I'm posting a follow-up post to the last one. So my supervisor gave me a verbal warning in the form of a letter that detailed my various workplace sins. These included asking for too many days off, leaving early, arriving late, forgetting to pick up a blood sample, not using an interpreter, and being disrespectful.
Asking for too many days off: For December I took a nice 2 weeks of taking advantage of the holidays and just asked for some days in between. I was going through some medical stuff which caused me to at times ask for a day off at the last minute (2 days before the appointment for instance.)
Leaving early: This didn't happen as often, perhaps 3 times at most and always by checking with my supervisor. Granted this happened without advance notice and when I did leave it was due to medical appointments.
Arriving late: My start time was 6:30 am (a start time she said she never approved but nevertheless used it as a point of reference to count how many hours I arrived late on 3 occasions.) Once I arrived at 9:30 because I overslept having been up all night coughing a lung out. I was going to call out but decided against it. The other time my car refused to start and I ended up taking another car. I arrived at 8:45. The third time I had gone to a doctor's appointment and got there at 9:30. There was hardly anyone at the office because that particular day we had a department wide meeting. The fourth time I had another appointment and I got there around 8:20. All these times she knew about. All with 3 to 4 days notice beforehand. In her warning letter she stated that my team had suffered because of my tardy arrivals. I tried to confirm this with my co-workers and they were like "no, we were fine."
Anyway she agreed that we would meet again in 3 weeks to see if any improvement that been made. Well the date came around and that morning I asked her "so what time are we meeting today?" and she replied "Well it turns out that the HR director can't come today so we will reschedule it." She didn't give me a date and I left it at that. Mind you she's involved 3 other supervisors besides her.
At any rate we met a couple of weeks ago for the second time at which point she pointed out 2 times in which I arrived late. One happened because I missed the commuter bus and it only leaves every 45 minutes so of course I arrived 40 minutes late when I was supposed to arrive 40 minutes early. That same day that I arrived late I told her that the commuter bus left at 3:30 but that I was going to stay until the next one left, around 4:15. So she was like fine, but I could tell she wasn't too happy about it. She and I were working off site at that time and she's used to staying behind and having someone else bring back the blood samples to our main job site for processing. Since she had told me at the last minute that I was to work with her that day, I didn't make arrangements for someone to pick up my kids so that's why I ended up taking the commuter bus. At any rate she gave me a choice on two tasks and asked which one I wanted to work on. I picked one and she said that she'd do the other one and left to go work on it. Well I finished my task and asked her if she wanted me to do anything else, then she asked me to do the task that she was supposed to do. So I ended up doing both. She said that it was fine I could go so I did.
Anyway to make a long story short she wrote me up for the above mentioned things that also included not using an interpreter. She had earlier that day advised me to not walk into a non-English speaking patient's room b/c there was no interpreter. Of course I forgot and walked into his room, quickly realized that I shouldn't have done that and excused myself and left. Well she included this in her write up.
I feel like she wants me to be absolutely perfect and that there is no grace/understanding. So I decided that the next step would probably be me being fired so I asked HR what was the minimum leave of notice so as not to be blacklisted from the institution. They said 2 weeks, so I gave my 2 weeks notice. This job provides great benefits and I'm going to miss that. Thinking back I don't know if it would have been better to ask for a transfer and now perhaps it's too late. I have 2 weeks left on that job. A job that I enjoyed very much. My sister pointed out that I worked very hard to go through nursing school full-time while having kids and how I basically let it go for a difficult person.
No one seems to understand where I'm coming from except for my husband. He's heard me complain about this lady for months. He knows that I tried to get along with her. It seems that the perfect person for that position is someone who is used to putting their family in second place. Someone who is dedicated so much that they would spend 12 hours in one day if needed.
I used to work on the floor so I came from having 4 days off to working 5 days in a row. It was a huge adjustment. I supposedly took the job to have more time for my family but it turned out to not be the case. Where before I was spending 4 days with me kids now it was less. I earned more yes but the work was intense. I enjoyed it though. But having that supervisor was like tasting vinegar.. it didn't help to know that I didn't even have to be there. Hubby sometimes earns in one day what I earn in a month so I wasn't doing it for the money..
Now that this has happened I'm taking a step back and thinking about my choices. I've been thinking about preparing for the GRE and possibly starting school later this year. Or maybe working in another specialty, perhaps ICU.. I'm basically here to vent and to get feedback/advice. I have loans to pay off and not working right now would put them on hold but still their balances loom over me. I've paid a good bit off but I took out several.
Please don't tell me in your replies that you did your nursing degree with little to no debt, because saying that would help me how...??
Stupid employers expecting you to be on time and do the job you are paid for, how dare. Your smart pretty boy husband is right, taking 2 weeks vacation during holidays season, excessive tardiness and screwing your coworkers is just great. Serves them right, 2 weeks notice in their faces.
I do kind of wish that this post and the post before it had been written as chapters in a fairy tale, like the Nov. 2015 post was. That was good stuff.
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
Meh. I went back and looked at some previous posts, and now I feel like the joke's on me. I just. don't. get. it. Who DOES that kind of stuff and expects there to be no blowback??
Thanks for the few helpful replies, others were entertaining :)
So the times that I was late was due to being sick, car not working, and surprise coming from doctors' appointments that she had given me permission to attend. So how does she give permission to arrive late then turn around and write me up for being late. hmm..
