Just scanning through the forums I can see that all of us have at one time or another had to deal with a difficult personality at work. I wanted to put my situation out there and see if I could get some feedback on how I'm currently managing a situation that is really starting to put me at the end of my rope.
I am the only male working in a clinic/urgent care; I am studying to be a FNP and am the only RN (aside from NPs) in a clinic with LPNs and medical assistants. I work in a managerial capacity ensuring that patient care is delivered effectively and safely in a streamlined manner in addition to occasional odds and ends in actual practice. I started as a medical assistant at this clinic while in nursing school and worked my way up to where I am today and am continuing to work towards becoming a provider.
I'm noticing a split with the girls at work - one half is very open and willing to work with me to build our success and the other half wants to bicker and complain and fight me on policies that are set outside of my control. One of the girls in particular is giving me the most grief right now and she frequently stirs the others up.
She's roughly the same age as me (mid-late 20s) and says she started working as a medical assistant when she was around 16, eventually going no further in education than becoming a certified medical assistant. She moved from another state where she had more liberties (such as administering medications) and a more hands-on role in lab work. In our state medical assistants can't administer injections and that's just the way it is. For the most part, her job falls into reception type duties and phlebotomy.
She initially expressed dissatisfaction with this, so I took measures to involve her more in the lab as well as clarifying that she could draw up meds provided there was documentation she had been trained to do so, it was not a controlled substance, and that another nurse checked behind her. After that she still persisted in complaining about how she was not challenged in her job and how stupid it was that she couldn't do what she knew she could do; further she complained the LPNs were keeping her out of the loop on doing lab type stuff. I had a talk with my LPNs to reiterate that if they needed a hand to let the medical assistant know.
I was only half surprised to find that they tried to involve her, but she always made them feel like they were imposing on her and that she would make a fuss about how she couldn't leave reception and that it was on them if she got in trouble. So they just stopped going to her. As I looked further into it some of the others were lodging complaints that this girl had confronted them on numerous occasions accusing them of talking about her because they were either ending conversations when she walked past or were attempting to keep from grand standing with patient details that didn't directly concern her.
This girl comes in to work and is distantly cordial and she is sharp at what she can do lab wise, but there's something missing in her attitude. Ask her to help with something, she sighs heavily, will roll her eyes (and think I can't see her out of the corner of my eye) and just gives off the overall energy of a bad apple.
She complains about everything. This past week I listened to her complain about having to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving and when I offered to see if someone would switch with her she refused and continued to complain. She complained to me, her other co-workers and one of the providers about how sorry it is that our boss insists on being up, but isn't working herself. She complains because her pay is low and that if the boss didn't go buy a new dress or eat out maybe the pay would be better. etc etc etc
She complains that no one helps her, but she never indicates she requires assistance. I finally had her convinced if she was unhappy with how her professional life was going she would have to do something to change it and so she enrolled in college (part time) again with the hope of becoming a RN because as she said "if they let you in, they would be crazy to not take me." Now she complains about how hard it is to work and go to school and it's stupid that she has to do it because she knows what she's doing, etc. etc. Never mind that I did her job while going to school full time and am still going to school full time as well as working full time.
What started out as passive aggressive behavior and backhanded compliments when dealing with me is now progressing to more and more hostile behavior and speech. She ignores me if I ask her something or she'll just turn around and walk off if I'm in the middle of talking to her. She goes around me completely on tasks and problems that I specifically handle in the clinic, so I'm always out of the loop.
I've tried focusing on her positives and made it a priority to catch her doing things right and letting her know what a good job she's doing and she smarts back about how I'm just trying to brown nose. So I can't win with this girl and it's about to make me physically ill.
The rock and the hard place I'm stuck between is that the boss likes her and thinks she's smart and sharp; from a professional clinical stand point I agree that she has valuable skills, but I'm worried that her personality is gonna be a problem not just for me, but the patients as well. She wants to be taking vital signs and brief HPIs and I'm not okay with that because she's too abrasive and non-therapeutic in the dealings she already has with our patients.
With this girl on the clock, our no shows are at an all time low because she gets in there and gets the patients in by calling and following up with appointments.
If the decision were completely in my hands, I'd have fired her weeks ago. But at this point my hands are tied and I have to find a way to manage the situation better - any advice? I'm south of fed up with walking on egg shells around her by a few thousand miles.