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.
Well, I’m a little weirded out by the way you prioritized information. It seems like more of a personal beef because you felt the need to describe her and the way she moves before anything else.
Normally, when someone starts out with things like that instead of actual problems, their beef is one of prejudgement rather than any actual wrongdoing. Sometimes it even means that the person complaining is looking for things to find wrong.
I can’t say for sure that’s the case, but it’s definitely a weird way pf presenting what is supposedly professional.
With that said, you aren’t describing anything that would be a violation of ethics, and what little sandbagging that she’s doing may be an accommodation rather than her not doing things she’s supposed to. Not sure of your location, but employers in some places legally have to grant reasonable accommodations to people with limitations, which is not something that you would be told about because it isn’t something that’s usually shared to someone not part of that aspect of the facility’s operations.
If you feel that this isn’t the case, then follow the standard chain of command for your facility and then let it go if you intend to keep working there. Doesn’t really matter what facility you’re in, what the job is, that’s what you do.
Hell, after just a week, you don’t even know that this is the norm. There could be dozens of reasons she’s slow, or hanging back that are purely temporary.
Aside from that, what it looks like is that your facility doesn’t have enough staff to begin with. Someone with their RN shouldn’t be handling normal feeding on a regular basis, that’s what NAs are for. RNs have more specialized skills, and there’s less of them, it’s a waste to be sitting there with one patient long enough to feed them. It’s awesome that you’re willing to, and I certainly wish to hell more nurses were willing to handle business when necessary, but it shouldn’t be something you’re doing often enough to merit being bothered when another RN doesn’t.
What’s in the actual job description when you were hired? A lot of places very strictly limit scope, and she may be following those limits. Or, she may be working to standard and not doing extra because she wasn’t hired to in the first place. It could be that you’re getting shafted by administration, or that you’re doing things you aren’t expected to (which is always nice, but it doesn’t mean anyone else has to).
If she’s performing her duties to the job description she was hired for, then there’s not even an issue at all on her end.
I dunno, I’m not there, I can’t tell what all is in the background, but in my time wiping asses for money, an RN even bringing trays to patients would have been very unusual because their job was to get meds ready, set up for things NAs can’t do, and act as supervisors to the NAs on shift. Tbh, even in hospitals where NA presence tends to be lower, an RN wouldn’t be feeding patients unless there was a very specific reason to. They’ve got too many other tasks they’re responsible for.