To tattle tale or not tattle tale... that is the question.

BETSRN · Jul 29, 2005

Hey all.
There are quite a few nurses on my unit who have scored points with management and made a select group of other nurses look pretty bad by ratting out on them about pretty small insignificant stuff like so and so didn't date her lines or so and so didn't put one assessment in the computer for q 1hr neuro checks or so and so didn't have time to change her lines (because, well so and so admitted a 1:1 pt at 17:30 while still keeping the other stable pt anyway) and then there's always the arcane so and so didn't follow SICU protocol z even though she used critical thinking to solve the problem and advised the residents immediately, etc.
I've NEVER been a snitch for little stuff that didn't compromise the pt. As such, I have ended up protecting a few of the nurses who have now turned into snitch nurses. They are well respected not because they don't make mistakes but because the rest of us aren't petty enough to report them.
Well at any rate there are quite a few of them on my unit and I don't want to start biyatching about them but I'm tired of helping them look squeeky clean at the expense of others including myself and my friends.
Lately, one of my friends received a pretty crappy eval because of this phenomenon. She's more over it than I am... but my strong sense of justice is not letting me let go.
Any thoughts?

I thnk I would let my manager know of my concerns. then let her take it from there.

BETSRN · Jul 29, 2005

this is my concern, as well.

When one has a manager who goes to certain staff members, there is nothing much to be done about it but to either bring it up to the manager or get out: whichever you like best!

ShayRN · Jul 30, 2005

Ok, manager here. Trust me when I tell you, it doesn't score any brownie points. We KNOW who our workers are, we know who is lazy, we know which ones like to cause problems. Honestly, it sounds more like the managment on the unit is poor. I would NEVER, EVER let what one person says about another influence an eval.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 30, 2005

ok, manager here. trust me when i tell you, it doesn't score any brownie points. we know who our workers are, we know who is lazy, we know which ones like to cause problems. honestly, it sounds more like the managment on the unit is poor. i would never, ever let what one person says about another influence an eval.

wish there were more good managers like you out there! here, it seems like the rewards go to the lazy. they get paid just as much as i do for sitting around eating chips and yakking while i'm running my butt off, answering calls for thier patients as well as my own. and as far as letting what one person says about another influence an eval . . . we have it in policy here. it's called peer review. i got slammed for "not helping out enough." this is from someone who spent the entire shift in the break room, except for when she gave her meds. clicked her vital signs down from the desk in the computerized chart. i ran my butt off fetching for her two patients as well as my own two (in a four bed room) while she sat on hers. after about 8 hours of this, i hauled her butt out of the break room to help me clean up poop on her patient. i guess she thought i should have just taken care of that, too. but the thing is, no one heard my side of it before it went onto the peer eval form and into my evaluation. i'll be looking for a new job just as soon as i've fulfilled my contractual obligation so i don't have to repay my relocation bonus!

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[color=#4b0082]ruby

CFwoman · Jul 30, 2005

Snitch Nurses. Every time I read posts like this it makes me feel sad that our occupation comes down to such a trashy level. What happened to teaching, support and encouragement for one another? To me, it seems to be slipping by the wayside. More and more nurses seem to be "tattling" on coworkers or they're not saying anything at all to be helpful. I think they are secretly hoping their fellow coworker will get reprimanded only to make themselves look better. I've had many occupations prior to Nursing and have never worked in such a mean and vindictive environment.

Before everyone jumps on me (talk about mean and vindi....) I realize not EVERY facility is this way. Some are 100% supportive and helpful. Unfortunately, I have not been lucky enough to work in one. I know it's not just me either. I have witnessed the high turnover rate at these places and it is mind boggling.

bluesky, BSN, RN · Jul 30, 2005

I am just so relieved that I am getting some feedback from y'all of actual upsetness. Most of the good nurses on my unit either don't say anything because they've been lucky enough not to get targeted, OR have decided that being targeted is basically no big deal because they haven't been fired. So for example my friend with the bad eval was sad and upset for about 2 weeks and then just decided that "life is too short to get angry about these things". So, in a way I think this is a good philosophy but in another way I think this eval will follow her for the rest of her time in this hospital.

Another weird phenomenon is that when management favorites make some pretty big mistakes, there are little or no repercussions. One favorite (a cool gal though, not a tattletale) hung one drug instead of another in a code that ended up killing the pt. Another put a pump on 5 times the maximum dose of sedative and there were NO repercussions. Well, the queen tattletale told our head nurse that a night shift nurse that they mutually didn't like that

the night shift nurse's application for FMLA to go see her dad abroad was bogus due to some poor wording by a foreign doctor and the head nurse proceeded to DENY the RN personal leave and influence managed disability to deny her FMLA. She went to see her sick father anyway, got sick herself and got FIRED. After she got fired the head nurse announced several times, in staff meetings, the nature of the situation and why she fired the woman (big no no).

