Time to don the fireproof underwear. It is 0500 and the reality alarm clock is ringing, and some people do not like to hear it go off. So whether you agree with me or not, I feel it is time to inject a little thought provoking ideas into your life.
I am sure I am about to get flamed for posting this, but I feel the need to anyways. I have been seeing these threads talking about bullying and teachers or preceptors hating the students, and new nurses or abusing them because of some perceived slight or injustice. Well guess what?
The world is a hard cold nasty place that does not need to be polite to you or worry whether your feelings got hurt and you feel offended. You need to grow up and realize that the abuse that you claim is rampant, or the bullying that you experience all the time is not their problem, but rather your problem.
I see so many posts about this and I wonder how some of these people have survived as long as they have. School is tough? Deal with it. You think that someone else is getting it easier? Well too bad, they may be but no one ever promised you everything would be fair. You have to learn that there is inequality in life. It's how you overcome that inequality that matters. It teaches perseverance.
Abusive teachers? Maybe they are trying to get the best in you to come out. What you think is abuse maybe is pushing you to your limits, to get you further along in your potential. So your feelings got hurt at school, grow up, feelings get hurt every day.
Your preceptor is unorganized and does not like you and bad mouths you to your manager, and all your patients love you but no one at the hospital sees how great you really are?
Well your preceptor may actually have great time management skill, but when having to slow down and teach someone their job, things do tend to get disorganized. You may be part of the blame there.
Did you ever stop to think that you are the proverbial monkey wrench in a well oiled machine? The need to teach you, and I realize you do need to learn, can be very time consuming. They may tell your manager that you need improving or that you are not advancing fast enough. They may be all smiles to you, because they want to support you and keep you positive, but they need to tell the manager how you really are.
Speaking of orientation, how often have I seen statements that say the other nurses are not supportive and will not answer questions. Have you ever thought that maybe you are asking TOO MANY questions?
After a bit it may seem that you are not retaining the info provided and everyone gets tired of answering the same questions over and over. Part of learning is knowing when to shut your mouth and just watch. It has been said by people wiser than me that the only question you should ask is the question that you already know the answer to. If that does not make sense to you, think about it for a while and you might just be surprised that a light comes on.
So basically what i am saying is grow up and act like the adult that you are. Life is not fair, school is not fair, work is not fair. You just have to learn to deal with it.
Thank you so much for your response. It was very encouraging. I think in part what makes this orientation difficult is like you said, the stress of understaffing. We are so short that often we are at the mercy of float pool. Lately the weekends have had extra peak incentives just to get enough nurses. A few nurses have also quit recently, leaving us with very few options of who can be a preceptor for a new grad. I understand the frustration, which is perhaps why I also tolerate the way things are a bit more. I am not making excuses for unprofessional behavior, however. All I can do is just tell myself that I am not going to be like that. I will sometimes also have another preceptor, and she is tough as nails as well, but when I have a question at least she makes me think. For example.. I had a question about Vancomycin last night. I wanted to make sure I understood the instructions in regard to peaks and troughs etc. She turned it around and asked me why we would need to know those labs and basically made me think and answer my own question in a roundabout way. That is how it should be. Unfortunately, she is charge a lot of the time, so she isn't able to be a preceptor, but I am glad she was there to help answer the question.
I love my job and I love nursing. I've wanted to be a nurse since I was very young. I just consider this a little speed bump in the road. :)
I think you have a very balanced reaction to your situation and would love to precept you. One thing I wanted to point out is that when the preceptor turned your question back on you and made you think you were able to see what she was doing... helping you to be a critically thinking nurse. Unfortunately there are more than a few new nurses who would view this as refusing to answer the question and therefore... bullying. Yay for you!
I haven't read through every post, but thought I would put my 2 cents in on this because I think the term "bullying" is so misused today. When I was growing up, the childhood "bully" was someone you dealt with and moved on. Just because someone does not agree with you, maybe yelled at you, or doesn't cater to your every whim, doesn't make them a bully. There are too many people who come in here saying they were bullied and that's why they are fired or they failed out of nursing school. I'm not going to say it's a generational thing, it's people who cannot take responsibility for themselves and nothing is ever their fault. It's everyone else's in the world.
