Nurses Eat Their Young - Busted

Pretty much calling bullsh*t on that one.

Do all of us, as nurses, run into people that try to pee on our heads and make life hell?
Hell yes!
Do some nurses wimp out and quit?
Probably.
Does that mean everyone everywhere is there to jump you into the gang?
Hell no!

How do I know this? Because when I started out, it was at a great teaching hospital, unfortunately cursed with some of the most godawful bitter rotten bitches and bastards on the planet, stewing in their own little toxic cesspool. I got tough, and then I got out. And having seen it once, I can spot it in about 0.2 seconds, and don't put up with it.

Everybody, in every job or experience, has probably been hazed a bit (mostly in good fun, and just as a momentary prank). Some people get it far harsher, because you're working with a bunch of bitter, twisted douchenozzles. If your work environment is pissing you off after a month, it's Option B, every time, whether you're new, or you've been doing this for years. If so, GTFO.

I bring this up, because I'm currently somewhere they have a constant stream of new staff, between registry, travelers, new grads, residents, etc. ad infinitum. That was true at the first place I broke in too. What's different is that here, what's missing are the bitter old hags who think they were beknighted by Florence Nightengale personally (and honestly, some of them were old enough to credibly make that claim, but I digress), and they're metaphysically certain that their feces produces no odor. The only reason they wished nursing caps would come back was so that they could wear a tiara to work.

There's none of that here, nor most places. In fact, there's seldom more than a couple of nurses who try it nowadays, and they're usually the petty supervisors who substitute attitude for actual bedside skills. The ones who should retire, to save their own lives, and their patients'.

The reason it doesn't thrive so much anymore is that everyone knows we need the fresh blood, because we need the help period, and secondly, the days of the supervisor who can't help at the bedside are blissfully numbered as I speak. Anybody still pulling their weight knows that can't-hack-it supervisors are dead weight, and that includes their bosses, and their administrators. And much like the military, a constant stream of non-returning new hires points rather inevitably to crappy leaders and preceptors, and that metric comes up at annual raise and retention bonus time, in a big way.

Here, I'm seeing experienced nurses precept the hell out of new grads, and getting double-checked on it, so that once the training wheels are off, the new grads cruise, instead of crash. Better for them, better for us, better for patients, better for the hospital, better for the hospital's bottom line.

If you're one of the perennially bitchy nurses that can't stand new grads, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way to retirement. In fact, why wait? Quit right now, and save even more lives than if you stayed. And if you're a new nurse, feeling like a cat toy for the experienced nurses, you either need to change you profession, or even more likely, change your work address. The nursing shortage is going nowhere, and all you'll get for trying a greener pasture somewhere else is a better night's sleep, and lower blood pressure. And the Queen Snottypants nurses at Jacked Up Hospital will be stuck where they were without you, doing the work themselves, because they suck.

Anybody can have a rough shift.
If you're having a rough trimester, on the other hand, either do some serious soul-searching, or update your resume, and start web-surfing.
Don't be afraid to ask for help, but if it isn't forthcoming when you ask, start making plans to bloom elsewhere. There are no reward points for being a workplace martyr.
You may be a victim, but you don't have to be a volunteer.