To cut my nose off to spite my face just to make a point? Work related.

[QueenofmyPrinces]

I’m feeling so torn about something that’s happening at work....

I’m a nurse and for the last 6 months I’ve been starting to implement a massive change to one of the services that we provide and it has got the potential to be something really amazing. It involves new policies being written, new care plans being created and it means giving some teaching to other members of staff and doctors - in other departments as well as my own. I’m doing it alongside my Manager but it’s my “baby” as such and implementing it and all the changes that go along with it is definitely above my pay grade. However, it’s something I’m really passionate about and so I have thrown myself into it.

A month or so ago there came an opportunity for a promotion so myself and two other nurses went for it. I was by far the most experienced and maybe I naively thought that all the work I’d been doing on the new project would earn me a step up the pay scale.

However, they gave the position to another nurse and although I really get on with him, he’s been qualified 10 years less than me, and is not particularly thought highly of by other staff in a professional capacity. As a person he’s a really nice guy, I socialise with him out of work sometimes with other colleagues and I generally have nothing against him.

I was understandably very hurt though when he got the job over me and although I know NHS interviews are points based and so he obviously said more buzz words in the interview than I did but it still feels so unfair.

My issue is that my Manager has been in touch to ask how far along I’ve gotten with implementing the new changes to the service that I’ve been working on and asking when we can meet up to discuss what my next steps are to getting the changes put into practice.

I honestly feel like telling her I’m done with it and that if I’m not deemed to be “senior staff material” then why should I be doing all this work for her benefit?

It sounds really petty I know. It just feels like I’m being taken advantage of and if there’s no reward or recognition for any of this work I’ve been doing then what’s the point?

I feel like telling her to have her newly appointed senior staff member do it because I don’t see why I should put myself out anymore (I know how childish I sound).

It’s so hard because it’s a project I’m passionate about but at the same time I just feel so angry.

My DH absolutely thinks I should tell them to shove it.

But am I cutting off my nose to spite my face by no longer doing something I’m passionate about just to make a point?

I don’t know. I feel confused and torn.

Just read the thread. You go girl! I’m thrilled you took the initiative to email the consultant. Better to be proactive than passively sit. I reckon your manager isn’t really “on your side” and would like to keep you where you are as that is to her benefit.
I look forward to your update!

Yes good luck!

OP any news? Hope it worked out ok.

Hope it went okay!

Hope it was ok op.

You seem to be working above and beyond for less pay so why promote you and lose all that free work not that I'm a cynic after 17 yrs in the NHS

Newbie will crash and burn. Smile and wave.

So the meeting was a little awkward but I haven’t been fired

She told me that she was aware of the email I had sent to the Consultant and that she and him had been discussing my project.

She said she wasn’t happy that I had “gone over her head” to talk about what I’d been doing and asked why I thought that had been appropriate or necessary.

I told her that I’ve been putting so much work into this project, that it’s something I’m really passionate about, but that I don’t feel she acknowledges the amount of work I’m doing or that I’m having to do it in my own time. I said it feels like the success of the project is being put on my shoulders but at the same time I’m being pushed out by not being allowed to attend any of the meetings about its progress or implementation. I told her that it felt very unfair and that I felt I was being taken advantage of.

She wasn’t too impressed when I said that but I had already decided I was just going to be honest with her about how I felt because what would be the point of pretending I was fine with the current set-up.

She said that of course she was grateful for all the work that I’d been doing and that if she’d known I was doing it in my own time she would never have asked it of me. I inwardly rolled my eyes at that though as I’m not sure when else she thinks I find time to do it on our busy ward....

She said that the reason she didn’t include me in the meetings was because she thought I’d “just be bored with us all talking about management level stuff”.

Anyway - to cut a long story short she said she has taken on board my concerns and will have a think about how we can move things forward to arrive at a working agreement that we are both happy with.

I won’t see her again now until next Tuesday so I’ve got a good few days to start thinking of what arrangement I would be happy with and see how close to it she gets when she offers me her suggestions.

Good for you! I've been taken advantage of so many times in the workplace where I really wish I'd stood up for myself looking back on it. Hopefully things should work out ok after a period of awkwardness as I doubt they will want to lose the one doing all the work!

Good work op, she’s just bullshitting you. One of your requirements has to be that some of the meetings are on your days. You can say it will give you exposure and be much mite effective than having her just relay stuff.

She said that the reason she didn’t include me in the meetings was because she thought I’d “just be bored with us all talking about management level stuff”.
What rubbish. Next week say please check with me if you think I’m not interested in something, do you think i applied for that job just for fun? I want to do more and you seem to have put me in a ‘happy at level 5’ box which makes me feel like working for you I will never get recognition for my achievements and promotion.
CAll her out, don’t let her kid herself she’s not doing this deliberately.

She said that the reason she didn’t include me in the meetings was because she thought I’d “just be bored with us all talking about management level stuff”

This is such bullshit I don't know how she kept a straight face as she said it. Point out that most managers would consider such meetings a development opportunity for a staff member that had shown they wanted to progress by putting themselves forward for promotion.

However, I work in a quasi public sector organisation and I suspect your efforts are doomed - part time and female muffles you like a wet blanket in any effort to progress - it always goes to a younger bloke.

