A conversation with a senior physician triggered this question. He’s been 35 years on the job and recently wrote me a letter of recommendation.
I’m changing wards due to drama and a manager who only wants gossip, dumbed down nurses at her unit.
This is a physician I’ve only talked to like 5 times in the 18 months I’ve been working at my old ward, somebody every other nurse at the unit told me to leave alone, because he’s a senior physician (yes, that was the reason).
My former manager put a bare C on my performance review, something I didn’t sign, so I asked this doctor to write a short text numbering my duties and what I can do to show my new ward but he wrote a full fledged letter of recommendation instead.
What the doctor told me while signing it: you’re good at informing patients and take the extra step sensing what analysis they need, I’ve never had a nurse with so much positive feedback from so many patients, you’re never gonna be a good fit here because the manager is a gossip and she controls the unit and you don’t talk much, if you ever want to work PACU, tell me as I know the senior doctor there. Keep doing what you do, you’ll find a good fit eventually.
I’ve already used downtime to read and learn, but nursing being gossipy and catty, all I achieved was being accused of being lazy, unfriendly, neglecting patients and a conversation with mentioned gossip manager, because she always believed her friends over me. She never asked me for my side of the story, but accused me directly.
Back to the doctor’s conversation: keep doing what I do means reading and learning during downtime at the workplace: first thing I want to do at my new unit is showing them the letter of recommendation and explaining I want to learn and I learn better alone, when I read.
I also want to tell them I’m not a talkative person (meaning I don’t care about drama or gossip), but I really don’t know how a group of mostly women who don’t know me can react to that.
In all the jobs I’ve ever worked, “downtime” is something that happens because we’re all human and can’t work at 100% all the time, but something that doesn’t exist on paper.
Besides the union-won legal breaks like a 30 minute meal break and two 15 minute breaks, there is always something you could be doing that’s work related.
But there are unspoken norms among workers like “even though we could be doing X, nothing that bad is likely to happen if we don’t” and a constant push and pull been management and staff between working and downtime vs always working. Supervisors don’t want to pressure their reportees to do busy work unless they have some incentive to do so, etc.
This is where the social dimension comes in which is so complicated. People that are generally liked can get away with taking downtime because they have a good reputation. Usually they keep that reputation by making sure the important work gets done, being reliable, caring about quality, being fun to work with, or whatever. But if somebody new or unpopular seems to be “slacking off,” they don’t have that reputation to protect them.
I am not that good at being well-liked by my colleagues, but I try. I care about most of them and try to get along so we all have an enjoyable day and keep things running.
From your post, I’m inferring that people looked down on you because you were reading at work when there was downtime, or they just didn’t like you because you weren’t like them, and that’s immature. Maybe there is a social expectation to not read, but instead be social with your co-workers. I don’t know if that’s true. That sounds exhausting to me, but I’ve done things like that to try and fit in and make work friends. Maybe when people know you better, they won’t mind if you excuse yourself and say, I’d like to catch up on reading these journal articles or whatever.
Sorry if any of this is obvious. It wasn’t to me and I’m still trying to figure it out. Your current coworkers sound like jerks, but that doctor sounds great, and I hope you can find a good match of workplace soon.
I wrote two novels in the past 10 years during downtime at work. If the work to be done gets done, it shouldn’t be a problem.
At a new job, I use the downtime to scope out the workplace, then once comfortable use the downtime to study.
While I have no experience of healthcare, I know that office politics and culture can be a nightmare in any workplace. What I also know is that we are or own ‘brands’ and if we want to be good at anything we need to develop ourselves as we see fit. This is part of being professional. You choose to do it in work break hours where you have the time and maybe are less tied. Maybe it gives you access to people who can help when you need it. All this is good, but I think it’s worth noting that you will miss out on some of the office culture (for better or worse). Professionalism is as much about what you know as well as your network, and people make snap judgements about others. You seem to have come off badly this time, these things happen, but are fixable one way of another. What if you (force yourself to) spend one break ‘socialising’ every now and again? You may be able to turn the conversion into something more worthwhile. You may find someone who will become a real asset.
I’m waaaaay along the spectrum and I too would rather learn than idly chat. The above is very hard for me to do, but I have reluctantly found that there are benefits. It’s a bigger picture thing.
Be you and do your thing, but do it strategically. I suspect that your ‘brand’ is very saleable, so if it’s not working where you are, you can always try elsewhere.