Listen, I just need to vent. I’m SO fed up with the petty a** drama involved in nursing. It’s so DA** annoying. I don’t get it! What’s wrong with YOU?
Heres the story.
I work in ICU.
I checked out to my pod partner to go eat lunch. I’m eating lunch now. Charge nurse opens door *huffs & puffs*. Makes eye contact with me and leaves. Charge nurse comes back in five minutes.
Charge RN: Next time you go eat please tell someone
Me: I did, I told Joseph.
Charge RN: Well please tell more than one person.
Me: Okay sure.
So I eventually wrap up my break and clock back in. I walk down the hallway and the charge RN signals at me to come to her, I comply.
Charge RN: Were you off the unit a lot?
Me: No? I checked out to Joseph once to go pee and once to get a drink. Then I checked out to come get lunch (((it’s 3AM, so that’s three times since we’ve been here and literally going to pee and get a drink took but a few seconds, and none of my patients even called))).
Charge RN: Oh because while you were at lunch your call light was going off and I kept hearing it and you know I’m way on the other side but I came to the other side to see what was going on and I saw Maria just sitting there and I asked her to get the call light and she said “No I’m not getting it”.
Me: Yeah well I don’t know what to tell you.
FFW: I come out of utility closet and I see Maria sitting at her pod. I’m walking down the hall (behind her) and I see her shaking her stupid head side to side.
Seriously? Am I under a prank? What TF**** is going on with people?
Wherever this problem exists, it exists because it is enabled. Don't be defensive when you have nothing to defend. Develop an effective and pleasant (or at least neutral) "take a hike" technique. ??
Truer words have never been spoken. Learning the "take a hike" technique is a valuable life skill that I think a lot of people, particularly women, are socialized to equate with rudeness, when in fact it's just assertiveness, which is an asset.
Your Charge is way off base. You might want to consider eating somewhere where she can't find you if you are allowed to leave the floor.
And Maria - well, I guess her day is coming. When? Well, I don't know. In the meantime, why is she allowed to refuse "requests" from her superiors?
I hate the notion that we must bend over backwards to thank aides, techs, whoever for doing what they are paid to do. They need to do what we tell them to do - we can be courteous but they need to know that we are in charge because we have the license - even if we don't want to be in charge. Because we are the last stop for the passing of the buck, we get to make the rules. But most places, most nurses don't see it that way, thus the bowing and thanking that we do in order to get people to do their jobs.
I think I'd be very tempted to write up this Maria chick and let HR sort it out. Be prepared for real battle if you do, though, because your Charge apparently is afraid of her or sleeps with her or owes her money.
The stress must bring out the worst in people. That is my only explanation.
I feel for OP.
@Oldmanhubbard--I also think that the double standard applies in this case--whether it's because Charge is "fearful" of Maria for some reason, or they are buddies. She is clearly giving certain people passes and others notsomuch.
I work at a place that has this nurse that is......and I cannot say this delicately enough, because I have struggled with this all my life as well---simply enormous. I mean...she cannot push a gurney. She cannot walk from room to room.
She comes in, gets her assignment---which is usually "sitter"--and then never moves from the chair outside of her patient's rooms. She is given the "floor status" patients that may have a couple of meds due, no foley or any other type of device, never any vented or trached pts, and most certainly never one that has more than q shift VS.
She can't transfer her own patients to the floor, because she can't push the gurney. She can't go get blood, because she can't make it there and back in a reasonable amount of time. She can't even go to lunch in the breakroom and is permitted to sit and eat lunch where her COW station is. She is permitted to be late (hours sometimes) because she "slept in" (other nurses have been dispatched to her house to check to see if she might have passed in her sleep).
This woman is in her mid-30s.
Why? Is she on some sort of medical restriction because she's so large? Or maybe has some health problem like back issues or whatever? No and no.
She is pals with the dayshift Charge. We each have to rotate Rapid Response pager---and when it comes to her turn---Charge will assign her in front of everyone---and she doesn't even hide it anymore, she tosses the pager across the table to another friendly nurse.
She isn't required to do anything, ever that I am required to do.
