Why are some nurses so bitchy !!!!!!

Posts: 46 · Joined: 01 May 2006 Posts: 46 Location: Illinois

Hello all! I'm so relieved to read this posting because I thougt I had some sort of problem. You know the saying (or similia), "When you think it's everyone else around you, take a step back, it's not everyone else who's nuts, it's you!" Well, I'm just so glad that other nurses feel this way too. I've been a LPN for 3 years now and I've moved back and forth from nursing homes and I've tried working in a allergy practice, hospice and then ended back to geriatric care. So I've got the bug, the dementia bug if you will. I honestly don't beleive that there is any other type of nursing I want to do or will enjoy unless maybe, hospice, but I know that for right now I'm good. I had had it with the stress of nursing so bad that what I was actually experiencing were anxiety/panic attacks. There were times I thought I was having a heart attack! I am still in the process (1 yr later) of setting something up with my MD to possibly seek a therapists help although as crazy as it sounds, I don't want to have this on my record when I go for nursing jobs because it's embarrassing. Here I'm supposed to be charge nurse and supervisor, so what the hell am I having panick attacks over it for? It's really the fact that there is just so much work to be done and no matter how well I manage it there are other nurses who want to railroad over me as well as some brave CNA's. Yes, I agree, there are too many bitchy nurses out there and I am taking a personal stand in my life now not to allow my emotions to get so tangled up with these people who can make your job a living hell. I am going to make a ple with myself that I will love myself enough not to allow the stress and disrespect to get to me.

Posts: 10 · Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Washington

unfortunately you may have to learn to bite back...once other nurses realize that you know your job, you will be ok...dont stress...keep your chin up....

BrownSugar wrote:

I'm a new grad. I currently work in the Operating Room. As a student I came across so many teachers and nurses who were unsupportive and downright mean. Some played dirty and were only interested in making you do everything without helping or guiding and then getting you in trouble for doing something wrong or not as they would.

I have begun my second job as a nurse. I am beginning to slowly realize that this is just the "nursing culture". This is what I was told by my nurse educator. She basically told me put up with it or maybe nursing isn't for me. I'm sick and tired of going to work frightened that today might be the day I get the nurse who likes to eat her young. I'm sick and tired to death of being sick and tired .. of the stress. Its more stressful to deal with nurses than the actual job itself. I'm sick and tired of listening to nurses bitch and complain and gossip about each other and other staff memebers instead of trying to help. I'm sick and tired of HATING A JOB THAT I COULD REALLY LOVE IF EVERYONE JUST FUKKIN LEFT ME ALONE AND HELPED ME AND ENCOURAGED ME AND IF I COULD JUST FEEL SAFE AROUND THEM.

What is it with nurses anyways? Why is it that surgeons .. doctors will stand by each other even when they hate each other and bicker behind closed doors and nurses air out all their dirty laundry and are rude to each other so everyone else thinks you're fair game too. Its not just me. Its so many people.

I love nursing. Honestly I love my job when all that other BS isn't involved. There are days that could be wonderful if everyone just worked together as a team and were able to trust each other instead of looking for the next scape goat.

What is this chip on their shoulders. I'm currently considering other career options. I don't want to work for another 20 or 30 years and end up like these old nurses that are bitches to everyone. I see nurses who have only been there a year who have become like this. I think its borderline harassment. Thats what everyone else says. I made the decision to think of other career options when I started realizing that all the good people who were supportive and helpful were in the same boat as me. I'm sorry I don't want my job to turn me into a mean bitch who eats her young.

I am looking for some sort of insight here. Honesty would be appreciated. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Posts: 10 · Joined: 17 Sep 2006 Posts: 10 Location: Nevada

My mum used to work as a nursing home as a department head. Ever since the new assistant CEO, Betty came into power, everything changed ! Betty's from another facility and her intention is to fire all the nurses and hire new ones. Subsequently, she demoted my mum and made her to work on the floor. My mum was furious and Betty accused my mum that they've never considered my mum as a department head anyway! (My mum's name is on the department head's list). At the end, my mum decided to quit and she had to be escorted by the human resource person. Betty also fired the marketing lady because her English's not good (The marketing lady's English's absolutely fine!). At the end, all of the department heads left because of this mean, evil assistant CEO.

Now, Betty hire a new team of department heads and they are all Betty's friends !!! How ridiculous is that !!!

Anyway, cheer up Brownsugar. I guess mean people are everywhere, not just in the nursing field. We just need to learn how to deal with it.

