WHY are nurses so catty??

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I swear sometimes i don't know WHY i'm in this profession. My mom works at a job as a RN and was limping one day. Her knee bothers her from time to time, etc...she's overweight (and working on it) but it gives her trouble at times. Instead of someone ASKING her what was wrong, one of the nurses ran to the manager and told her that my mom couldn't "keep up" and didn't seem to be quick enough for the job cuz she seemed disabled. This is a NEW job for my mom, so she's still on orientation technically. The manager called her in and made her take off today to go to Occ health and have it tested so she could be cleared to work. WTF?? She told her "we'll figure out what to do pending what the doc says." so she didn't work today and lost that time worked. Of course she went to occ health, the Doc tested her etc...and cleared her no problem. She told him she was excercising, walking and taking meds for it. Forgot to wrap it that day, but was not having any trouble SINCE that day. I have 2 problems with this. 1 is that NOBODY asked her what was up with her knee that day. NOBODY. 2 is that the manager just jumped on it because of what this other nurse SAID. WHY do nurses feel like they have to police each other's performance? UGH i'm just disgusted.

I agree...management has the responsibility to condone or condemn these things. I worked for the past year as a CNA in an icu, hired as a weekend-option employee. The job only carried full-time benefits if I added a 6-hour shift sometime in the week, so my manager and I agreed I'd pick a time for that shift based on my school schedule, and it would change each semester. The weekday shift CNA had called out, daily for 3 months in a row. She obviously had some stuff going on, and there was some kind of HR involvement. Fine, doesn't relate to me, right? Well, since I did my week-long orientation with her on the weekday shift before moving to weekends on my own, some of the weekday-shift nurses complained to the manager that *I* wasn't showing up for work, just like the other CNA- after I'd moved to my weekend shifts.

Now, remember, I was only *scheduled* for sat/sun and a half-shift during the week, normally at odd hours, due to classes. Did she set them straight? Nope. So several nurses decided I *must* be unreliable, and treated me like I was an idiot, and also assumed I was asleep in the lounge if I didn't run and help when they paged me (which never happened; I was always in another patient room, helping another nurse).

So I totally side with the OP's mother on this one. Nurse Managers have a responsibility to set the tone on a unit, and i think this one truly did the wrong thing by encouraging and condoning that type of behaviour.

Thank you. And i'm sorry that happened to you. Seems so petty doesn't it??

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:eek: The situation could have been dealth better. Sounds like the other nurse if just a mean grouch trying to make herself look better. :chair:

Yep. that's EXACTLY what i said

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Specializes in Psych.
It's not just nursing. My sister once worked in a law office with 10 other women, and they just about destroyed her with their glares and their whispers every time she walked by......as an older worker with not-so-great clothes, she apparently downgraded the office's public appearance, so the supervisor stashed her in a tiny cubicle waaaaaay in the back where she couldn't be seen. These women never invited her to lunch, never even spoke to her unless business demanded it, gossiped about her even though they knew nothing about her, and within 3 months my sister was a quivering wreck. Thankfully she got smart and shook the dust of the place from her feet before they managed to crush her spirit completely.......but that's only one example.

I myself have worked in factories and offices, where the women just tore each other to pieces while the men looked on and said "That's why women belong at home, barefoot and pregnant". It's a horrible stereotype, but we don't help ourselves much by perpetuating it on the job........and nurses ARE some of the worst!! Where I work now, there are only a few, but those few are vocal and so they get noticed.......I got written up just last week for not getting a patient on telemetry when he was admitted, only problem was, I was on lunch break (at 3PM!! :angryfire ) and didn't even know he had arrived. That was the result of one Miss Perfect Nurse who has never done anything even slightly wrong in her entire life (we won't talk about missed orders, leaving a mess for the next shift, or undocumented IV starts). She's a power broker, and now they've made her a charge nurse......the very first day, she gave me an assignment, then after I'd made up my 'brains' and gotten all my pt. information, she changed it. :angryfire So I started out behind, and while I did get caught up eventually it was still a huge PITA.

The only thing any of us can do about this sort of thing is to refuse to participate in it ourselves........stay above the fray, don't get involved in the office politics, and above all, lead by example. It's not worth getting worked up over. Of course, I'm older and it's easier for me to not care about what 'people' think about me (although it does piss me off when management buys into it), but it can be done anywhere, and by anyone.....you just have to ignore it all and do the job you're being paid for.

And that's all I have to say about THAT. :stone

Amen to that sister, or brother, as the case may be. I USED to think women were the cattiest before I entered nursing!? And I will admit that men are catty in a different way than women are. IMO, women launch personal attacks, men tend to attack job perfomance. But, of course, that too is a generalization. I have been having some problems lately w/a male colleague that begins his shift(following me) by moaning, griping, eye-rolling while I am giving him report. I CAN'T STAND IT!!!. I just want to shake him and say, "listen buddy, I have been humping it for 8 hours and you are coming in fresh, if anyone has cause to complain, it's me!" Today was rough, he started in criticizing(not critiquing)day shift performance and I just sat quiet and let him rant. When he was done, I resumed report and noticed he wasn't even taking notes. So I turned on the tape recorder to protect myself in case anyone should complain that he was given insufficient info on top of all the other complaints. He is a good guy and a good nurse when he wants to be, but I have just about had it. Sorry about the rant, you're good to indulge me. I guess my message is that we have to remember what a high pressure environment we ALL work in. Be just as patient w/your co-workers as you are w/yourselves and keep those lines of communication open. We owe it to our pts to perform as a TEAM. When the claws come out, pull your own in.