To the person who compared being bullied to being raped. I will assume you have never been raped and can't know there is absolutely no comparison whatsoever. That really angers me when people do that. And yes, people do claim they have been raped all the time just to try and get someone in trouble. I've seen it firsthand and it can devastate someone's life.
Also, someone raising their voice to you or not agreeing with you, is not abuse or violence. What the heck is horizontal violence anyway. I think people out there just love to come up with PC terms. Not everyone is going to get along in the workplace. That's life. Not everyone is going to like you just like you are not going to like everyone. Not everyone is going to shove unicorns and rainbows up your butt everyday. Learning how to deal with differing personalities makes you a better person. Differing opinions is what makes the world go round. Life would be awful if we all thought a like. Different thinking is how problems get solved and stuff gets invented. It is amazing to me how people just don't get that.
And yes, I have a child. I have a wonderful 8 year old boy who does competitive judo and does well in school. I have taught him that not everyone in the world is going to like him. He doesn't like everyone he meets and that is ok, he doesn't have to. I have taught him how to deal with other kids who may not like his shoes or say something mean to him. He can do that at 8. Many adults cannot do that. He just competed at a national tournament last week. He got second place out of 14 kids. He went to the gold medal match and lost. He was trying to hold back the tears and said mommy I really wanted that gold. I asked him if he learned something in his loss, he said yes. I said that was all that was important and to go an win silver!! He did. And guess what? On the medal stand he hugged the boy that beat him and told him good job in their match. It was great!! I feel confident that I am teaching my son how to be a graceful winner and loser. Losing is a part of life. Our lives won't be perfect. People need to learn how to deal with the good and bad. We can always learn from the bad.
Sadly I find people don't know how to deal with adversity and that is our society's downfall.
I'm over all of this bullying nonsense. You can only be bullied if you allow it. People need to grow a backbone and stand up for themselves. Much of what people perceive as bullying is simply them not being babied.
I'm over all of this bullying nonsense. You can only be bullied if you allow it. People need to grow a backbone and stand up for themselves. Much of what people perceive as bullying is simply them not being babied.
And that's why bullies are annoyed that the ones they pick on are no longer accepting their crap. That not everyone they pick on is without a back bone. Nag nag nag. Nobody needs to accept anything from anybody. Nobody needs to "deal with" crappy behavior from any body. No one needs to be pushed around for anyone's personal benefit. I applaud those who walk away or ignore or are yes, capable of standing up for themselves in a respectful manner.
If it were as simple as "standing up for yourself", no one would be bullied. Unfortunately, some take pushback as an invitation to escalate things.
It should go without saying that mistreating, humiliating, or intimidating people because they are new, or orienting, or younger, or older, or less experienced, or more experienced, or you were treated worse isn't okay.
I don't think bullying is a gender-related issue. Sure, more women than men work in nursing, but I come from a male dominated field in which threats of bodily harm and actual abuse happened more frequently than one might expect. Bad behavior is sometimes just bad behavior. And sometimes it is even bullying. I feel like the OP wasn't saying bullying doesn't exist, but that maybe the word is bandied around often in cases where it doesn't necessarily apply. Not every rude/obnoxious/even mean person is a bully. Again, I gently suggest that we as newbies need to strive for a thicker skin, which doesn't mean allowing ourselves to be bullied, but rather means accepting criticism which will make us safer, better nurses. Not everyone delivers said criticism in a gentle Ma Ingalls sort of way either, and yeah, that can be somewhat nerve-wracking when we are already new and unsure of ourselves. But rather than jump to "everyone bullies me!", perhaps practicing some anti-fragility is part of the solution.
Again, I'm not saying bullying doesn't exist, but not every single case of someone crying "bully" is bullying.
THANK YOU!