Posts: 1 · Joined: 10 Dec 2006 Posts: 1 Location: Columbus, Ohio

I'm sorry to say that I can relate to all of these posts. I've only been a nurse for a year and a half and my emotional well-being has suffered greatly already. I try not to come across as though my work life affects me so greatly, but I can't deny the fact that it does. I was one of about 25 new graduates hired all at the same time, which was no doubt a big soiurce of stress on the already existing staff. Now that we are all on our own, we are developing different kinds of relationships with the people we work with. There is the group of people who are mean and hateful towards everyone, and I thought that they were the ultimate downer. But recently I've come to find out that those co-workers of mine who take on a "motherly" role, who listen to your thoughts and give advice, and try to find nice guys to set you up with, are actually the poison on my floor that are so greatly affecting my work life. I have heard through the grapevine that some very nasty and hurtful things were said about myself that did not just attack particular actions or events, but that attacked my personality and who I am, even my physical appearance. This has left me feeling "burnt" and very slow to trust what anyone does or says. It's sad to think that their actions affect me so greatly, but these are people that I see 3-4 nights a week for a full twelve hours. This environment has become highschool all over again except that the stakes are higher and the rumors that are spread can actually at times hurt your career and burn very important bridges. The funny thing is, that group of people I described earlier as mean and hateful, are the ones who are sticking up for me when I can't. Ironic, isn't it.

So, I'm somewhat at a loss. Part of me wants to individually confront the women who spoke poorly about me so that they know how I feel, not to point fingers. The reasonable part tells me to kill them with kindness and give them no reason to say such things. Well, I thought I had already been following that motto but I guess it could use some improvement.

Posts: 2 · Joined: 06 Feb 2007 Posts: 2

I know what you are feeling, or what you had been feeling. Im so glad you are feeling better. Sometimes, seriously a change in attitude or just standing up for yourself really does help.
I have to share with you that I currently am being harrassed...I think...it has been going on for so long now that I do not even know if I am being harrassed or if it really is just myself being "super-sensitive".
I work as a school nurse in a very large school, consisting of almost 900 students and there are 3 of us nurses. I am the youngest of the three. I am 31...have been a nurse for almost 7 years. My co workers are one Lpn who is somewhere in her 40's and the other who is near retirement age. Anyway, they are very close as coworkers and friends now outside of work. Some of the things that they do is, they do not keep me informed of situations that are going on in the office. Often, I will ask what is going on with that, and they deliberately do not answer me. One of them frequently makes comments about my appearance. She says to the students "oh you just want that nurse to take care of you because she is pretty." She degrades my answers to questions parents ask, right in front of the parents...it embarrasses me tremendously. She makes rude, snide comments to me on a regular basis. The other nurse interupts and takes over my nursing assessments all of the time, also she will not document what she had assessed-this is the Lpn-she has serious issues with control I think. I end up feeling like I am in trouble. It has finally got to the point that it is affecting my work. I know I am a great school nurse, I have confidence in my work and the higher ups know this as well. Just my co workers do not and they consistently are degrading my work. When the LPN disturbs my assessment, it causes me to feel annoyed, and confused. I have asked her to let me do my thing and please do not interrupt and she just continues.
I finally spoke up to the administrators of the school, I have just started letting them know a little of the harrassment. I was able to convince them to put me in my own office, as they do seem to know that these women have been trouble with others....they have been incredibly understanding. As for my nurse co-workers, one of them, the oldest of the two, has only harrassed me more. I told her that this small office with the three of us nurses is not working out for me. I told her that I just feel stressed out working with them. She turned around and said "well, if your planning on having children (which I have been trying too and she knows this) then you should reevaluate your ability to handle stress." What the heck, I just realized that I seriously cannot work with these two women. I am pretty sure I am being harrassed and at times I seriously blamed myself.
I finally spoke up and things look like they are going to work out. We will see how it goes. wish me luck and I wish you more luck with your job!
BTW
Is there such thing as mental harrassment at work??? I am reporting the comments made...am I coming across as a complainer or am I doing the right thing???

Posts: 2 · Joined: 06 Feb 2007 Posts: 2

It's funny...do you want to know how I found this forum?? Well, I got home from work and was so distraught AGAIN from the bitchy nurses I work with, that I just had to GOOGLE to find out if there was anyone else out there who is struggling with nasty, bitchy nurse co-workers. Wow, I was happy and relieved to find this web site. I am not kidding....there really are some serious B's out there!!!!!!!!!!! And it is soooooo awesome to know that I am not alone!!!! Laughing

Posts: 15 · Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 15 Location: Vancouver

Hi Everyone,

I'm back Smile

. I want to thank you all for your responses to my thread. I don't recall the last time I was here. I was injured last spring, just before I started posting here I believe. Since then I have not been back at work. I've tried, but they are giving me a hard time. I wanted to go back on a part time basis, as I'm still not fully recovered, and they wanted a gradual return to work full time.