The chief tattletale and I absolutely DESPISE each other. She is always on the unit, always in charge on the previous shift, and always gives me crappy assignments (pairs of busy pts not on pressors that I won't learn anything from occasionally she'll give me a single non-pressor pt but then I just end up admitting). Just the other day, after working 15 shifts in 19 days, I was shafted for the 15th time with a crappy assignment and complained about it to the night shift charge ( who had conveniently set up all her friends with 1:1s and preceptees to do all their work). Well by the time chief tattletale came in that morning she took me into the locker-room and started giving me this mean-ass lecture for about 30 minutes about the assignments and how I take it too personal and yada yada and I was just so exhausted that I started crying about a personal issue I brought up and she just left me in the locker room by myself crying... no effort to even talk to me or make sure I was OK. I then went home and had a seizure while talking to my husband about it on the phone. (I have grand-mal epilepsy and I miss days after a seizure because my post-ictal period lasts for a few days. Prior to this job, I hadn't had a single seizure for YEARS). All the people who benefit from repeatedly cush assignments always go out of their way to let me know that I need to just grin and bear it or, or that I'm being whiny. Of course they proceed to dump all the crappy assignments on the targeted people and on the new grads.

Like I said there are many other good nurses who totally agree with my analysis but they either grin and bear it or quit the unit. No effort is made to actually change the situation. I want so badly to quit but I need 2 years of SICU experience to apply to CRNA school and I'm one year in. This unit gets funky high acuity pts that I wouldn't get at an outlying hospital (not to mention no SICUs). I was thinking about an in-hospital transfer but I am afraid that the other units will be the same.

What's weird is that my relationship with the managers per se is pretty good. I got a good evaluation and they always tell me that I am a strong nurse (whatever that means). They even have supported me unconditionally when I had both seizures (one on the unit, actually) for the first time in years. But my frustration with the assignments is getting so bad that I occasionally threaten to quit. For example, on my first day back from my seizure, I was given a busy pair (one with q 1 hr neuro checks and one agitated GIB), went on 2 roadtrips, transfered one out, gave report on another and admitted a totally messed up 1:1 pt patient at 17:30 (my first 1:1 in months which of course I got some but not much help (the chief tattletale was in the breakroom chomping on her homemade nine layer dip and chatting all day) because everybody was trying to get out on time. Of course I stayed late to type up the admission database etc.

The managers do acknowledge that the chief tattletale is a bad influence but they semi-defend her with statements like "we only take what she says half seriously" or "she's gotten much better than she used to be" or "93 % of the time she's a very experienced nurse that we need on the unit for her knowledge".

mysticalwaters1 · Jul 30, 2005

Geeze. I remember being shocked about all the bullying I heard in Highschool, the gossip, the making fun of others and mabye because I was a bandgeek and other than being shy never really experienced it! A little end of grammar school had a nasty neighbor but even her and I made up in highschool. My point is i'm feeling it all 100% in my med surg position!!! It's CRAZY! I never thought of having to deal with bickering picky nurses. It's not just that either just plain bickering over EVERYTHING! Whether the schedule or now b/c our census is low one nurse is just throwing her weight onto everyone lately. It's like she already bossed around everyone new now so there's noone left to fight about so now she's looking for garbage. So yea it looks like that is common! Well i've only been on this med surg unit but reading other posts. I never realized how catty it can be! Maybe b/c there are so many different personalities? Or maybe it's really hard I think to get into nursing so when people do they have this sort of god complex? It seems someone allways has to be blamed for something when it doesn't matter in certain sitiuations. I've never met so many people, nurses, doctors, aides with such egos! Our unit has a high turnover and now i'm wondering is it this petty crap inluencing it as well? Wow that's sad! And just so everyone nows I will report what I call repeat dangerous offenders. If an iv not changed/not labled, whatever especially if your busy. If someone continuously dumping on myself I first let the nurse know then the manager if no improvment. I'm talking about people that don't have a clue and dangerous ex not calling the dr when the pt's resp were 40/min yet calling for colace. And I had one coworker would never sign out her meds. Ok sometimes and you'd spend your entire shift investigating. ONe time I WAS CALLED at home to clarify a med issue and the nurse had called nights, then myself 3-11 to learn from ME it was this one nurse. What i'm getting at is that nurse didn't have to call the originial perp b/c she discovered the issue with me. Sick thing i don't even remember what it was about! So that's how catty it can get.