Another golden post...this is one of the best posts on this thread...said it MUCH better than I could have, though I tried. :)
I haven't read through every post, but thought I would put my 2 cents in on this because I think the term "bullying" is so misused today. When I was growing up, the childhood "bully" was someone you dealt with and moved on. Just because someone does not agree with you, maybe yelled at you, or doesn't cater to your every whim, doesn't make them a bully. There are too many people who come in here saying they were bullied and that's why they are fired or they failed out of nursing school. I'm not going to say it's a generational thing, it's people who cannot take responsibility for themselves and nothing is ever their fault. It's everyone else's in the world.
To the person who compared being bullied to being raped. I will assume you have never been raped and can't know there is absolutely no comparison whatsoever. That really angers me when people do that. And yes, people do claim they have been raped all the time just to try and get someone in trouble. I've seen it firsthand and it can devastate someone's life.
Also, someone raising their voice to you or not agreeing with you, is not abuse or violence. What the heck is horizontal violence anyway. I think people out there just love to come up with PC terms. Not everyone is going to get along in the workplace. That's life. Not everyone is going to like you just like you are not going to like everyone. Not everyone is going to shove unicorns and rainbows up your butt everyday. Learning how to deal with differing personalities makes you a better person. Differing opinions is what makes the world go round. Life would be awful if we all thought a like. Different thinking is how problems get solved and stuff gets invented. It is amazing to me how people just don't get that.
And yes, I have a child. I have a wonderful 8 year old boy who does competitive judo and does well in school. I have taught him that not everyone in the world is going to like him. He doesn't like everyone he meets and that is ok, he doesn't have to. I have taught him how to deal with other kids who may not like his shoes or say something mean to him. He can do that at 8. Many adults cannot do that. He just competed at a national tournament last week. He got second place out of 14 kids. He went to the gold medal match and lost. He was trying to hold back the tears and said mommy I really wanted that gold. I asked him if he learned something in his loss, he said yes. I said that was all that was important and to go an win silver!! He did. And guess what? On the medal stand he hugged the boy that beat him and told him good job in their match. It was great!! I feel confident that I am teaching my son how to be a graceful winner and loser. Losing is a part of life. Our lives won't be perfect. People need to learn how to deal with the good and bad. We can always learn from the bad.
Sadly I find people don't know how to deal with adversity and that is our society's downfall.
Can we lock this one up yet? This is the deadest of dead horses. And the next time it rears its decomposed head we can just link right back to this one and we can all save ourselves a cr@pload of time? Surely no one actually has anything new to offer, do we? "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." - Winston Churchill. True that.
Yes, I too participated and even made it to page 17; it’s the proverbial train wreck that for some reason I keep clicking on, yet get so disgusted at the nastiness that I wonder what possessed me. Anyone remember the 1970 song by Lynn Anderson, “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”? Great lyrics, couldn’t be more appropriate (substitute the word “love” for “nursing”), no matter on which side of the fence we reside. This is nursing, this is life, we can’t make people behave in the way we would like. Can we move on to a road less traveled? Like safe staffing ratios? ADN vs. BSN? Social media in the workplace?
If it were as simple as "standing up for yourself", no one would be bullied. Unfortunately, some take pushback as an invitation to escalate things.
And anyone who's ever babysat or parented a toddler or an adolescent knows what that means-- "Testing, testing, does she really mean it?"
Yes, she does. Do not back down, do not crumble, do not fold-- on the time out, on the curfew, or on the bad behavior. Or else your rampant two-year-old will be a terror when he's five, your fifteen-year-old will be out til past dawn with god knows who, and the bully will keep it up.
FlyingScot, RN
2,016 Posts
I think you have a very balanced reaction to your situation and would love to precept you. One thing I wanted to point out is that when the preceptor turned your question back on you and made you think you were able to see what she was doing... helping you to be a critically thinking nurse. Unfortunately there are more than a few new nurses who would view this as refusing to answer the question and therefore... bullying. Yay for you!