I'm a seasoned nurse (22 years) and took an assignment through an agency to work at a small hospital in Labor and Delivery. Have been working here off and on all summer long. Well, lately the night nurse that alternates my shifts was brought to days. She's a new nurse, and very possesive of her labor and delivery postion. I was scheduled to work 3 nights in a row. Following her shift, I ended up having to life-flight out a newborn that was 12 hours old, and hadn't been doing well since birth. The mom was an ICU RN and was quite verbal about complaining about the day RN. (I'll call her Amy* RN) Anyway, the following night I had another sick pt. in labor with pre-eclampsia, hypokalemia...on Mag, Pit, Potassium...antibiotics...you can imagine the scenario. Being in a small hospital, I was it....the only RN in L&D...which I'm used to. I kept in constant contact with the MD etc. Anyway, the next night I was scheduled to work, I had to call in because my oldest daughter had to be hospitalized with pneumonia. (my first time calling in) The nurses that were working that night said that Amy* RN quoted in report after following me with the labor pt. that I was a F*** B***. (she said it in report) There were 4 nurses present. She also complained that I should be fired for not having all my paper work in order. (the paperwork she's talking about is the sticker sheets for charges) I have talked to the OB nurse manager and she states that I have nothing to worry about, that Amy feels threatened and inadequate and does this with all the nurses that she follows, especially if they are agency. I am outraged. I've worked another shift and followed Amy again and she is being extremely nice. However, some of the employees are acting different towards me and some keep telling me how much Amy "has it in for me".....please...someone give me your advice on an RN that slandered me like this IN THE REPORT ROOM at shift change.
I agree, sounds like the reg staff want you to do the dirty work...I wouldn't count on them for back up..maybe not the right approach, but I'd have to talk to Amy directly and ask her what her problem is and tell her if she has any further complaints/remarks to speak to me directly..not behind my back!!! grrrrrrrrr @ b*****s
Don't respond to gossip unless you are prepared to follow it thorough with your supervisor. I started in a new job and heard gossip just like you had. Fortunately?, the perpetrator had a long history of this kind of behaviour so i managed to end it by demanding a cessation of this kind of behaviour from my line manager. Grade A b***h has stayed away from me since.
hard to say what to do. i work in LTC so i have found i have to learn my pts as well as my co-workers. in other words, different things work for different people. esp. since you are agency, you need to have an orificenal of really good communication techniques. there are lots of books on this. what might work is to ask yourself, not: what do i want from "amy", because you cannot control her behavior, but: what do i want for myself that is within my power...for example, you might just want to express your feelings. i dont know if you are primarily hurt, if you are angry, or if you are afraid this will undermine you at work. consider which of these feelings you might want to share with amy. i disagree with the idea of saying it in front of other people, though, because if you goofed up--and clearly amy did-- would you want it said in front of ohter people? jsut grab amy and tell her you want to talk to her privately and to let you know when she is ready. she probably already feels sorry for it as she is now following you around being all nice, right? if you give her some choices like choosing a time when to talk you are showing respect and giving her a choice which will hopefully make her feel less powerless and defensive. if you avoid telling her what she did was wrong--which she likely already knows-- and just say how you feel ("my feelings are hurt because of such and such.") it might not change amy at all but it might make you feel better. its important to know what it is you really want out of the situation. and how much control you have. of course, if the problem continues, that is a whole 'nother thing. it is possible the people who are talking about "she really has it in for you" might just be trying to have something totalk to you about as you are new and they do not know you. you could try to visualize how you can encourage them to talk about something else since talking about amy will probably not result in anything good happening.
Specializes in private duty/home health, med/surg.
Rosie--good luck with your meeting on Monday and please let us know how it goes. I hope your job doesn't suffer from this, but if it does then you have a legal case against her since her defamation of your character caused you an actual loss.
I'm sorry you're the target of this nurse's insecurities, but please don't back down. She has issues with you now, but tomorrow it will be someone else, and the day after that someone else...and in the meantime, we've got another nurse in the ranks adding to the negative image some focus on in our profession.
If you decide to attend this meeting as planned take a personal tape recorder, tell everyone in the meeting you are taping the meeting so there will be a record for future reference. If there are any objections, leave the meeting. But if there are no objections to the taping make sure you only report what you have been told and ask what has caused this person to slander your character. USE the word slander, it will give her a slap of reality that she needs. Make sure the manager it on tape stating she has had no problems with your work and that the patients under your care have gotten good care. If there is a doctor at the meeting, make sure you have a good endorsement from him as well. I would think twice about doing much work here in the future, no matter how the meeting turns out. I agree that the staff and current NM have allowed this nurses' attitude to poison an already stressful, demanding setting.
thank you all for your concern and advice. I ended up writing the whole mess up and giving it to the DON, under the direction of the OB nurse manager. Come to find out, *Amy has said even more stuff, and also went to the OB/GYN doctor complaining about me. There is only one OB doc in this hospital and town. The DON was professional about everything and asked me to meet with her and "other nurses" on Monday. I don't know if this is a set-up for "hospital keeping afloat" and find a sacrifice or if this is genuine and sincere for problem resolution. We all know how unfair the justice system can be. My agency is aware of the problem, however there is minimal assistance they can offer. I don't know if I will consent to meet with everyone on Monday or not. My gut instinct is to reschedule the meeting a few weeks from now and let the heat cool off some. I'm not schedule to work there again until the end of the month. By that time, there will be other issues with *Amy...I'm sure of that. Will keep you all posted....thank you again!
Wow...what an unpleasant situation. I'm not sure I'd want to continue working at a facility that allows a person like this to run unchecked, even if I was in the right. You say you're employed by a staff relief agency, can you simply request not to work there anymore? I know people like this are everywhere, and often agency nurses bear the brunt of unhappy staff, but this seems way beyond what is normal shift-to-shift griping.
