't like are the nags that constantly bug them to do this and that. But as for someone making them look bad, I don't see why they need a good worker around for that...? I consider myself a good worker and I find it easiest to just ignore the lazy people I work with.

I also work with a girl who used to give excellent care, but she took forever. She would spend 40 minutes locked away in someone's room for a simple wash-up. People complained. We all got sick and tired of having to take care of her other residents while she was lollygagging with someone. I was one of the people who complained about her, and I do not give shoddy care- but my residents were getting shafted while I was off attending to hers. Someone like a supervisor who only followed you for 2 hours and does not see the big picture is likely to be impressed and tell you not to change. Our regular nurse did see how the unit was affected by this girl's slowness and told her to pick up the pace, and this girl is now a joy to work with. She has never been lazy, and she had good intentions. I guess she just didn't realize what was happening.

[elprup, BSN, RN]

Very good and dedicated nurses face this alienation all the time.. AS you do a good job this makes them feel guilty so they do not like you..One would think it would make them want to improve but it does not work that way. They just want to continue their laziness and report you so management will fire the one rocking the boat. Totally wrong but it happens. I actually got fired once as DON told me.." I do not like your face!" But what she was really saying is she did not like that the families of residents in LTC were asking Admin for me and refusing her. See I would try my best to find a solution to any family problem and she blew them off.. So by firing me, families could not ask for me!! She did get fired 3 weeks later but I was still out of a job. Totally wrong and unfair.. But nursing I am sad to say is not a fair occupation, not that every occupation is fair.. but nursing just seems to top the list.

Stick to your morales, and keep being a great nurse to be. Good luck with studies and your future!

Sadly this is so true. One would think people would want to better themselves, not only for themselves but for the patients, but it is not so. Drives me crazy!

[Ruthfarmer]

I would urge anyone considering a nursing career to consider all options carefully. The nursing field is like no other. I came to nursing late in life after working in other fields. It is my observation that nursing has an exceptionally large percentage of people who have little regard for doing what is right and who are uncomfortable being in the same room with a competent person of integrity. In nursing there seems to be many very insecure people who are threatened by people who do a good job and do right thing.

Here are a few things I have seen/experienced in less than two years of nursing:

You may have a preceptor who is puzzled when you ask where to find an intermittent suction adapter because she does not know the difference between intermittent and continuous suction. When you explain the difference and indicate that the doctor has ordered intermittent suction to the NG tube, she may then tell you that it doesn't really make a difference, just use the continuous. When you refuse to do that, she may relent and clue you in as to where to locate the intermittent suction adapter, but she will make it clear that you shouldn't be making such waves.

You may have a preceptor who calls in the charge nurse when you refuse to administer a bolus dosage for a vasopressor when you only have an order for a continuous low dosage infusion. The charge nurse may tell you that they always give a bolus dosage because that's the way they've always done it. When you ask to see a standing order and insist on calling the doctor for clarification, the preceptor and charge nurse may label you as insubordinate and insist that the manager come in and straighten you out. If you are lucky, the insanity stops briefly when the manager asks the preceptor and the charge, "Have you lost your minds? You don't give a bolus dosage or any dosage of anything without a doctor's order." This may not endear you to the charge or the preceptor. They may make things difficult for you.

You may be instructed by the agency's QA nurse to falsify something on a medical record. She may be bold enough to ask you why you refuse to do that. When you explain that a medical record is a legal document and that to falsify it is wrong and constitutes fraud, she may look at you like you have three heads and ask you, "What's the big deal?" When you explain that the big deal is that committing fraud would jeopardize your license, the agency's license, and the agency's billing status with medicare and Medicaid and other insurance, she may walk away and say, "Whatever."

You may have a supervisor who is mistaken by a patient for an employee-in-training and is told by the very enthusiastic patient that the supervisor will make a great nurse one day, all she needs to do is take some lessons from you. When you are called in to the supervisor's office and told you are being "relieved of your obligations" to the agency, you may ask why. You may be assured that your clinical skills are exemplary, your documentation skills are excellent, but there was a staff complaint. When you indicate that if the complaint was grave enough to result your firing, you'd surely like to know what it is, your supervisor may tell you that she doesn't have her notes in front of her and that she can't remember what it is.

You may find yourself in a rural ER in the middle of the night with a doctor who diagnoses a patient as a drug overdose and orders you to arrange transfer to drug treatment center ----depsite the fact that the patient's drug screen is absolutely clean and the fact that the patient is obviously in diabetic ketoacidosis. Your DON may or may not respond to your call when the doctor refuses to treat the patient's deteriorating condition. You may have to get creative and be exceptionally bold in order to figure out a way to MAKE the doctor give you the orders you need and help save your patient's life.

You may find that the hospital where you work decides they are no longer going to provide security staff. You may have to decide between being unemployed or running the risk of getting maimed or injured by out-of-control patients or their family members in the busy ER where you work.

To sum it up, you should reconsider nursing as a career unless:

- You are willing to do the right thing in the face of strong pressure or instructions to do other wise

- You are willing to do the right thing even if it means losing your job

- You are willing to confront people to do what is necessary for your patient's safety and well-being

- You are a confident person with a strong sense of self and identity

- You are emotionally mature enough to handle ethical dilemmas and be able to live with the consequences of your decisions

- You understand that life is not fair and that very often bad things happen to good people

- You are spiritually evolved enough to keep a healthy perspective and see the value in doing the right thing and are able to focus on the big picture in life.

OR

You just don't care and are willing to go along and get along with anything to draw your check.

I don't intend to discourage anyone or dissuade anyone in anything they want to do. I just want folks to know what they may be getting into when they embark upon a nursing career. I know that I would have had a tremendously hard time dealing with many things had I become a nurse as a young adult. Having 25 years of adulthood under my belt helped equip me to deal with many nursing situations for which nursing school did not prepare me.

You will come across some exceptionally fine nurses who are just plain GOOD people, but be prepared to deal plenty of folks who aren't.

[TexMex22]

I think it has more to do with the fact that she was willing to "tell on" her coworker about the skin tear. We've all worked with and known people that have little problems (incidents) with patients and want to maintain a code of silence. If you don't report it, it didn't happen right? So having someone come along who pushes for incident reporting -- uh -- not likely she's going to be popular. I'll take someone slow anyday over someone sloppy or in a hurry to get to the breakroom. I can teach a slow person how to be more efficient. Breaking a lazy, noncaring person (especially one who's been around for years & gotten away with it) is nearly impossible. And just because you are fast, doesn't mean you are good.