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From my perspective Tweety, I don't think the poster you directly responded to was wrong. A lot of WOMEN are the pettiest, cattiest people. Yes, we can be! And it really doesn't matter what profession you are in...My husband took a group of clients to Spain on a business trip. Well, it has him and a group of 15 women. Right away, it was obvious that not all the women in the group liked each other and split up into clicks. My husband had to bend over BACKWARDS to please all these women and when he came back, he had an email from the CEO of the company relaying his CONDOLENCES for having to put with all these witches from hell for an entire week!!!!!!!!!!!! :rotfl:

Stereotypes will get us no where. You are so wrong.
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Personally Pete, I agree with you 100%. Many women are catty, why....because they personalize things...take them to heart. Men aren't that way, they look at something, think about how to change it, hash out any differences, come to a conclusion, and put it behind them. Ask them 10 min utes later what the fight was about and they'll say, "what fight"....that's just he way it is.

So here's the deal.

-95% of nurses are women.

-Men and women are different

-Men and women relate in different ways

-Any profession so completely dominated by on sex, will develop a culture that relects the dominant gender.

Look, not all women are catty. (I believe the post read: "many") Men work in teams differently than women - not neccessarily better, just different. A male-dominated culture wouldhave looked upon this situation differently. The handling might have been different. My working life has spanned male and female-dominated professions. If you'd put up this question on an EMS board, you would have gotten a much different set of replies.

I'm curious what the outcome of this was. Did the nurse lose her job? Was she cleared to return to work? Are there any limitations on her?

Pete Fitzpatrick

RN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P

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Specializes in Rodeo Nursing (Neuro).

I have to agree, the way the OP's mom was treated was wrong, but the generalization that nurses, or women, are catty is also wrong.

It's pretty much accepted as fact that male brains and female brains are structurally different, but often goes unsaid that the general differences between the two genders are much less than the differences between individuals. That is to say, there are almost certainly women whose brains are more like mine than mine is like some other men's. And I think it's the same with behaviors. The difference between some particular woman and the "average" woman is likely to be much greater than the difference between the "average" woman and the "average" man.

I also think that the problems with nursing are often exaggerated. The women and men I work with are a pretty good bunch, and our management is usually a lot better than was described here. But I think the point about insecurity was an important one: passive/aggressive behavior is not the behavior of people who are confident in their roles. "Nursing" as a whole still suffers a bit from an inferiority complex, and "cattiness" is one of the ways it manifests itself.

These issues are of considerable interest to me, since I'm getting ready to walk onto a floor as a total novice. I'm lucky (and/or smart) because I'll be doing it among people who know me and are pulling for me, but I also know there are some who'll shake their heads and say I thought that might happen if I drop the ball, or even seem like I might be about to drop the ball.

I'm not really sure how to fix this. I doubt it even can be fixed, completely. But if I find myself in the position of the OP's mother, I hope the approach I'll take will be along the lines of: I understand your concerns about whether I can pull my share, but I fully intend to do so. I hope and expect that you will permit me the opportunity to do so, and in any case, I believe it would be more appropriate to approach me about them directly before going to management.

Again, I'm new to the profession, though I've been in the field a while. My thinking is that the biggest thing any of us can do to advance the profession is to behave professionally, even when others don't. But it does suck when they don't.

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Specializes in LPN.

hopefully these post will help us individually look into our own attitudes and thoughts, and actions next time we go to work.

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I have to agree, the way the OP's mom was treated was wrong, but the generalization that nurses, or women, are catty is also wrong.

An across the board generalization is certainly untrue and unfair but catiness, i.e., "relational aggression," in women can begin as early as the age of 3 according to a BYU study:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050507/ap_on_he_me/mean_girls

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

A mental note to myself to never read these types of threads again. Getting sick and tired of my gender getting slammed and generalized because of a few idiots who are catty.

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A mental note to myself to never read these types of threads again. Getting sick and tired of my gender getting slammed and generalized because of a few idiots.

Looking at your Avatar I couldn't help but ask what gender are you?

Just Kidding!

:chuckle

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
From my perspective Tweety, I don't think the poster you directly responded to was wrong. A lot of WOMEN are the pettiest, cattiest people. Yes, we can be! And it really doesn't matter what profession you are in...My husband took a group of clients to Spain on a business trip. Well, it has him and a group of 15 women. Right away, it was obvious that not all the women in the group liked each other and split up into clicks. My husband had to bend over BACKWARDS to please all these women and when he came back, he had an email from the CEO of the company relaying his CONDOLENCES for having to put with all these witches from hell for an entire week!!!!!!!!!!!! :rotfl:

:)

I think people are catty both men and women. We could come up all kinds of examples of female catty behavior, every day in fact. I think people in general are catty men and women.

Ever see a man get all bent out of shape in traffic or in line in the grocery store. Ever see a man in a restaurant get bent out of shape at the service? Ever see the guys in the show the Apprentice? Catty and petty. Generalizing and stereotyping a group based on a few is wrong.

Wonder if you took a group of 15 men on a trip would they not split in to separate groups. Wouldn't it be natural for smaller groups to develop?

Sorry, I'm still not buying into the fact that nurses are catty because the majority of them are women.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
An across the board generalization is certainly untrue and unfair but catiness, i.e., "relational aggression," in women can begin as early as the age of 3 according to a BYU study:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050507/ap_on_he_me/mean_girls

I've read that study before. It basically is studying when mean behavior starts. Aggressive and mean behavior in boys has been studied as well.

This in no way implicates that females are catty because they are females.

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