Then she gets to go postal on anybody that she deems "unworthy" to be in our unit. Just like OP---I've watched this woman demean and berate new nurses, student nurses, CNAs, housekeeping and fellow nurses alike. She's snarky and probably the nastiest, worst nurse I've ever met.
Why doesn't she get fired? Because the Charge RN is just like her---not quite as large...where Charge can at least make it up the hallway without us feeling like we need to follow her with a Zoll and crashcart (I AM NOT BEING MEAN. I feel so sorry for this woman that she is so very large, and her health is literally hanging by a thread each time she stands up to walk to the bathroom).
This is an extreme example--but by varying degrees, nursing all up and down is like this. I've worked at many many hospitals as a staffer and as a traveler--there is always a clique that surrounds the Charge---and they encourage the sycophants to do this in order to have the plum assignments, permission to do things that no other nurse gets to do, and have reliable spies on the floor.
This is why I have just 24 more days in nursing and will never return. Ever. I have discouraged every single person I've ever heard say "I want to go to nursing school", against it. This isn't me and it's not one particular unit or facility.
This is nursing across the board. Just read all of the titles on this small portion of the nursing population---all "I need to quit" "I can't stand it anymore" "charge nurse is abusive" "co workers are damaging my personal items".....etc.
And if one more person tries to fly that schtick that "happy people don't come here and post"---well....AN isn't the world...most people I know have never even heard of AN---so there's that. Nurses are leaving bedside to go travel in astonishing numbers so that they can avoid the politics and utter bulls#hite that is staff nursing.
Any critically thinking person can figure out why.
The stress must bring out the worst in people. That is my only explanation.
I've said for years that the only way that I'll ever work in a hospital again is if it's the only place and I'm starving. The politics are generally awful and most would sell their mom to advance
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
38 minutes ago, TitaniumPlates said:
I feel for OP.
I think it's so silly when members copy an entire post and then submit something like "I agree 100%!"
Droll.
TP, I truly appreciated your post and found it to be one well-written, entertaining read! I'm sorry to hear someone who expresses themselves so eloquently with so much spunk is leaving nursing. Good luck and the very best to you.
Oh- and BTW: There's another thread on this forum from a nurse who's exhausted and just wants out.
I think it's so silly when members copy an entire post and then submit something like "I agree 100%!"
Droll.
TP, I truly appreciated your post and found it to be one well-written, entertaining read! I'm sorry to hear someone who expresses themselves so eloquently with so much spunk is leaving nursing. Good luck and the very best to you.
Oh- and BTW: There's another thread on this forum from a nurse who's exhausted and just wants out.
Perhaps you could give her some pointers?
@Davey Do. Thank you? I hope you're being sincere because I know I can be quite acerbic at times, particularly for the last two years where I have literally gone from being THE biggest cheerleader for myself and my colleagues to just "find a niche", "don't give up"---and being on that mouse wheel of BSN to MSN/NP and wanting to run the show so I can make a difference and do things my way-----to permanently leaving nursing.
I don't know a lot of nurses that have a chance to retrain because of school debt, family pressures, etc. I wish I had a different answer for those who feel such despair that they cry every day in their cars, turn to drugs or alcohol to self medicate, allow this profession to destroy their personal health and relationships---I don't. I'm lucky I had been married to someone who made a very comfortable living and we divorced--I had helped him get through his training and unfortunately "benefited" (yes, unfortunately. because i never wanted to be divorced) from his income generating profession.
I got a nice settlement and put it away for retirement. I worked my hiney off in nursing, trying everything I could to make this work. Different facilities, traveling, part time, PRN, floating, even tried ICU and Med Surg for 6 months each time. I never found nursing to be anything more than an expanded version of High School, but with more dire consequences when you weren't with the "in crowd" or you just wanted to come to work and DO the work.
Nursing isn't nursing. It's just not. I saw a video by ZDogg about "Moral Injury" and it's the truth--that charting is now just a "glorified cash register with little tiny bits of patient care tacked on" so that hospitals can "capture" every single charge that they can.