I just want to make it clear if it harms the pt and it was not a one time thing happens repeatedly such as blantly not giving meds (ex not giving a stat antiarrythmic due to a bp of 100/60 when it was for the high heart rate). I mean you have to sometimes and it has to be documented. I just hate it b/c you get rediculous nit pickers then it's like well hey this person didn't even give this med or put in this stat test come ON! What I get is don't rat on anybody regaurdless from some nurses. If it harms a pt you have too and selfishly yes but CONTINOUSLY dumped on I am going too. Oh i'm sounding nit picky! I'm not basically the entire thing i'm complaining about surounds only 1 nurse that the entire staff has issues with and management wasn't working around it. NOW we have an opposite trouble maker bossing around other people ordering others to do the schedule correct even it it's not her shift, writing people up for little bits of powder still left in ivpb that were not 100% mixed in it. crazy... Maybe it would be good to get out of environments like this. I never thought of that as an option to leave JUST for that! But really it makes you sick!

Penny Lane · Jul 30, 2005

I'm a new grad three weeks into my career on a med surg unit. The first three days were great. But the fourth day, forget it. I was assigned to train with the rudest nurse OH MY GOD. I did the 7-3 shift and by 8am I wanted to go home. I was told by the nurse educator that this unit was like a revolving door and I didn't understand why. Well, I think I understand now. Most of the nurses are rude to me, one talked about me behind my back to the supervisor about not walking a patient who almost coded on my shift the day before! I have already let most of the nurses know that I will not take any crap like that and no one will push me around. I have worked for this two year ADN degree for ten years (I always had to work full time and take one course at a time (pre-reqs) until the end, then I went full time for the actual nsg 1,2,3, and 4). I am 42 years old, and quite frankly (pardon the language) I am too DAMN old for this crap. I like the work and everything I am doing on the unit, the hospital is close to home, and I REFUSE to let any of these nurses try to throw me under the bus. It is so sad that I have to be this way. I have heard about horizontal violence, but this is unreal! Any suggestions to keep my sanity?

justmanda · Jul 30, 2005

wish there were more good managers like you out there! here, it seems like the rewards go to the lazy. they get paid just as much as i do for sitting around eating chips and yakking while i'm running my butt off, answering calls for thier patients as well as my own. and as far as letting what one person says about another influence an eval . . . we have it in policy here. it's called peer review. i got slammed for "not helping out enough." this is from someone who spent the entire shift in the break room, except for when she gave her meds. clicked her vital signs down from the desk in the computerized chart. i ran my butt off fetching for her two patients as well as my own two (in a four bed room) while she sat on hers. after about 8 hours of this, i hauled her butt out of the break room to help me clean up poop on her patient. i guess she thought i should have just taken care of that, too. but the thing is, no one heard my side of it before it went onto the peer eval form and into my evaluation. i'll be looking for a new job just as soon as i've fulfilled my contractual obligation so i don't have to repay my relocation bonus!
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[color=#4b0082]ruby

why did you do all of this for her? why did you think it was your job to clean her patient when she was just sitting around?

BETSRN · Jul 30, 2005

wish there were more good managers like you out there! here, it seems like the rewards go to the lazy. they get paid just as much as i do for sitting around eating chips and yakking while i'm running my butt off, answering calls for thier patients as well as my own. and as far as letting what one person says about another influence an eval . . . we have it in policy here. it's called peer review. i got slammed for "not helping out enough." this is from someone who spent the entire shift in the break room, except for when she gave her meds. clicked her vital signs down from the desk in the computerized chart. i ran my butt off fetching for her two patients as well as my own two (in a four bed room) while she sat on hers. after about 8 hours of this, i hauled her butt out of the break room to help me clean up poop on her patient. i guess she thought i should have just taken care of that, too. but the thing is, no one heard my side of it before it went onto the peer eval form and into my evaluation. i'll be looking for a new job just as soon as i've fulfilled my contractual obligation so i don't have to repay my relocation bonus!
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[color=#4b0082]ruby

you are allowing people to take advantage of you. why do you do that? sounds to me as if this is an issue you need to address.

LydiaNN · Jul 30, 2005

This is a big difference between tattling (over petty stuff, with the goal being to get someone in trouble) and taking a concern to a manager (over important stuff, with the goal to get something that shouldn't be happening to stop or something that should be happening to start).

mysticalwaters1 · Jul 30, 2005

This is a big difference between tattling (over petty stuff, with the goal being to get someone in trouble) and taking a concern to a manager (over important stuff, with the goal to get something that shouldn't be happening to stop or something that should be happening to start).

Exactly!