I've only read your posts op and I nowmyiuve moved on from the initial anguish about the interview. I'm astonished a band 5 with 2nyewrs experience got a band 6!
I've left nursing it got far too stressful, but this happened twice on my last ward.
A very lazy male nurse who cut corners all the time was always going out for a smoke etc and even refused to do the mentorship course but was a big hit with all the band 6 and 7's. Yes he got promoted very early to band 6 above experienced female band 5's. ( who had completed the mentorship course and didn't skive off or scimp on jobs )

Two years later another male nurse went from band 5 to 6 to 7 in a year. Also a lazy nurse but very very good at sucking up to the right people.
My point being your husband is right about it's him being male and not being main carer to his children that got him the job.
I worked 8 years on that ward and could predict who was getting promoted very easily as the other nurses. Interviewing was a joke. One nurse didn't even do a presentation as she was too busy but still got a band

So it isn't an isolated incident in my experience.

Very pleased you're speaking up and calling your manager out on her attempts take credit. Well done! I note the Dr went to her not you following your email. Be careful. Good luck!

Excuse typos. The nurse who got promoted without a presentation got a band 7 post. While the other applicant did who did the presentation and was very hard working ended up leaving. The first nurse though sucked up to senior staff was always having coffee with the band 8 etc.

It’s awful isn’t it jennbot - it just seems so odd that in a heavily dominated female profession it is still the men that end up the most senior.

You see threads on here all the time about women taking hits to their career once they’ve had children and it seems rife everywhere.

As a previous poster said, being female and part time hardly makes me an attractive candidate. They know my DH would like a third child and I bet they’re wondering if I’m likely to be taking more maternity leave in the future.....another unattractive quality.

I guess I’m this profession we assume that our abilities as a nurse are what counts but the more posts I see on this thread that say the opposite show just how “sexist politics” creep into nursing too.

In the meeting I told my Manager they I would come in for the next two meetings despite them being on my days off to ensure that I was kept involved and informed. She tried to talk me out of it by saying that as I had just raised concerns about me doing work in my own time then it wouldn’t be right for me to then give up more of my time to come to meetings. She promised me that all future meetings would be arranged for days that I’m on shift which I thanked her for, but I told her I would still be coming in for the next two.

She didn’t really say much to that because what could she say? She can hardly ban me from attending without me questioning why she didn’t want me there.

The first nurse though sucked up to senior staff was always having coffee with the band 8 etc

Many years ago when one of the interviewers (the one who wasn’t my manager) was a Band 6 she and I had a bit of a showdown because I pulled her up on decisions she was making that I believed was putting the patient at risk. She didn’t like having her authority questioned and things got quite heated. I was in fact right and the patient deteriorated because of the actions she took and that experience was forever the elephant in the room because she was never a nurse who could admit she was wrong. Our working relationship never really recovers from that and although we have always been professionally friendly and polite towards each other that situation we were in has always been the elephant in the room. I do wonder if that was in her mind during the interview.

She was also a nurse who knew how to talk the talk. She was always going for breakfast and lunch breaks with upper Management and she and our clinical matron had a shared hobby so they frequently spent time together out of work too so they had quite a good friendship. She was also a nurse who went from being a newly qualified nurse to a Band 6 in just over two years. Eighteen months after that promotion she was then promoted to Band 7 and made Manager of a neighbouring department.

None of us were particularly surprised.

Your manager sounds patronising.

The NHS has favoured the promotion of male nurses since the year dot. It's been the subject of studies. It's outrageous.

Sounds like your manager was definitely taking the credit for your work, well done pushing through on that.

Given the interview situation, would that woman be on future panels if you stay at the same hospital?

OMG she is really trying to steal the show. Well done. Excellent. I knew early on I'd never get band 6, I was part time with 3 children. No chance.
So yes sexism is rife in the NHS and the male nurses are adored by senior management.
You're working so hard to implement something very beneficial but it's still not enough. Yet it's enough for a senior nurse to want to take credit. Beggars belief.

Oh wow that sounds rediculously unfair. I’m very happy with the progress you made and your assertion of the fact you will attend the meetings (not asking but informing). You are taking charge of your project . It’s terrible when those around you are so insecure they don’t encourage your progress..

Sounds like a difficult profession tbh. Full of politics.

About the male nurses, could it be an issue of wanting to encourage gender representation on wards ? Like in engineering professions girls do get prioritised and seem to skip many criteria so that companies can have better female representation. I don’t think that’s very fair at all but its what happens.

So the only way is for you to push for your own promotion by creating opportunities.

Your update goes a long way as to why you were blocked. Very unfortunate she was on the panel. So you had a manager with a chip about being wrong plus a male nurse. Too hard.

I hope you get complete recognition for your project and it leads to a promotion very soon.

Given the interview situation, would that woman be on future panels if you stay at the same hospital?

Without being too outing....

Within the speciality that we work within there are 5 main departments and then 3 sub-departments. We have a clinical lead and two matrons who oversee all of them.

When somebody applies for a Band 6 role their own manager is always on the interview panel and the second person will be one of the managers from one of the other four main departments.

It was just bad luck that my second interviewer was the one I had previously had a fall out with.