we often see threads with the title "fired for no reason," or "new grad harassed and fired" or something to that effect. and i always feel at least a little sympathy for the individual involved, if only because i can clearly see by reading between the lines of their self-justifying post that there was a reason for their termination, even if they just don't get it. (there are always a few posts every year from a new grad who is convinced that the reason she's not getting along with her co-workers is that she's just so beautiful they're all jealous, that crowds of mean people are following her around, that she's so wonderful she's going to rock the er or icu or nicu or or and no one sees her wonderfulness clearly, or that some mean, tired, old nurse who ought to retire and get out of the way is targeting her for no good reason.)
i worked with a new grad who was recently terminated for, as she puts it, totally bogus reasons. evidently seeing mine as a sympathetic ear, she went on and on and on about how unfair it was that management expected her to get her act together and actually understand what was going on with her patients. "i've got the time management thing down pat," she said. "i don't know what else they want. they're just picking on me for no good reason." i liked sal, i really did. she was interesting and entertaining and really, really nice. she was also smart, hard-working (when she was at work) and well-educated. but she didn't study outside of work, and really didn't understand what was going on with her patients. i participated in several meetings with her in which it was pointed out that it's not enough to do the tasks, you have to understand why you're doing them. it's not enough to draw the labs. you have to understand what the results mean and then address them. for instance, if the inr is 9, it might explain the nosebleed, the cherry red urine and the fact that the hemoglobin is now 6. giving the coumadin at 6pm as scheduled is not a good thing, even if you gave it right on time and were able to explain to the patient that "it's a blood thinner." i could go on and on.
i got a call from sal today, complaining that she knows she's blackballed for no good reason because she just can't get another job. she wanted me to give her a reference. did she just not get it?
all you new grads out there who are convinced that you're being picked on for no reason, that your more experienced colleagues are just out to get you, and that you're being unfairly targeting, harassed, or picked on, hear this: it may be something you're doing (or not doing) and all those "mean people" are trying to explain it to you so you catch on, learn your job and succeed. we all tried over and over with sal, and she still doesn't get it. are you guilty of the same thing? if your preceptor says you lack critical thinking skills, do you take it to heart, think about it and learn from it? or are you convinced that the entire issue is that she's jealous of your extreme good looks? if your charge nurse charges you with a deficit in your time management skills do you spend time figuring out where you could speed things up a bit? or do you dismiss her as a tired old dog who can't learn a new trick and ought to retire anyway? are you taking to heart and benefitting from any negative feedback you're getting, however poorly given it is? or are you obsessing about how "mean" that nurse was to you and totally overlooking the message?
i wish sal would have "gotten it." she would have been delightful to work with if she had. but right now she's focused on badmouthing her preceptors and the charge nurse, and she still doesn't understand what she did wrong. don't make the same mistakes.
Let me tell you something, I spent 6 long years in college to get my BSN and to have preceptor's push me back out the door-you'd be mad to!!!! You obviously didn't go through what I did so I don't expect any of you to understand. Why do you think I got out of nursing for 4 years. I said that I'd never go back but I had to because my wife lost her job and we had our first child. I decided that if I were going to be in nursing, I needed to get some thick skin and surround myself with knowledge and not take any sh@@ off of other nurses. That's what I did-I am the easiest person in the world to get along with but I don't let co-worker's step on me. I put them in their place. Do you ever wonder why there's a nursing shortage or why new grads hang it up after the first year in nursing? Think about it. As I mentioned before, why didn't the preceptor or MD see the INR climbing and D/C it? Doesn't sound like a good preceptor to me!!! Just because you're good at the game doesn't mean you're preceptor material. Nuff said!!
Once again, the original post and the thread are not about you.
I've been bullied and treated badly in jobs. It caused me to leave nursing for a while, too. I eventually found a better situation, and things are good now.
No one is attacking you- you can stop defending yourself. It's okay.:flowersfo
I agree about the nurse knowing the daily INR but where I'm at, the doctor actually looks at labs also-imagine that! I do take it personally when we're running off nurses and we can't give good pt. care because of the ratio. What is that doing for pt. safety. I like to take time to teach pts. and actually talk with them but who has time for that with 10 admissions before 12 oclock?
Nice post. I lost my first RN job, and thought I was doing ok. I knew I had to work on time management and critical thinking, but thought I would have time to grow into it and actually learn. That wasn't the case for me. However, I did take the criticisms to heart and will work on them. I am a slow learner and I guess I didn't ask the right questions, or asked the same questions too many times.
Now, several months later I finally have interviews and want to do better this time around, IF I get hired. A few things I've learned:
1) don't try to make friends on the unit. do your job, don't talk too much.
2) do show you can be part of a team.
3) don't complain, about anything
4) don't talk about your personal life
5) ask questions, don't be afraid to say you don't get something.
6) ask for help if you need it
7) just because you want to work in one certain area, suck it up an work somewhere else until you can get into the area you want. You never know, you might like it.
8) if asked about previous jobs you've had and why you left them by other nurses, don't answer-it will be used against you.
