While I was working at an upscale assisted living center as a nurse, a new nurse was hired to be our Enhanced Care Coordinator. The woman, who I will call Laurie, was a very passive aggressive person which was the cause of a large amount of conflict.
One time in particular, I had been charting in the new "nurses" office in our enhanced care unit. Lisa came in and said, "I want you to know that I'm fine with you using the office to chart, but Mary (the facility administrator) has asked that it be used only by administration. I'm fine with it, but if she sees you in here charting, she may say something." I said "Okay" and in my mind thought, "I'll just walk down and talk with Mary and get permission to chart in the new office." An hour or so later, after Laurie had gone home, another member of the staff said, "So I hear you were kicked out of the office." I stared blankly, not knowing what she was talking about. Turns out after her conversation with me, Laurie had gone to other staff and said, "I have told Somer in very clear terms that she is not to be in this office and she keeps pushing the boundaries and charting in here." Since I am not one to sit by when my reputation is being impacted negatively, I asked her about it the next day...
"Why did you say you were okay with me charting in the office and that Mary objected to it when you are the one who had a problem?"
She game me some run around about how I'm "scary" to talk to so she thought I'd take her more seriously if she used Mary's name. I asked her the next time she had a concern to please speak with me herself instead of talking about me behind my back. However, it didn't stop. Laurie continued to talk to other staff negatively about me behind my back, telling them things that were not true. Since I had already spoken with her directly to try and resolve the issue I took it to our director of nursing, the next step in the process. I explained the situation and asked that he please talk to Laurie.
More than two months passed and nothing happened. I went back in to the DON to explain that the back biting was still a regular occurrence and to follow up on why he had not taken any action. He explained that he liked to take an approach to "sit and watch" and that things would eventually work themselves out. Work our they did as I got tired of hearing daily reports from other employees on what had been said about me and found another job. Thankfully, my fellow coworkers knew me and did not put any stock in the negative things Laurie was saying about me on a daily basis.
Had I been a nurse manager, or the director of nursing in this case, I would have handled the situation completely different. If my employee had come to me with the same concern I brought to my DON, I would have first pulled Laurie into my office and explained that staff had a concern with her and there were reports of this specific behavior, and that the employee had reported that she had already approached Laurie with the concern and they felt like the issue had not been resolved. After listening to Laurie's side of the story I would encourage her to approach the concerned staff member to work things out. Then, if the situation still persisted, I would call both parties into my office and facilitate some open communication between them to see if the issue could then be resolved.
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