resentful coworkers

[vidrine rn]

hi everyone, new nurse here 1year at end of may, i need to vent and to get advise. ok here goes, i work a busy 7p - 7a sift on a med-surg unit, i been on this shift about six months now. i am the charge nurse on this shift, the rns at my hospital usally do not have pts unless there are not enough lpns that night.

so heres my problem, i work with a lpn that has been a nurse for 14 years, i respect her for that and she knows a hell of alot more than i do. we have not been getting along because she thinks im lazy, well let me tell u about what i do at night, i do all the pushes, admit, get surgery charts ready for the am, see all the pts, make rounds, call the docs if need. this weekend i was on my feet almost the whole 12 hrs. last night i think i sat down a whole 20mins to eat. this lpn asked me to do vitals at midnight (we dont have aides at night), so i did do the vitals while i also had a board full of pushes to do and i was monitoring a pt blood pressure q1hr, well i came down the hall and there she is at the nurses station talking and laughing, then she gets up to go smoke!!! if she can go smoke she can do her own vital signs. so later own during the night i hear her tell someone that they need to do something with the rns because we are lazy and dont want to help. the nerve! so now she does not talk to me or acknowledges me, i think this is unprofessional because pt safty can be jepordized, if we dont talk about thier care. and this had also happened before with this nurse. she also does this to other nurses and at least 2 other nureses have quit because of her. i dont know what to do about this. so any advise would help alot. thanks for reading my winney post.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

You're not whining at all. You have some legitimate concerns. She has a chip on her shoulder and wants to run the show her way with as little work on her part as possible.

You might have to involve your manager. Where is the manager in all of this, especially if two nurses have quit because of her. Let you manager know you might need a meeting with her, because of her concerns that the RNs are lazy and that she feels something needs to be done. Ask her for specifics in her accusations of laziness and inability to help. She's manipulating you also by having you do her vital signs for her while she takes advantage of the time you saved her.

Assertiveness is needed here. It's a bit ackward when inexperienced RNs are asked to supervise LPNs who have been there for a while.

Just a few thoughts, I know it's more complicated that the advise I'm giving.

Good luck.

Been there. Done that. Which is why I quit doing charge. My skin isn't that tough anymore. :chuckle

[meownsmile, BSN, RN]

The first problem is you are letting HER delegate to YOU!!! Stop it. Dont let her intimidate you. She is trying to put what she sees as experience above what you have in education.

Report should outline what needs to be done each shift by each person, and just because she doesnt know what you have to do doesnt mean she can decide you arent busy or are lazy.

I dont know if a private conversation with her would help or not. I did one time with another co-worker and it helped immensly. I straight forwardly told her if there was a problem we would go to the NM and have a conversation with her about what was going on. If your NM is worth her weight, she will back you up completely. Go ahead and have a private meeting with your NM and tell her next time you will be in her office with whatever her name is and stright up ask her if she is going to back you up.

DO NOT agree to do anything for her if you have other work that needs done. I think i would tell her "no, i have (such and such) to do, and that was a task i delegated to you at the beginning of the shift" and leave it at that.

I am usually the first one on my rotations to help anyway i can, so im no stranger to teamwork at all, but first and formost she needs to learn who is doing the delegating.

I just read tweety, after posting this,, tweety is right :chuckle