I also wanted to add, I do admit I probably wasn't ready for the unit I was hired on even though I loved it and what I was learning. I honestly think I'm one of those who does need that year or so learning to be an RN before jumping into critical care. It has taken me many, many months of being turned down for my "dream" job to figure this out. Am I going to stop trying to get where I want to go, no.... I just am going to have to take the round about way.
wow, JohnnyB....a quick glance at your previous posts and I see a LOT of anger. Seriously, that can't be good for your health or your marriage. Take care, JB...
I'm positive a new nurse strutting in overly confident and maybe even a little too young and pretty will upset the older nurses . Come on people. We are WOMEN. I've seen a many jealous older nurses. Maybe they felt threatened by the new nurses fresh educations and youthful bodies that could endure a hard days work much better than their's could. Maybe they even felt that if the new nurses caught on too quickly, they themselves would start to look bad. Instead of showing them what to do they let them fall flat on their faces. Of course this hurt the patients more than the new nurse and I've seen some older nurses not care as long as the pretty new nurse was gone. I've seen it happen. I've heard the gossip. " Oh look at her. She thinks she's too cute, but she doesn't know **** " I have ears and I'm sure some of you have seen and heard this too.
The new nurse is called dumb, stupid, "retarded" and many other hateful things, but the nurse went to school and obviously was smart enough to pass. Not knowing certain routines and things that are common place to seasoned nurses doesn't make her dumb. No one is born with that knowledge. It's in the field where you really learn everything. Yes , the new nurses NEED to take direction, but you can only take what is given.
I know what I've seen and that's why right now I'm sticking up for new nurses, especially the pretty ones who sometimes ARE targeted. That doesn't mean I don't see the other side of it too. I also believe that there ARE those young new nurses who don't "get it" and who obviously need to enter another career. Sometimes I don't think older nurses care to distiguish between the two when the factor of beauty comes into play.
Don't act blind though. It goes both ways. Young pretty nurses being targeted because of jealousy happens just like young nurses who are fired for things they aren't doing right while blaming it on jealousy.
Oh, come on. Most of the incompentent new nurses I've worked with have been older, fatter, and grayer than me- they were not young, but were new to nursing.
Most mature women have enough confidence in themselves and experience in the world not to give a damn if another woman is pretty or not.
I could not care less what other nurses look like.
What I care about very much is that they are hard-working, competent, team-players.
Good lord, since when has this discussion about whether or not the nurse is pretty. We're not talking about looks, we are talking about competence. If a new nurse truly felt that she was being picked on because of her looks, she needs to learn to get over herself.
If you see managers doing OT, we are definately in different universes.
Can my universe be the Star Wars one? :plsebeg:
How much nursing management experience do you have? How many close friends in nursing management do you have? I'm guessing you don't have much intimate knowledge of the nursing management experience. You are assuming that they only work they do is the work that you personally see.
Sure there are some bad managers out there ... just as there are bad staff nurses and bad preceptors and bad orientees and bad students .... but ...
The average nurse manager works a LOT of unpaid overtime. They are responsible for their units 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. They get phone calls at home. They take paperwork home. ... and do a lot of other work that the staff never sees. The staff generally doesn't see them "doing the budget" or "reconciling the patient charges with the supplies used" or following up on whatever to that piece of equipment that got borrowed from another unit but never returned, etc. etc. etc. You don't see them interviewing prospective employees, or writing a report to request to try to justify that empty positions be filled, or arranging to have the floors cleaned ... or the phones replaced ... whatever.
I've worked in many hospitals and worked very closely with many nurse managers. Most work several hours per week "for free." Their salaries are based on a 40-hour work week, but many work far more than that.
Maybe someday, you will become a manager and then you will know what the job entails and what it is like to be a nurse manager.
I witnessed most of this behavior at a nursing home I worked at up north and a hospital here in Florida.If the older nurses I worked with had your attitude about "looks", one of our residents would not have aquired bed sores. They let the new nurse continuely NOT move her properly causing too much friction on her tail bone. They stated after she was gone that they new she was moving her wrong ( not a place I would want to work at again). They were only written up. She left on her own because she couldn't take their attitudes towards her anymore. Those nurses where always saying snide snotty things about her and it did not end with her either. Another nurse came and went as well for the same reason.
I just want to mention the fact that nurse managers sometimes make less than some of the nurses whom they manage. Also, their job is very difficult. These days many manage more than one department. They have to take the heat from upper management, balance budgets, field complaints, mediate squabbles between staff, hire new staff, process incident reports, plan meetings, attend meetings, do evaluations, the list goes on and on.
"there are always a few posts every year from a new grad who is convinced that the reason she's not getting along with her co-workers is that she's just so beautiful they're all jealous..."
look at the context- it's not about looks. it's about some new nurses who are so clueless that they think it's about looks.
Valerie Salva, BSN, RN
1,793 Posts
Once again, the original post and the thread are not about you.
I've been bullied and treated badly in jobs. It caused me to leave nursing for a while, too. I eventually found a better situation, and things are good now.
No one is attacking you- you can stop defending yourself. It's okay.:flowersfo