What is the motivation for bullying?

Jaykalkyn, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2015

Bullying in any situation takes someone in power standing up to it. This goes for nursing, schools, or any other situation. It takes someone to, first of all, believe that it is happening, and second, to act on it. It doesn't even have to go as far as the BON, just having solid leadership can do the trick.

Jaykalkyn, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2015

I can just say that at my place as a group the rest of us have tried ignoring it and it didin't improve. So we decided to start confronting it, and that doesn't seem to have helped either. We are at a loss for what to do at this point. Thankfully one is retiring and the other one is the less mean of the two. She will be ok once the nastier one is gone.
I was just precepting a new nurse, and they really started in on her. She is tall and thin, and apparently they don't like that for some reason (tall skinny b-word is what they called her in the lounge). I went in and told one of them that I will not tolerate the new nurse being bullied. She did back down a bit, but they would sporadically pick on her. If she walks in a room they would stop talking and not respond when she said hello. They flat out refused to help train her, which I cannot believe they don't get written up for doing.
The new nurse has been so upset by it, and keeps asking what she has done to make them hate her. I have told her repeatedly it's not her. They love the fact that she is upset every day coming to work. Really gives them a sense of accomplishment.

This is absolutely sickening to me. My personality is one in that I will not allow anyone, coworker, boss, or whomever treat me with anything but respect. I cannot wait to become a nurse (Dec. 2015 graduate) and I refuse to allow someone who has it in for me to ruin something that I have worked hard for. I've spent many years in cut-throat corporate america and I can count on one hand the people who I have not been able to establish a relationship with so I will be darned if I get to my dream career and deal with foolishness from some bitter, needing to move on nurses. Ugh!

Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP · Jul 23, 2015

Stress! Nursing brings out the WORST in people because of all the nonsense that goes on with the system, with management, with the patients. Stress and the inability to properly manage it. :/

icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN · Jul 23, 2015

I would like to cite the organizational psychology study from 20 years ago that purported that productivity increases the more that

people are mistreated, but I can not find it. I feel that allowing a contentious workplace is a ruse to keep us from being unified or having any power.

I believe that some managers endorse this appalling behavior, promote the principal players and target any independent thinkers.

allnurses Guide · Jul 23, 2015

Haha, thanks. What was it about the new nurses part you liked?

I think that is something that hadn't been mentioned really. When you are a new employee and learning the ropes, you do feel out of place. You don't know anyone for the most part and you are learning something new. That can make you feel insecure.

The first time I stepped into a big city ER I was intimidated. Me? A little rural nurse who had only worked in a small town ER? With other seasoned nurses who simply rocked at what they were doing? Scary.

The intimidation factor wasn't bullying. But, I can certainly see how I would be hesitant, in that atmosphere of "newness", to not be sure how to handle or maybe even recognize a bully.

I'm a COB now . .. . . . I truly don't put up with much. :nono:

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 23, 2015

In four decades, I've only met two nurse bullies. In both cases, they were miserable women with miserable lives, and they were taking it out on others. Neither of them believed they were bullies. "I had to set her straight -- it was a patient safety issue." Or "I gave it to him back just as good as I got." They truly seemed to believe that their bad behavior was justified because "so and so DESERVED it."

As a sidelight, I've noticed that the people most likely to cry "BULLY!" are the ones most likely to BE bullies.

Tenebrae, BSN, RN · Jul 23, 2015

I think sometimes its an inherant part of a persons nature.

We had an enrolled nurse at work who was the biggest bully out. She had systematically targeted every registered nurse at work. I dont think she ever thought "I'm going to target the RNS and bully them".

I think a large part of it was jealousy. She wanted to be an RN, yet didnt have the necessary intelligence to successfully complete her RN training she was unhappy in the job but would have been unlikely to get work elsewhere.

KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 24, 2015

NOACLS,

I do not wish you to experience some "constructive criticisms" which are to "help to build character" with quite deliberate purpose to destroy it first.

I wish you to see, just one time, the parents of just one teenage girl who were just called and told that their daughter apparently walked from high-rise window because "she was tired to feel ugly". Just one time, a husband holding a baby - mom was found in car that she deliberately crushed because, as it happened, she was named all that words and names for every small mistake on her job for months. She was a sole bread winner, a wife and a mother.

I wish you to see just one person who got PTSD after being given "constructive criticism" by the boss and hear what he says about just one good 'ol backflash. The guy had them by dozens every day. He got the speediest referral to doctor, but antidepressants came too late. His place in support group became empty.

I wish you to find a CRNA who was sabotaged and taunted by a surgeon because she was an immigrant, black and a single mom. She was in shower room, still smiling, needle almost in vein... she survived by a God's miracle.

Think about all these people, and thousands more. What might eventually do good to 997 folks, will injure 2 more and kill another one. And then it becomes something more than just statistics.

NOADLS · Jul 24, 2015

NOADLS,
Think about all these people, and thousands more. What might eventually do good to 997 folks, will injure 2 more and kill another one. And then it becomes something more than just statistics.

We call this natural selection.

KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 24, 2015

NOACLS,

Ok. Natural selection it is. Now, how do you feel about all other cases when we, as human beings, bypass it for the benefits of an individual?

By natural selection's law, half of our children must die before age of five, as it was for all the human history save last 50 years or so. Are you Ok to face this? What about all other human beings who need our care every day so that they might just stay alive?

Natural selection is not applicable to what we name "civilized human society", bypassing it was one thing that made us humans instead of band of bipedal apes. And it is not applicable for any part of the said society except for rare circumstances. Nursing is not Navy SEAL training or disaster.

NOADLS · Jul 24, 2015

NOACLS,
Ok. Natural selection it is. Now, how do you feel about all other cases when we, as human beings, bypass it for the benefits of an individual?
By natural selection's law, half of our children must die before age of five, as it was for all the human history save last 50 years or so. Are you Ok to face this? What about all other human beings who need our care every day so that they might just stay alive?
Natural selection is not applicable to what we name "civilized human society", bypassing it was one thing that made us humans instead of band of bipedal apes. And it is not applicable for any part of the said society except for rare circumstances. Nursing is not Navy SEAL training or disaster.

We're cheating the system where we can as humans.

But there are some aspects of natural selection that will prevail regardless.

I certainly wouldn't want to be one of those green beetles.

KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 25, 2015

You do not have a choice of color to be born with, and not much of that for your descendants, if you are a beetle. You just live till a bird finds you or your child, then you both die.

By your logic, those who have misfortune to be born with certain personality traits plus being somehow "different" from the crowd should either fight it all to the point of loss of one's individuality or pretty much succumb to the circumstances. I wonder how you manage to work as a nurse with the view like these.