The most onerous and potentially dangerous (to our licensure) piece of our job is literally a timebomb waiting to blow up in our faces so that the facility can YET AGAIN make more money off of the backs of hard working, caring, ridiculously compassionate and self sacrificing people.
I've been reading about that nurse who got caught stealing narcotics. I've seen this so many times, I can't even count. Every one of us has one of these stories. This is obscene. That someone with the education and common sense that nurses have---would be drivenby the stresses of this job to risk their lives, livelihoods, relationships, financial and personal safety---you name it---to escape the realities of what this job puts us through.
I can't offer advice, because I am tapping out. I hit my limit and I am taking a portion of my retirement savings and putting that towards a career (albeit much shorter now that I am older) that I can do 8 hour days, go home, and enjoy my life with my family. I may not make 6 figures in my first 5 years, but I also won't have a sword of damacles over my head---threatening me that if I don't do this CEU or that TMS or this degree---you're fired. Or if I get too old--you're fired. Or if I pi$$ the wrong Charge Nurse off--we'll ruin you. Or if I have a drink at dinner and get stopped on my private time for a safety check and I get a ticket--you're not only fired, but you now have no licensure or ability to make a living.
Nursing is a punative and damaging profession. Anybody who says anything else either is not bedside (management, education, research, etc) or is one of the ones that is making life miserable for those of us who just wanted to come in and do our jobs.
Thank you for the well wishes. I start classes in August and am also moving across country. A lot of change, but this also is a very sad consequence of nursing---PTSD---where disconnecting from everything that is associated with the stressor---is the only way to possibly heal.
This post touched a nerve. My first ICU it felt like everyone was backstabbing. The manager, the CC, about 60-70% of the nurses, I was constantly on edge, shaking, terrified of getting fired for a million little things. after like 6 years I'm still recovering. Still get nervous around nurses not knowing if they are going to try to hurt me. I first escaped to inpatient rehab. less back stabbing but TERRIBLE attitude (and honestly, rehab sux with the MASSIVE amount of nitpicky charting) from most of the staff. I then escaped to local travel nursing. Saved my mental health! I was immune from about 80% of the potential coworker threats. I could finally do my job for once. Then, I discovered acute dialysis. I finally escaped the bedside! WOOHOO!! I can still make a difference in people's lives, use my education, make a living without starting over, and most of the horrible things about nursing are gone! I will NEVER go back to bedside.
I loved my patients, especially the very septic ones. I loved knowing I had a hand in helping people survive. It was never the patients. It was everything else. nurses, managers, notes no one will read other than to try and hurt me, etc. nursing is toxic. Nurses try to hurt each other and when they do, they REALLY DO hurt each other. Fired, reprimanded, loss of license, demeaned, denied a transfer. This is what nursing gets you if you aren't part of the popular kids clique. And all because someone doesn't like you and they go making stuff up and tattle tale to the manager who also doesn't like you because you didn't go out of your way to suck up. Way too many children in this field.
Why is it like this? I still don't know. I've been in 4 other fields of work and NEVER was it like this. Normal people just want to do what they are hired to do. But we are forced to play politics, suck up to the boss, let the popular kids bully us and just take it like a dog waiting to get shot; patient care is the LEAST of our worries at work! and there's no recourse to any of it. There's no protection. You jump into the unit and swim with piranhas. And ALL you want to do is the best job you can!! Nursing isn't about patients. Its about social connections, drama, pretending to work, complaining, knowing the right people, avoiding getting caught forgetting the 50th time you were supposed to wash your hands within the last 30 minutes. Nursing is about alot of things; but its not about patients. Its a damn shame. Dialysis saved my life.
Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
15 hours ago, TitaniumPlates said:
@Davey Do. Thank you? I hope you're being sincere because I know I can be quite acerbic at times
I was being sincere, TP.
Your posts are well-written and interesting to read. Although I am not in total agreement with your perspective, I respect your position and actions and do wish you the best.
LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM
1,656 Posts
Truer words have never been spoken. Learning the "take a hike" technique is a valuable life skill that I think a lot of people, particularly women, are socialized to equate with rudeness, when in fact it's just assertiveness, which is an asset.