I am anxious to know the outcome of the meeting. Hope you post your experience soon.
I am changing careers to Nursing and I see I may have to encounter and deal with the same type of things that I abhor so much in my previous work experience. All the advice has been viable. My defense has always been to know my job inside and out, ignore much of the negativity that goes on, and confront co-workers, supervisors when instances that really bother me or affect my livelihood. I'm going to be at somewhat of disadvantage right out of nursing school, as it will take some time for me to know the job inside out, but I hope and pray to be able to learn and grow in a supportive environment. This Forum provides a very supportive environment.
QUESTION: Do many of you nurses document on a regular basis in the case
having these type of encounters? I did at a lot of
documentation at my previous job. Never had to use it directly
However, the use of specific dates, times, and incidents in
Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.
I am anxious to know the outcome of the meeting. Hope you post your experience soon.
I am changing careers to Nursing and I see I may have to encounter and deal with the same type of things that I abhor so much in my previous work experience. All the advice has been viable. My defense has always been to know my job inside and out, ignore much of the negativity that goes on, and confront co-workers, supervisors when instances that really bother me or affect my livelihood. I'm going to be at somewhat of disadvantage right out of nursing school, as it will take some time for me to know the job inside out, but I hope and pray to be able to learn and grow in a supportive environment. This Forum provides a very supportive environment.
QUESTION: Do many of you nurses document on a regular basis in the case
having these type of encounters? I did at a lot of
documentation at my previous job. Never had to use it directly
However, the use of specific dates, times, and incidents in
meetings served me well.
Thanks to All
Excellent advice, Drysolong. May I ask what your career was before in which you experienced all these negative encounters? I am just curious to know--It's enlightening that this type of behavior (horizontal violence) is seen in other careers besides nursing.
Excellent advice, Drysolong. May I ask what your career was before in which you experienced all these negative encounters? I am just curious to know--It's enlightening that this type of behavior (horizontal violence) is seen in other careers besides nursing.
My official title was Government Relations Specialist - which just meant I handled complaints from customers referred by their various local/state governmental regulatory bodies; and coordinated services for these agencies, along with public relations. The industry was Communications (cable/telephone/internet access). I enjoyed the job itself, because I like helping people and solving their problems. (That company had a very bad public image because of legendary poor customer service)
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why management and co-workers were so catty and vicious at that particular job. I think a lot of it had to do with people needing to control others; hide their insecurities and ineptness; personality and character disorders. Seriously! You had to be there!
I am hoping that in a medical environment, the seriousness of working with patients and their illnesses will override (at least to some extent) our egos and pettiness.
Anxious to hear how the meeting went. Personally, in the past I have first pulled the person asside and mentioned that their comments have made their way back to me and wish to discuss them. This has gone both ways where a times the person is antagonistic, where I state at the end that I don't think we have resolved our issue, and want to get management involved to help resolve it, as well as the person backing down and choosing a person who won't confront their aggressiveness to be the next one to attack.
But a rare few times, a nurse has said, my god am I ticked with you, I may have handled it bad by complaining to others but here's my beef..... and you can generally work this out here.
Bottom line for me is.. approach in private first, second management along with agency, third involve the DON, only if manager is passive and is poor at conflict resolution. By this point, you know if you want to continue your stay.
To me, no manager would ask for a meeting with everyone, unless either they are using you as a spring board for jumping this person in which no one would tackle before, or they are just plain unskilled in managing people. You know this by prior staff meetings with this manager. Either way, I'm worried that it's not a good idea, and it seems that you feel this too.
If you've postponed, ask for agency representation, and demand it from your agency, if you can't get this simple backing...
You're seasoned, yet why have you agreed to a meeting with all the staff, knowing that interpersonal conflicts should be resolved with ONLY those involved and you stated your hesitancy, yet you agreed to this meeting...seems beyond unsettling to me to the open possibilities, surely you see this?
I wish you the best as you seem to want to work this out and continue there. I hope I'm very wrong as to how I see this "group" meeting play out.
I am hoping that in a medical environment, the seriousness of working with patients and their illnesses will override (at least to some extent) our egos and pettiness.
I have struggled with this issue in nursing and have been amazed at the dynamics I observe in my some of my coworkers, despite their obvious intelligence there is much dysfunction. Much of it in nursing is due to the 'shyt rolling downhill' theory...management is dysfunctional, nurses are held to the impossibly high standard of making everybody happy. There is insufficient care for the caregiver in nursing. An oppressed group has to get rid of its frustrations somehow thus lateral violence occurs because it has been acceptable, sadly. Bad managers allow the troublemakers to persist, frustrated nurses engage in gossip which fuels it further, etc.
Interesting this can occur in other 'customer service' roles too.. (nursng has also evolved into a customer service role, sadly) Probably occurs in ANY job where little support to be found for the employees and people begin to compete for approval by belittling others.
I wonder if other professions struggle with this or if it is just nursing. It really gets to me some days... and I sure wasn't prepared for it out of nursing school.
The best advice is to get the incident on record with your agency. You have to cover yourself. If the Nurse Manager is allowing this to happen you can't count on her to cover you. I would ask to have a meeting with the nurse involved with a witness. She might continue to be negative , but you will have established you are not going to tolerate her behavior. I have 20+ years in nursing also,and I know this is more difficult since you are from an agency. I learned a long time ago that you do not ever have to tolerats behavior like that from co-workers.
MandyInMS
652 Posts
I agree, sounds like the reg staff want you to do the dirty work...I wouldn't count on them for back up..maybe not the right approach, but I'd have to talk to Amy directly and ask her what her problem is and tell her if she has any further complaints/remarks to speak to me directly..not behind my back!!! grrrrrrrrr @ b*****s