I had and still have health problems (at one point I had emergent surgery and once I almost passed out) but the focus is on attendance, nevermind that I'm going through a health crisis. I didn't qualify for FMLA so that was out of the question.
I will exit from this post now and will take away the kindness and understanding of nutella's post to name a few. You are right nutella I was pretty green coming into this discipline and am proud of myself for coming this far. I taught myself a great deal of things along the way since there was no formal training/orientation. It has all been a learning experience.
And honestly I expected a better reply and attitude from fellow nurses, calling my husband pretty boy? Hilarious! So typical! Nice one! Mentioning HIS comment about jealousy?? Wow, what a mistake!
Unfortunately it is not your employers problem if you have health issues, child care issues, transportation problems, or all the rest of the things that caused you to be late/not show up. A manager can only sympathize with you for so long before the unreliability becomes her problem to deal with.
You seem to think having an excuse (even a valid one) means you get to bypass the attendance policy. It does not.
Your manager actually sounds like an understanding person, she let this go on for a long time. My guess is she had no other choice but to write you up hoping the behavior would stop. She needs someone who is reliable. Emergencies happen but not that often, sorry not buying that every single one of those instances could not be avoided.
Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
Thanks for the few helpful replies, others were entertaining :)
So the times that I was late was due to being sick, car not working, and surprise coming from doctors' appointments that she had given me permission to attend. So how does she give permission to arrive late then turn around and write me up for being late. hmm..
I had and still have health problems (at one point I had emergent surgery and once I almost passed out) but the focus is on attendance, nevermind that I'm going through a health crisis. I didn't qualify for FMLA so that was out of the question.
I will exit from this post now and will take away the kindness and understanding of nutella's post to name a few. You are right nutella I was pretty green coming into this discipline and am proud of myself for coming this far. I taught myself a great deal of things along the way since there was no formal training/orientation. It has all been a learning experience.
And honestly I expected a better reply and attitude from fellow nurses, calling my husband pretty boy? Hilarious! So typical! Nice one! Mentioning HIS comment about jealousy?? Wow, what a mistake!
Good night and thanks for the well wishes :)
You need to take personal responsibility rather than keep making excuses.
If your health, childcare, or transportation are unreliable then get a per diem/flex job
You need to get your hatred/jealousy of your manager in check. She's been more tolerant of your unreliability than most. Regardless if she gave you permission to arrive late after a medical appointment that did not give you leave to oversleep and arrive 3 hrs late, not have reliable transportation and arrived late, "forget" and enter a room you were specifically told not to, forget lab samples, make other errors.
Your husband is enabling your lack of personal responsibility. Your manager was doing her job. The more mistakes you made and the less reliable you were in only 8 months, you were lucky you were still employed. You needed to have someone watch your every move to prevent (or catch) a critical error. You admit you made not one or two but many procedural errors that easily could have affected the investigations underway.
Your health problems are not your employer's problems. Neither are your lack of childcare, family emergencies, lack of transportation, oversleeping, missing a bus and every other excuse you have for your chronic tardiness and lack of reliability.
It will be a small miracle if you are not marked "do not rehire".
Some self study needs to happen to promote your success. Instead of focusing on the fact that your peer was promoted and happened to be more dedicated & professional but single and self supporting, focus on what you can do to be an on-time, error free and productive employee especially if you wish to stay in clinical research.
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
Thanks for the few helpful replies, others were entertaining :)
So the times that I was late was due to being sick, car not working, and surprise coming from doctors' appointments that she had given me permission to attend. So how does she give permission to arrive late then turn around and write me up for being late. hmm..
I had and still have health problems (at one point I had emergent surgery and once I almost passed out) but the focus is on attendance, nevermind that I'm going through a health crisis. I didn't qualify for FMLA so that was out of the question.
I will exit from this post now and will take away the kindness and understanding of nutella's post to name a few. You are right nutella I was pretty green coming into this discipline and am proud of myself for coming this far. I taught myself a great deal of things along the way since there was no formal training/orientation. It has all been a learning experience.
And honestly I expected a better reply and attitude from fellow nurses, calling my husband pretty boy? Hilarious! So typical! Nice one! Mentioning HIS comment about jealousy?? Wow, what a mistake!
Good night and thanks for the well wishes :)
I am keeping my mouth shut because I have nothing nice to say.
I haven't read your other posts OP, I don't really care to. I am pretty full of your entitled attitude from this one alone. The part that tipped me over was your bragging about your husband and speculating that your supervisor is jealous of you, when there are clearly valid reasons as to why you are getting in trouble. This shows me that you don't take your job and responsibilities seriously. You would rather assume someone is jealous/targeting you then own up to your part in all of this.
They probably want an employee who doesn't inconvenience them as much with frequent doctors appointments and tardies. I also wonder if this entitled attitude spills over at work and sours others impressions of you.
You take very little accountability for yourself and are full of excuses. Since your husband makes such high income and you've said you aren't working for the money, you should have no problem being a stay at home mom and paying off your student loans. Good luck.
Mentioning HIS comment about jealousy?? Wow, what a mistake! 
VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN
22 Articles; 9,996 Posts
I think the OP is yanking our collective chain.