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.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
On the upside of not being invited to her wedding, you didn't have to buy her a wedding gift! Seriously, that must have been a difficult time; it showed a great deal of personal strength for you to be able to kep your chin up and go back every day. I think the minute someone had laid hands on me, we would have had a "Come to Jesus" meeting.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
Hey, I'll get the ball rolling for those of you playing tonight:
In my list of mandatory online education for work, one is about lateral violence in the OR. Guess they're trying to improve the workplace environment and decrease perceived bullying that isn't really as much of a problem as some people seem to think it is. Seriously, my manager said something to me about someone who was offended that I didn't say good morning to them this morning. Well, it was early, and they were speaking from behind me on my right side, where I suffer from partial deafness. Being slightly sleepy and not giving the extra attention to my weaker side as I normally do at work (not yet in patient care areas), I didn't hear that person say anything. And because someone was a little too sensitive, I get called on the carpet .
Your partial deafness could be the table-turner! If other people are not completely sensitive and deferential about it, they're the bullies! You could get great mileage out of this.
Ruby, that must have been terrible to go through. I cannot even imagine!! That woman would have had a "come to Jesus" meeting with me also. The restraint that you showed makes you one classy person!! I would not have been able to do that.
i agree some people want to hold on to the victim mentality. They know their role and play it well. Any time in life when you are knocked down, and you will be, it's how you get back up, dust yourself off, and move on from it. When some people are knocked down, they stay there, expecting the world to stop, and now take over for them. I have friends like this. They expect me to take care of their lives for them. I won't do it anymore.
We all have adversity in our lives. I know I have had my fair share. But my issues I have had are not anyone else's problem, I don't expect any help, I just get up and go the next day and live my life. That's the way it should be.
That nurse actually shoved me across a room and into the overbed table, and the bruises lasted for weeks.
If something like that ever happened like that today, I would advise the nurse call the police immediately. Physical assault is something that should have zero tolerance.
If you had bruises for weeks you obviously got shoved hard enough that there is potential you could have been seriously hurt. Those overhead tables are about at the lumbar level and if a person was shoved hard enough into one it could result in a permanent back injury.
Should this have been the case, then there would be the potential for needing to file a lawsuit if you couldn't work because of this BS.
The end result is that I think had the police been involved your manager would have been given her walking papers especially if it came out that she tolerated and allowed this BS to go on. Her superiors would be less than pleased.
-Co-worker reporting me to management for stealing narcotics (which I did NOT do).
-Same co-worker responding on hospital wide survey that I was not "safe" and should be terminated
-Same co-worker accusing me to management of forcing an orientee to stay over her shift so I could
"ram intubation teaching down her throat". This orientee asked ME to stay over to help HER.
-same co-worker who accused me of "continuously smacking" and apneic infant on transport. Hard to
do when I was doing the documentation.
I got written up for each and every one of these things although I was able to prove that they did not occur. Managements response "well let this be a lesson to you not to do these things in the future". Duh. Since I didn't actually do them don't you think I already knew that.
What was not bullying were her snarky comments, making me do all the clean up, general impatience with me and talking about me as if I wasn't even in the room. That just made her a miserable you-know-what.
To the OP, I sincerely hope you do not precept or manage. It sounds as though you have a complex of "nobody can do this job better than me." You seem offended when new staff ask you questions, are you truly irritated because you don't have time or are you frustrated with yourself that your explanations or demonstrations did not satisfy the question? In either scenario, it would be inappropriate for you to be precepting. A preceptee also has the right to know each step of the way how he or she is doing. If you're all smiles during the shift and then you sneak away to the manager's office and give a less-than-stellar report, this is called being two-faced. If the preceptee does not receive this feedback until late in orientation, how can he or she be expected to grow? How could you ever fault someone for asking questions because they want to do the job right? A preceptee should learn in a safe environment, not at the patient's expense of making a mistake and potentially causing harm. Let's hope you live and work forever because if everyone had your attitude, I think there would be far fewer nurses entering the field and more nursing errors!
OK. I never said "run away crying and screaming." I never said it was "the victim's fault." I never said anyone was "a coward."
I'm sorry you completely missed the point in my post about a personal experience dealing with a bully in nursing school.
I get the impression that there are quite a few people here who are invested in the role of being a victim, and any effort to help them find a way to stand up to bullies will just be rejected out of hand.
It is much more empowering to be able to put a tormenter in his/her place than to have someone else do it.
I have never been a "victim" or been "tormented" in any situation! I've been picked on and bullied by teachers and co-workers, but haven't taken it. I've either stood up to them face to face, or removed myself from the situation.
I worked with a MA once, & just knew she and I was going to go round and round in a wrestling match if I didn't do something about her smart mouth. She was a trouble maker & kept trying to start a fight with me every day at work. I got sick of her little attitude, made quite the embarrassing example of her one day in front of the doctor we worked for exposing her true colors. She didn't look at me after that.
Sometimes co-worker, & teacher/student situations can get pretty ugly, & management will not do anything about it. Yes, it's good to stand up for one's self, but sometimes all one can do is switch schools or jobs.
Quitting certainly isn't the first line of defense in situation of conflict. However when the issue is standing the test of time and you are miserable at your job? There's no guaranteed brownie points for stoicism and even if you do get there in 10 or 15 years, was it worth the stress on your mind, body, and soul? The answer is different for everyone but why be miserable when you could make a change that might be the answer to your prayers? I once ran into conflict with a manager (not my direct supervisor) and two coworkers that were high-strung and couldn't make it through the day without complaining about something. I kept at it for 9 months before I decided I needed to put me first, because the stress had me heading for burnout.
Quitting certainly isn't the first line of defense in situation of conflict. However when the issue is standing the test of time and you are miserable at your job? There's no guaranteed brownie points for stoicism and even if you do get there in 10 or 15 years, was it worth the stress on your mind, body, and soul? The answer is different for everyone but why be miserable when you could make a change that might be the answer to your prayers? I once ran into conflict with a manager (not my direct supervisor) and two coworkers that were high-strung and couldn't make it through the day without complaining about something. I kept at it for 9 months before I decided I needed to put me first, because the stress had me heading for burnout.
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OCNRN63, RN
5,979 Posts
On the upside of not being invited to her wedding, you didn't have to buy her a wedding gift! Seriously, that must have been a difficult time; it showed a great deal of personal strength for you to be able to kep your chin up and go back every day. I think the minute someone had laid hands on me, we would have had a "Come to Jesus" meeting.