Anyhow I'm looking forward to going back to work and I have all these mixed feelings. I had really calmed down past few months, mended relationships with my family whom I had been very moody and distant with since starting this job. I spent many months in depression after my accident, partly because I stayed up all night worrying about work, and what it would be like when I went back, the gossiping and comments etc etc.

I have decided I need a serious change. I am going to have to go back to work, but I want to start taking courses in an area of nursing where I dont have to have so many people in my face all day long. I've considered occupational health nursing, community health nursing, and Infection control or dialysis (like rnalso). Are there any nurses here from these areas and can you please list pros and cons. Also can anyone think of any other areas where I might feel less stressed out.

I spent 3 years in school, a lot of money only to graduate to this. Honestly if I had known this was how nurses treated each other I would never have gotten into it. But I did, because I wanted to help people. At this point I just don't care, I just want to save myself from going mental from all the stress.

Posts: 1 · Joined: 15 Feb 2008 Posts: 1

BrownSugar wrote:

I'm a new grad. I currently work in the Operating Room. As a student I came across so many teachers and nurses who were unsupportive and downright mean. Some played dirty and were only interested in making you do everything without helping or guiding and then getting you in trouble for doing something wrong or not as they would.

I have begun my second job as a nurse. I am beginning to slowly realize that this is just the "nursing culture". This is what I was told by my nurse educator. She basically told me put up with it or maybe nursing isn't for me. I'm sick and tired of going to work frightened that today might be the day I get the nurse who likes to eat her young. I'm sick and tired to death of being sick and tired .. of the stress. Its more stressful to deal with nurses than the actual job itself. I'm sick and tired of listening to nurses bitch and complain and gossip about each other and other staff memebers instead of trying to help. I'm sick and tired of HATING A JOB THAT I COULD REALLY LOVE IF EVERYONE JUST FUKKIN LEFT ME ALONE AND HELPED ME AND ENCOURAGED ME AND IF I COULD JUST FEEL SAFE AROUND THEM.

What is it with nurses anyways? Why is it that surgeons .. doctors will stand by each other even when they hate each other and bicker behind closed doors and nurses air out all their dirty laundry and are rude to each other so everyone else thinks you're fair game too. Its not just me. Its so many people.

I love nursing. Honestly I love my job when all that other BS isn't involved. There are days that could be wonderful if everyone just worked together as a team and were able to trust each other instead of looking for the next scape goat.

What is this chip on their shoulders. I'm currently considering other career options. I don't want to work for another 20 or 30 years and end up like these old nurses that are bitches to everyone. I see nurses who have only been there a year who have become like this. I think its borderline harassment. Thats what everyone else says. I made the decision to think of other career options when I started realizing that all the good people who were supportive and helpful were in the same boat as me. I'm sorry I don't want my job to turn me into a mean bitch who eats her young.

I am looking for some sort of insight here. Honesty would be appreciated. Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you all.

Here is the drill, nursing is a clique-y buisiness. Women associate by familial roles. Everyone wants to be the hero. Put up with these folks until you get your thing down, then become the lone ranger. Work with people when you have to, don't rely on others when you don't have to. Getting presonally involved is a bad idea. You should have friends outside of work. No matter how nice someone seems, it is a good idea not to have a relationshipwith a co-worker outside of the workplace. Always focus on why you are there, patient care. A lot of nurses come to work to foster co-worker relationships, which always involves putting down other staff (there is no way around it, that is just what nurses do), then somehow the staff being put down find out about it and animocity is created. View other employees as resources to patient care, rather than as people to have interpersonal relationships with. Leave your personal business at home, and keep your professional business at work. If you have to vent about work, do it with an outside friend or family member and never with other co-workers because that is how crap gets started.If you have personal issues, telling the whole department will not solve them, it will just float your business around the department. Resolve personal issues with people directly related to the issue. If someone doesn't like you at work, just remember that you don't wake up with them, and to feel sorry for the person who does.

Posts: 1 · Joined: 25 Apr 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Australia

I'm not even a new grad, i'm in my second year of an RN's degree and have been continuously abused by staff. They have continuously gone out of their way to make all the students feel like a waste of space and many of us have been reduced to tears. It's awful that they prey on the newcomers. A lot of the students have left the nursing degree because they don't want to deal with this rubbish later on and they were really nice and caring to the patients and others in general- they would have become excellent nurse's. I guess it is much easier for bitchy nurse's to be evil, and it's a difficult thing for them to be nice and decent. Or even have plain common courtesy. Some people just don't have personal integrity or a conscience. They think of how they can get ahead in life, even when it means trampling down others. They probably had a hard time when they were students and now they have taken upon themselves to continue this crap cycle. The major thing i understand there will always be bitchy nurses. I must stand up for myself, change my attitude and try to not let it affect me. It feels like paradise when i am under the direction of a decent nurse. I appreciate all the information and advice here on the forum, it makes me feel better Smile

Posts: 1 · Joined: 20 Jul 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Layton, UT

Hi everyone, I am glad I found this forum because it gives me an opportunity to know that others feel the same way as I do and also a place to feel at ease. Let me tell you my story...

