Do you know what it's like to not have anyone like you? To know that everyone hates you? That's my life as a nurse manager. They now see me as the enemy. I have to deny vacations, write people up, give not so good performance evaluations, tell people how to do their job better, short the unit. They think I am sitting in my office everyday doing nothing when I am drowning in work. Blah!!!! I spend almost all my time in meetings. Sometimes I literally have 30 minutes outside of meetings. So then I work at home or on my days off. When I am in my office, sometimes I close my door. I literally cannot get a thing done when my door is open because people always come in to talk. I cannot send people away because I don't want to unapproachable.
What they don't know is how hard I fight for them. They forget about all the new equipment I fight for. They forget all about the changes I have made so they have it easier. I talk about these in our staff meetings but very few people come. I send out weekly emails but people don't read them.
I was so happy to take this job. It has proved to be the hardest job ever. I have senior leaders handing never ending tasks down to me and staff level employees complaining so much. It's exhausting. Was I like that as a staff nurse?
Balancing the schedule for 70 people is nuts. No one gets 100% of what they want. That makes people very angry but someone has to work!
People complain and gossip but refuse to get involved. They won't come to staff meetings, they won't join committees, they won't offer solutions.
I love my job and I love the team. However; it is so exhausting. I am on call 24-7. People tend to forget that too. I respond to calls and messages all day long.
I just want people to meet me in the middle.
I try to get to know the staff members, send thank notes monthly, ask people what they think.
I can't seem to get ahead. I think a big part of the problem is that I came from this unit. People wonder why I got the job. I'm sure some people even hate it. No matter how hard I try, I can't get them to understand that I work for them. I want them to grow and succeed. I want us to be a great unit that everyone wants to work on.
