Real Bullying

[dream'n, BSN, RN]

My Story

A little background; myself and another coworker reported to management an issue we were having prior to the bullying. We reported one of the special clique members for selling specific medical products through our office aimed at our particular patient population. And many of the patients weren't happy with her product/services, which placed them in a hard situation in regards to trust, etc. We had spoken to our immediate boss but she had no concern (she was head of the clique)

I worked in a smallish specialty office where the staff had been working together for upwards of 20 years, they were more than coworkers, they were close friends. Every employee that had been hired in that office throughout the years, left fairly quickly unable to get in the "Clique" and the way they discussed their previous coworkers should have given me a big clue. Here are a few examples of bullying; being told that I could attend a conference locally that was being organized by our Department and where my immediate provider was one of the speakers. The 3 nurses (including me) in the department received tickets to the 3 day conference. My boss decided that 1 nurse would go each day to the conference and would be paid her regular pay. So everything was set up and each nurse took her turn. At payday I noticed that my hours weren't paid, but the other 2 nurses hours were. I spoke with my boss and she stated that although she remembered telling the other 2 nurses they could attend with pay, she forgot about the conversation with me. She conveniently forgot that the decision was made with all the nurses in the room. The boss even set the dates for us to go; such as Patty go Wednesday, Polly go Thursday, and Dream'n go Friday. Anyway I lost that pay.

On another day I was told that couldn't ever have any overtime. That I must leave at 5pm no matter what. And what made it weirder is that I very seldom needed overtime, I prioritized my work because I wanted to spend time with my children. Well I was a very special snowflake because all the others in the department, the two other RNs, the scheduler and the secretary WERE ALLOWED overtime without question. I asked the big boss why I was being particularly singled out and she could not provide me a reason.

Another example is that one Christmas season, one of the other RNs and my medical provider took vacation. So the other RN (charge) went to the supervisor and stated she didn't want me there, "didn't want to see my face" and that she didn't need me, which was bull. That left me with no money coming in through the holidays or to work wherever I could in the system temporarily for 2 weeks.

One RN refused to speak with me completely and she was my BOSS. I couldn't get questions answered or anything from her. Eventually she stepped down, but of coorifice the other RN became charge because she was her best friend.

I tried to hold onto my sanity and was hoping they would just fire me(for unemployment)...but they didn't and couldn't find anything I'd done wrong. The big boss told me she had reviewed all my patient intake's and found nothing wrong with them.

Secret meetings were held behind closed doors...no one would speak to me about what was going on. It was intimidating and very hurtful. They got the physicians into it too. They would take the doctors (except for the one I worked with) into rooms just to discuss me. The moment that 'broke the camel's back' so to say was when I got an email to go to the big bosses office one morning. The Big Boss said that one of my lovely coworkers had sent her an email that the medical provider and I (we shared an office) "were in their office talking and laughing for about 5 minutes the previous afternoon". That was the big infraction, not that we were too loud or disruptive, just that we took 5 minutes at the end of the day to talk and not work. I wrote and handed in my resignation right then. I had had enough. Afterwards I left nursing altogether for a year and a half to get myself together.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

I don't see bullying, I see a toxic work environment. Both very unpleasant, but a toxic/bad environment does not equal bullying.

[Emergent, RN]

It sounds like a horrible place to work! Some workplaces are MRSA positive, metaphorically. Ugh, sorry you had to experience that!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I don't see bullying either, but I do see a horrid, toxic, evil workplace. I'm glad you got out of there when you did, and took a sabbatical to get the experience out of your system. Sorry you had to go through that.