I have been waiting to get into a nursing program and so decided to do CNA work until I get in. I felt good about the hospital that I got my job at and thought that the employees believed in the philosophies that management is trying to instill. - Just the simple common courtesy things like being approachable, friendly - you know the things that we are all supposed to show our patients.

Well, doing orientation - everyone is as sweet as can be until something happens. I am an insulin dependent diabetic and was working a graveyard 12 hour shift. I had been run off my feet on this one floor and had not taken the time to check my blood sugar (which I do every 2 hours that I am on shift) and so when I finally sat down for a second, my blood sugar had plummeted to 24. Of course because of privacy HR cannot tell anyone of any illnesses and I hadn't had a problem in the past so I didn't say anything either.

The Charge on duty was an absolute so and so and when my blood sugar came up and I was back in the real world, there were 15 people hanging around (not helping just gawking) and the paramedics were there to transport me to the emergency room. I refused to go because it wasn't necessary. The Charge got really snippy and told me that I was relieved of my duties (I was orienting and partnered with an experienced CNA) because I was likely to endanger a patient. This was the first time in my 34 years as a diabetic that I have been made to feel like I was not capable of doing anything. She made me feel like I was inconveniencing her and that I should not be even attempting to do the work of a CNA. I got my things and apologized to her if I had been rude to her (trying to smooth things over) and by that time I was ready to resign. I told her that she would not have to worry about me any further because I would be resigning. She said, "every one has medical issues but if you want to resign I won't object."

I cried my way home because I really felt I had finally found a job where I can be of use. As I was walking out to my car I had to go down to the second floor and out the side door and low and behold, the CNA I was orienting with was down on the 2nd floor, gossiping about what had happened. My heart sank!

I went to work the next night (oddly enough assigned to the 2nd floor) and the CNA's were awful. No one spoke to me, they wouldn't help me if I couldn't lift some one, if I sat down at the nurses station, they would leave. It has been awful.

I said to my husband that I couldn't understand how people who really do dislike other people can work in an industry where compassion and care is the number one priority. I have had some really great nurses in the past and since working at this hospital, I have met some really awful human beings (and I use the term human beings lightly). When did Nursing become about gossiping and maliciousness?

I still plan on finishing my RN - hopefully to end up as a Diabetic Educator. I haven't decided what to do about where I work - I have 3 more orientation shifts on a completely different floor.

Thanks for listening!!! Smile

Posts: 1 · Joined: 29 May 2007 Posts: 1

believe me not all nurses are like that, we are small in numbers, but onced the others figure it out that when they retire or get sick and are on the other side of the bed they will lighten up. Hang in there...prayer works.

Posts: 13 · Joined: 21 Jul 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Devon UK

@melbourneborn
That really is a terrible story! As you say it's hard to understand how people who've choosen to go into a caring profession could be so childish and mean-spirited!
Try to not let the idiots get to you! If they're not talking to you on a social level is it really a great loss? If they're being so unprofessional as to ignore you in relation to work stuff then surely it's time to talk to your line manager, their pettiness shouldn't be allowed to impact either on your training, or on the welfare of patients!

Posts: 1 · Joined: 06 Aug 2008 Posts: 1 Location: New Jersey

Hi everyone! Very Happy

I stumbled across this forum when I Googled, "bitchy nurses". I too thought I was alone. I read every comment and felt every one's pain. I too was the victim of nurse on nurse harassment and when you address the issue to higher ups...they just don't care. Why? Because it has been an on going problem and it has become the norm in the nursing field. And if anyone tells you different, they are not being honest.
I will be adding my story in the near future. Wait until you read this! It takes the cake.

Posts: 1 · Joined: 08 Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Canada

I am recently retired and began volunteering in the emergency room of the local hospital.

I very much enjoy helping the patients and keeping families informed about those who have been brought in by ambulance.

I notice that the young newly graduated nurses are pleasant and helpful. And then there are some of the others! Talk about hard, mean and miserable. They basically ignore you as much as possible.

Because many nurses in Canada are coming up to retirement age, more new grads will be hired in future. That infusion of young, well-educated and idealistic nurses is sorely needed. Of course a great deal of the nastiness stems from the fact that these new nurses present a THREAT!

To those who feel discouraged, please don't quit. Your patients need you!

Since I am a volunteer. I do not have to do this. But I want to advocate for those patients, and I refuse to be put off!!