vestmoria

This is nursing, my 7th day of employment at a new unit. Coworker is in her early 60s on the fatter and smaller side, walks slowly, bouncing her whole body to left and right, is slow giving report, even though she has less patients than me and feels entitled not to deliver and pick up trays or drinks to patients, the whole 24 of them, looking for stuff to do at the computer when the time comes, conveniently sitting, while the rest of us do her effing job. Last time we had shift together I invited her to work with us, which she ignored.

I dread the day I have a shift alone with her with no helper. This unit seems to be perpetually understaffed: Normal seems to be 2 RN for the whole unit when there should be 3. If we’re lucky, we get a helper (not a RN).

On one hand I feel I should tolerate it because she is almost a senior and apparently is difficult for her to walk.

But this feelings of compassion disappear when I see her pretending to be busy while I’m moving patients, delivering trays, preparing drinks and sometimes feeding them. Her entitlement expecting I do her job no questioning it is what irks me the most. Employee me says escalate, make known this bothers me this much, but don’t know what an appropriate reaction to this looks like.

As said, I just started working there 7 days ago. She’s been at this unit much longer than me, which means management must know and tolerate this. Nursing is known for cliques.

I couldn't come with a better title.

As previously explained, I changes wards, a doctor working for more than 35 years at my old unit wrote me an excellent recommendation letter and I went my merry way to my new ward, hoping to find something new.

I introduced myself to nurses and some doctors there. Because the nurses were yelling and punching tables, something I'd never seen from nurses, I started a conversation with the doctors about what abbreviations they use there (completely foreign to me), if they allow their nurses to take blood samples or arterial and venous blood gas probes, to decide if a patient needs blood cultures, to do an EKG without consulting a doctor first, what emergencies they have there...

I had lucky with one of the doctors who answered all my questions.

The next day, my new boss comes to me saying people complained about me talking to the doctors, accused me of playing being a doctor.

I asked if the doctor who answered my questions, Schimdt, complained. My boss refused to identify the person who complained.

My reaction to that was to say that this person could have talked to me instead of escalating, I also told my boss that I'm going to ask no matter what because I want to be a better nurse and the best suited people to do that are doctors (because most of the nurses only want to gossip, whereas doctors are more cerebral and explain correlations, I didn't say this out loud).

His answer was telling me to stop talking to the doctors, otherwise there would be consequences.

2 hours after he left an Anesthesiologist I didn't know came to check some PCAs, so me being me, started asking questions about the device and given that I'm thinking about studying medicine I asked about it and he told me where he studied, what he did afterwards, started showing me the documentation anesthesiologists use.

This is something I cannot avoid, I like talking to smart people. My new boss seems to be like my old one, only wanting dumbed down nurses.

Other nurses I asked at the unit told me that no, I'm not supposed to be smart, but just a drone.

It's ridiculous I have to censor myself. The best I can think of is to play theatrics while he's at the unit but be me when he leaves.

If you claim I'm talking to the doctors as an excuse not to do my job, you are wrong. I need the money and I use my downtime to learn.

It's true that people believe what they want to believe and judge you in 5 seconds.

Is there a better strategy than playing theatrics?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/2362831

I don't know how extended this is, but apparently there are car makers selling cars with no keys. Instead you download a proprietary app and use it to access your car.

I like being practical and talking to a car to turn the volume up or down, to open the door or to turn the temperature higher are things I don't need nor want. Give me mechanical levers, reachable stalks and no proprietary bloatware. I don't need a movie theater on wheels.

Imagine an early 2000s car running on an electric motor. That's what I want.

I don't know how extended this is, but apparently there are car makers selling cars with no keys. Instead you download a proprietary app and use it to access your car.

I like being practical and talking to a car to turn the volume up or down, to open the door or to turn the temperature higher are things I don't need nor want. Give me mechanical levers, reachable stalks and no proprietary bloatware. I don't need a movie theater on wheels.

Imagine an early 2000s car running on an electric motor. That's what I want.

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/2326733

as a new job "perk" at a hospital I get to choose what days I work: because I get differential if I work weekends, I wrote I want to work everyday but Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Now I wonder if I should have chosen Mondays and Fridays. On Mondays people act all stressed out (beginning of the week) and on Fridays they're also insufferable (they all want to go home ASAP)

I've never inverted my weekend like this so if you ever worked like I'm about to, how was it? Any drawbacks?

as a new job "perk" at a hospital I get to choose what days I work: because I get differential if I work weekends, I wrote I want to work everyday but Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Now I wonder if I should have chosen Mondays and Fridays. On Mondays people act all stressed out (beginning of the week) and on Fridays they're also insufferable (they all want to go home ASAP)

I've never inverted my weekend like this so if you ever worked like I'm about to, how was it? Any drawbacks?

A conversation with a senior physician triggered this question. He's been 35 years on the job and recently wrote me a letter of recommendation.

I'm changing wards due to drama and a manager who only wants gossip, dumbed down nurses at her unit.

This is a physician I've only talked to like 5 times in the 18 months I've been working at my old ward, somebody every other nurse at the unit told me to leave alone, because he's a senior physician (yes, that was the reason).

My former manager put a bare C on my performance review, something I didn't sign, so I asked this doctor to write a short text numbering my duties and what I can do to show my new ward but he wrote a full fledged letter of recommendation instead.

