Would you be insulted?

[ThePrincessBride]

Would you be insulted if you were never asked to precept and people with less experience than you were being asked to precept left and right?

I have been at my job for three years. The clinical nurse educator used to work on the floor and she precepted me and basically told me I was too stupid to work in the specialty. I ended up having to ask for a different preceptor and the two new ones I got disagreed and here we are three years later. She was promoted as clinical nurse educator and I can tell she hates me or at the very least thinks lowly of me.

I asked a fellow coworker (one I trust) if I should be worried, if it means that I am too stupid or terrible. She says I should consider myself lucky. Also, if I was so terrible, I would have been fired ages ago.

I would have thought with the extremely high turnover and the fact that I am quickly becoming more experienced that I would have been asked but then I remembered my history with the nurse educator.

How should I approach this, if at all? It isn't that I necessarily want to precept, but it bothers me that there may be a reason I haven't been asked.

Or should I thank my lucky stars?

[ADN_Is_Complete, ADN]

On ‎2‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 11:43 AM, ThePrincessBride said:

Thanks for the reply.

I have definitely become introverted mostly due to the cliques and back-stabbing on the unit (and I wonder if this is part of the reason we are losing so many nurses). I never call off (ever) and have worked overtime and picked up in the past. I also did some committee work.

But I really don't fit in, being black and childless on a unit with mostly white, young to middle-age mothers. So of course, we don't interact much and I am excluded from out-of-unit activities. I have been coping by throwing myself into patient care but I do feel lonely and isolated at times.

I just sometimes feel like some of my co-workers think little of me like I am black tar on the bottom of a shoe (points for anyone who knows the reference), so I just stay quiet.

I don't have any advice for the precepting issue except for making it known you'd really love to when the topic came up. I can understand the isolation you feel. I am also a black nurse on a unit with maybe 3 other black nurses. It is hard to relate when everyone else is married or getting married and/or have kids. For the most part, my unit is pretty good with including everyone. I always get to join when they're going bowling or something like that. The only think that annoys me is they all want to add your personal fb. Haha. I don't agree with them excluding you. Do you make an effort to talk with them? Do they make an effort to talk with you?

[mobaby]

You can't change what people think of you; you can only change yourself. I would let it go. I remember cross training for mother-baby unit and being promised the next job. Well, brand new nurses were getting directly hired to unit and I kept getting floated there but not hired. The Nurse Manager apparently knew my husband in the past and took it out on me. Needless to say, I finally had enough of the politics and gave notice - she then told me she would get me there for the next opening but I had to decline at that point as I felt misery would follow. I never could play politics! Just keep doing your job and smiling - you are better than having to beg to be recognized for your worth.