Should I work for another month as a nurse but the work environment is filled with bullies and people who try to sabotage me, although I have debt?

[Anonymous]

Didn't get my official license yet but I was granted a temporary license so i'm practicing legally. I'm a new nurse and one of the older nurses tried to sabotage me by telling every other nurse and psw that i'm not good at my job and that i'm practicing illegally. What can I do? I really don't wish to go back but right now i'm in debt. I live with parents..

[ManOnFire]

Do not run from that woman. You don't have to tolerate that. You can take that matter to your boss, if you feel like you can trust them. Express your concerns that this older nurse is making trouble for you being on the team, she derides your experience and accuses you of working illegally, and express that this distresses you and makes you feel like the job is not worth your while.

Don't ever quit a job and run from co-workers who want to make your life a living hell. They want you to be unhappy and quit. Don't give them that satisfaction.

[Asker]

Yeah you have a point. The thing is that nurse acts like she's very kind, at first I thought she was very kind. But then she went around telling people how I keep messing up and don;t have my license. She will be nice to my face and around the psws she will be a B. Also behind my back. I feel like I told the higher ups but for some reason they try to make it my fault because I guess they respect the older nurses and psws because they've worked there for way longer. I told the nurse manager and then he later seemed to not like me either, I wasn't snitching I just said the psws were kind of difficult with me. Almost all the nurses treat me like I don't know anything (lacking respect). Before working with a new nurse, they seem to have already know that I make a lot of mistakes and try to bully me.

[Asker]

And then i'm the kind of person who needs encouragement, since all the nurses are ganging up on me and trying to discourage me, its very hard for me to do my job ://

[Asker]

so when i'm nervous I tend to make mistakes especially because they all have different ways of doing things and if I don't follow THEIR way, they tell me i'm wrong. Its happening with all the nurses I work with, they ALL do things differently, i'm just sick of telling them. And when I try to tell them or defend myself if it crosses the line, they think i'm being difficult

[ManOnFire]

I see exactly what is going on, yeah. I have dealt with the exact same kinds of toxic work environments in the past myself, especially with co-workers like the older nurse, who smiles in your face when you're around but talks shit about you behind your back.

You've already spoken to higher-ups and the situation hasn't changed. This is one of those terrible clique dynamics where no one is going to do anything about those other nurses and their behavior towards you. Because she's been there for years, and probably the other ones too, and because she is one of those employees who tries to control the room/the group of others, so they will of course bow down to her. I've seen this far too much over the years.

Plus the fact that the nurse manager himself seemed to be upset with you after complaining is a clear indication that he favors her over you and is probably controlled by her too.

The next thing I would do is see if you can possibly transfer to another floor/clinic/area, while also looking for a new job in another medical center in case a transfer can't happen.

[Asker]

Yes, i've tried to work on a different floor, I've actually tried working on every floor. Most of them were the same and they all say to me while training me "they told me to watch you" and that makes me feel really bad. It's like they have no trust in me and then my self-esteem just keeps going lower.. So I think i've exhausted all my options. I will need to earn my official license to find a job elsewhere too :(

[Asker]

and have to restudy everything

[ManOnFire]

That is extremely toxic and I can see how badly that would affect you. Horrible that you would have to go through restudying everything. One other option would be to go to dreaded HR about it and express everything to them. HR is a bitch, but at this point it really is your only option left to see if anything can be solved.

[Asker]

Yes I am going to do that, I took 2 months off to deal with this and relax. I'll return in 2 weeks, and i'm really scared of talking to anybody that works there now because they usually give me a lecture on what i was supposed to be doing instead, I understand sometimes they're offering good advice but for some reason I feel betrayed like again i;m doing wrong when they weren't even there. I also have to deal with a lot from my family, my mom is telling me i;m always at home but i'm overseas right now. You know what I mean? I'm trying to escape home because my mom is verbally and emotionally abusive but nobody believes me and my work place is toxic so I dont know what i'm doing...

[ManOnFire]

Oh absolutely. You shouldn't have to deal with stress like that at home or work.

Since you took 2 months off, don't go to HR just yet. When you go back, scope things out first and see how everybody receives you since they haven't seen you for awhile. They probably wonder why you were gone, and SOMETIMES co-workers take distance as an opportunity to try to make a clean slate when they see you again and improve their behavior this time. If you find that that still is not the case and you're back to square one, then go to HR.

[ArrowheadSW]

I think you should discuss this with your superior. What they are doing is very unprofessional, to accuse you of working illegally, etc.