What the doctor told me while signing it: you're good at informing patients and take the extra step sensing what analysis they need, I've never had a nurse with so much positive feedback from so many patients, you're never gonna be a good fit here because the manager is a gossip and she controls the unit and you don't talk much, if you ever want to work PACU, tell me as I know the senior doctor there. Keep doing what you do, you'll find a good fit eventually.

I've already used downtime to read and learn, but nursing being gossipy and catty, all I achieved was being accused of being lazy, unfriendly, neglecting patients and a conversation with mentioned gossip manager, because she always believed her friends over me. She never asked me for my side of the story, but accused me directly.

Back to the doctor's conversation: keep doing what I do means reading and learning during downtime at the workplace: first thing I want to do at my new unit is showing them the letter of recommendation and explaining I want to learn and I learn better alone, when I read.

I also want to tell them I'm not a talkative person (meaning I don't care about drama or gossip), but I really don't know how a group of mostly women who don't know me can react to that.

I don't understand why a smart person acts so condescending to anyone she perceives to be inferior to her while at the same time needing so much attention from a preceptor she apparently considers to be over her (the doctor she accidentally stabbed on the foot).

I've been offered a position as a nurse at a GYN ward and I don't know if I should take it:

New ward, a chance to learn new things.

But also potential for drama way worse than everything I've experienced so far.

Last so 'female' unit I worked at was obstetrics at another hospital and it was like being on a show about mean girls: territorial, emotional, gossipy, interrupting report to gossip, ignoring report completely, playing favorites, rules for me but not for thee... not worth it.

what should I do?

cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/2267705

I'm a nurse thinking about expanding my job options and knowledge, maybe studying something. I don't want to work bedside till I'm old enough to cash in my 401k because then I'll have a broken back and I don't want to become one of those old angry nurses constantly on edge because she's angry at life.

To me, the way to achieve this is to learn a lot of things systematically: medicines (not the brand names, but the active components, because doctors where I work use components extensively), diagnoses that are often abbreviated, right anatomical names for bones, muscles and blood vessels..., right ranges for arterial and venous blood gas parameters and clinical chemistry...

It's tedious and repetitive and I don't want to take any drugs to study better, but I believe it fits me because I was always an introverted bookworm.

Is there any better way to learn this than the way I just described? It means 3 hours of reading and repeating concepts and ranges after my shift.

I'm a nurse thinking about expanding my job options and knowledge, maybe studying something. I don't want to work bedside till I'm old enough to cash in my 401k because then I'll have a broken back and I don't want to become one of those old angry nurses constantly on edge because she's angry at life.

To me, the way to achieve this is to learn a lot of things systematically: medicines (not the brand names, but the active components, because doctors where I work use components extensively), diagnoses that are often abbreviated, right anatomical names for bones, muscles and blood vessels..., right ranges for arterial and venous blood gas parameters and clinical chemistry...

It's tedious and repetitive and I don't want to take any drugs to study better, but I believe it fits me because I was always an introverted bookworm.

Is there any better way to learn this than the way I just described? It means 3 hours of reading and repeating concepts and ranges after my shift.

I changed workplaces within my hospital to a similar unit. I also tried applying to other units to see what's there but got rejected.

I quit my old unit because I didn't feel supported or respected by management there, but doctors and half of the nurses are people I can work with and are actually people that helped me become a better nurse. I'm going to miss working with most of them. I'm ready to work with them again.

Managers speak with each other, even if they publicly hate each other and 6 months ago I wasn't as good as I am today, something reflected in their internal memos. I'm on the introvert side and I'm quite sure I'm on the spectrum. I write this because a workplace is also a popularity contest and my old manager was an extrovert who always thought I didn't talk to her to spite her (I didn't talk to her because I wanted to work and she was a perpetual, boring nuisance). People forgive you if you're likable and for this manager I was not. Her favorites always got away doing less and were treated way less harshly than me.

On my last week three coworkers told me separately I'm a good nurse, which surprised me, one even suggested to go to ICU. Nobody told me that at my unit. Ever.

Shifts without management were a bliss: there was nobody there to bully or micromanage me. During these shifts I was more engaged, inquiring about medicines, diagnoses and explaining to patients what their vitals meant, what their medicines did or how they could help the patient to recover more rapidly. Most of the patients and families were not karens and were grateful. I also learned to make a quick exit with the karens.

I'm going into my new unit with this attitude: keep learning, keep asking, ignoring the nurses who try to mob or to ridicule me for asking questions, gray rocking the drama queens and gossips, always telling the charge if a nurse who's supposed to teach me lazies around and wastes my time, to establish boundaries, to stop being a doormat, to ask the doctors to keep learning.

I'm not doing this only for the money, but because I actually like knowing what medicines do, explaining patients what their EKGs mean and how the system works, even if it's broken.

I think, however, some managers will never consider me due to the internal memo this first manager wrote about me and while I have a job, the only way to access better paying positions or ICU is if a manager vouches for you and writes a better memo or even a recommendation.

That’s why I ask if managers see and value if an employee is engaged, even if he has a bad record, is an introvert, is a bit on the spectrum and doesn't want any stupid drama.