Winter break 2009: what's going on lately

Well, my winter break is coming to an end. I haven't looked at my grades from the fall semester, but I assume I passed everything since I received a letter of congratulations for making the Dean's List. That means I have one more semester of nursing school left. It starts a week from this coming Monday.

It's been quite a stressful month, especially at work. Before Christmas, I got in an argument with one our new Clinical Coordinators (a mid-level management position under unit director)--a recently-promoted nurse I've worked with for a couple years--that escalated to yelling. It started as a simple factual disagreement of no importance, but she demanded an apology (for what?) and it ended when she called the issue "none of my business," which was, in context, a non sequitur except insofar as it meant "I'm the Coordinator and you're just a clerk." Normally, this type of thing wouldn't bother me much, but in this case I've had a lot of trouble letting it go.

I was quite short-tempered for several days while working with said Coordinator, and things got worse when another new Clinical Coordinator (we have several), who I've worked with for about five years, essentially pulled the same "you're wrong, clerk" routine in obvious solidarity with the first. Because she interjected in a conversation she wasn't following, the second Coordinator's comments were both wrong and meaningless, but mostly they really hurt. This person I've worked with for longer than the first Coordinator has been a nurse and is someone I thought I had a very good relationship with (in fact, I've written about her previously, before she became a Clinical Coordinator). To be confronted with this sorority mentality from someone I thought was fair-minded and task-oriented was a real blow.

Anyhow, I've been considering whether I should leave my unit (the cardiac/step-down unit), but unfortunately I have no place to go. If I leave now, any chances of being hired onto this floor will vanish, and I'll definitely have to work my way up to the ICU from a med-surg floor. That's not really something I want to do.

The situation has been compounded by the fact that the first Coordinator took me aside last night and told me not to "tell her how to do her job." This was in response to the fact that I had overhead paged her (our floor only, not the hospital) since she had disappeared and we didn't have patient assignments for the nurses coming on for the next shift. It was almost time for shift change and about 20 minutes after the time the assignment is normally completed. I had the Kardexes ready to go and several of the oncoming nurses were standing around waiting. Obviously, this person has insecurities, and the problems aren't going to go away.

What to do?

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