As any good writer should do, I have calmed down from today’s impetus for writing, and have centered myself prior to writing this so that you will receive a well thought out, helpful, and compassionate article vs. a rant or a vapid ventilation session. This article is about knowing your value and not staying in environments where you are not seen for that value, or worse, abused. This applies to both personal and professional settings, as they both impact your life, and frame your value.
I am not a quitter. This is not a complaint form where I throw my hands up and say “I quit”. Rather, this is a self-reflection about all I have been through; as a person, and as a nursing professional, and what I feel worthy of, congruent to my appreciated value. My goal is that this article will help others navigate the treachery of bad environments. This is also not about money, (although that factors in quite well after you remove yourself from what is blocking it). Rather, this is about removing yourself from environments where it is actually painful to enter the building each day, because you simply do not fit in. If you are in a place of daily bad vibes or adversity, keep reading.
Another disclaimer: This is not about anyone who needs flowers or kudos every time they do something right. However, if you were hired to any position in life based on your experience and credentials, you do not need a participation trophy, however, you should (at the very least), not be demeaned, abused, bullied, or worn down on a daily basis by those you are compelled to work with just to get a job done. That sort of environment, (although common), is extremely unhealthy and simply unacceptable.
In comes the Nursing Profession
Nurses as a whole, (at least the nurses I was raised alongside from generation X), do not like petty high school BULLSHIT at work. We are there to get a job done. That being said, you should probably stay out of our way, and if we happen to be from the East coast, (NY specifically), we are highly independent self-starters who have critiqued ourselves months before you would ever think of doing so. You are now adequately warned. We do not need micro-managing, we do not need friends at work. We ARE friendly, but we understand the setting we are in, and we graduated high school in the 1980s, which means we do not act like juveniles when we are adults. Why have I mentioned high school twice already? Thanks for asking. Nurses are an oppressed group. By this I mean, we are understaffed, under-supported by management, the punching bags of patients, and pretty much expected to just take and shut up. Oppressed groups often attack their peers because they cannot exact justice upon the oppressors who hold their paychecks. This is called lateral violence.
Highschool
Highschool was a place where images began to form, friendships were fostered, and individuals started to realize who they were within the little pond of high school life, which equates to the entire universe at that age. Cliques come to mind, the coolness quotient, and who was who in the hierarchy of human relations. As for me, I was never part of a clique but rather chose one friend (quite by accident), from each clique whom I admired or felt comfortable with. They were usually someone with a level of influence minus the fakery, and loyalty was a plus. The mean girls in the cliques did not like that I was liked by another in their group. They did all they could to diminish me and cast me out. I was a free thinker and independent who did not need their group, and therefore, I was not accepted, (nor did I want to be). As the oldest of six children, my BULLSHIT meter and sense of self was finely tuned at an early age.
This trend continued into the intense nursing units of hospitals, (but high school had NOTHING on the nursing culture, especially among female peers). Silly me, I thought I was there to take care of patients! Boy, was I in the dark. What others were there for was image and validation, status and climbing, chasing doctors, making sure they looked pretty, and outright sabotage of those who were actually WORKING. Make No Mistake, when you are the OUTLIER actually doing your job and striving for quality, you are DESPISED. You are not hated because you are doing a good job, but rather, you are shining a light (in contrast) on those who are doing the bare minimum, or worse, next to NOTHING. It was awful, however, I did manage to find some kind mentors along the way.
Discrimination
Keep in mind that this toxic nursing culture amplified greatly at the 30 year mark of my nursing anniversary, during the “pandemic”. UNvaccinated nurses, aka “Grandma killers”, which the media, Fauci, and Biden told you I was, were BRUTALIZED. Silly me (once again). I DARED to ask the question, “WHY is it some new technology being rushed through instead of making a regular vaccine? Wow, that logical inquiry did NOT go over well. I guess it was “irresponsible and selfish” of me to want more DATA first? (“LOL, FUCK ALL OF YOU”). But apparently I was now the number one enemy of society, a worthless, good for nothing, Grandma killer. When my patients were crashing or bleeding and I needed a hand, like the one I was always willingly happy to extend to others, my eagerly “vaccinated” (it’s not a vaccine), colleagues abandoned and ignored me. THEY.LET.ME.DROWN. It was a cowardly passive aggressive display of high school bullying against the outlier who was asking intelligent questions. No leaders there, only followers. After I left (in tears of despair, mind you), I was pretty much blacklisted in the area, making finding a new job almost impossible. That is ILLEGAL.
But this article is not about me, it is about all of us. WHY on LinkedIn, when a reasonably intelligent person recently posted an article about workplace bullying in their profession, did my comment get completely ignored with silence? I commented, “your article is well-written and informative, however, I truly wish the same understanding and compassion would be shared about what happened to unvaccinated nurses and doctors”. I believe that person was discriminating against me STILL, for being unvaccinated. Her article did not pertain to people like me! She responded to everyone else EXCEPT me, and that is DISCRIMINATION.
Upcoming Relevance
A vulnerability I will share with you is that I have (repeatedly and tragically) stayed in personal relationships with those who did not value me and outright abused me. I kept thinking that my good intentions and logic would lead to them changing. It only got worse. Do NOT fool yourself if you feel stress, discomfort, or PAIN in an environment. Those of us with past trauma may think that it is normal, but it isn’t. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that just because we have high expectations of the world that the world will respond in kind.
Let me be frank at 55 years old: MOST PEOPLE ARE ORDINARY. Ordinary people HATE the extraordinary. It exposes them. It shames them that you are even alive. You are, in literal danger. Will they KILL you? Well, maybe not directly, however, what they do to you might slowly kill you. It is completely UNhealthy to stay in environments where the intent is to sabotage or destroy you. It will NOT get better, it WILL get worse.
Now, bring this SAME knowledge with you to work, every day. Each day you tell yourself, “I cannot take this any longer”,… “I will find a new job”. But you do not. You persist, against all odds and logic, just getting by, with your health adversely affected, and pretending it will change. I am here to tell you to GET THE FUCK OUT as soon as you can. Save yourself now. Life is short.
Your VALUE
And when they, (mate, friend, boss, co-worker, CDC, WHO, FBI, and FDA, etc, etc.) realize that you are LEAVING, they will attempt to CLAW you back, pretend to be remorseful, but it is ONLY out of self-preservation to keep your VALUE around them. They knew, (all along), that you were valuable, but they also knew that YOU did not know. They wanted to diminish you over time to bring you to THEIR level. So, NEVER GO BACK TO YOUR ABUSER. Nurses ousted by mandates, soldiers in the military, are now being told, “the ‘vaccine’ is no longer required,… you are welcomed to come back”. No, no, NO. The best way to show people your value is by walking away, staying away, and no longer engaging. They are abusers, they know what they have done. LET THEM LOSE YOUR VALUE.
(I, Sharon am currently still working in patient care as I build my business to a profit, and the environment in which I now work is wrought with catty gossip, hostility, and lack of team work. In essence, their are no adults, and I do not fit in). What to do?
Conclusion
My plan is to write my letter of resignation tonight, (for my health), but to WAIT and be CALM, and leave when I am ready. I will make my plan to go, stick with it, and apply to jobs in my new relocation state. What will YOU do?
Thank you for reading, many blessings!