To leave this job before starting? Urgent :(

[Spider2017]

I got a new job around a month ago, which comes with mandatory paid training for the first month. I don’t want to be too outing, but it’s care related, involving working with vulnerable adults.

I already have prior training and experience in this area, so I was feeling fairly confident about my abilities, but I have just been contacted by my manager that they cannot mark my training as completed as I haven’t demonstrated the necessary skills they referred to one day where I was shadowing a more senior staff member, who apparently has given really bad feedback about me, and told my manager that I have a cold/unkind attitude. I didn’t have this feedback from anyone else I’ve shadowed or worked with during the training, and I’ve never had that feedback at all in my career. It’s left me feeling quite deflated.

On a call to discuss this, i said I was happy to take the feedback on board and be more mindful of my attitude but that I was surprised to hear that feedback. My manager took that as me being ‘unable to reflect on my provision’

I genuinely have reflected on the day the bad feedback was referring to, and nothing notable happened at all. The staff member I was shadowing was quite unfriendly and seemed to want to pick holes in everything.

My manager has said I will need to redo another week of training so I can demonstrate more warmth, but I’m not sure if I want to proceed at all anymore, I feel like the feedback was quite unfair, didn’t have any real rationale (no examples of my unkind behaviour were given ) and it’s put me off the company quite a lot.

I feel a bit gutted as I want to do a nursing course and this experience would be really good for my CV, but I’m truly dreading another week where I know I will be scrutinised even more as they’ve marked me down as being uncaring I could financially afford to not take this job and keep looking, but the company is well known and respected.

Any words of wisdom welcome please! I’m feeling really torn and quite upset.

I’d do the extra week. Your manager has to 100% tick every box and has no leeway in that. How would it be if they employed someone who a ad been reported as having an “uncaring attitude” without any further training? It does sound more like the manager knows damn fine that you’re caring, but just needs to prove it.

Will you have verbal feedback at the end of each day if the extra week?

@Jent13c

I am a staff nurse and I could look at this one of two ways.

1. On every single ward I have ever worked on there is a senior nursing auxiliary who hates new people and makes life miserable for them. You tend to find they don't do a whole lot of work themselves but spend a lot of time criticising. They have been on the ward 20 plus years so hold a lot of clout with higher bands but their techniques are often out of date. I've honestly spent my whole career avoiding these people and quietly going about my tasks. It could have been that the staff member you were on with was one of them and nothing you did was going to pass.

1. I can teach a lot of things to a student or new staff member but I can't teach compassion. You either are a caring person who is supposed to be a nurse or you are not. I am a little concerned that the feedback is that you are uncaring or cold.

So in all honesty I would do your extra week with a new mentor, try your hardest and get feedback to see whether they found you caring or not. Forget the fact that you have to repeat the training and act like its all new because that will wind people up when you come in acting like you know it all. You have to repeat training a million times as a nurse but its not a bad thing. Some caring environments are toxic and badly managed so it could be this and as others have said care jobs are everywhere but use the feedback to evaluate how you are with clients/patients etc.

what a lovely post - I hope if I'm ever ill, it's you looking after me!

As a nurse myself, this is (unfortunately) par for the course in some working environments. I once had a mentor who pulled me up on everything, including things I hadn't done wrong (by her own admission down the line) - similarly to you these complaints were vague and indefinable. It was a miserable 6week placment, when she was on annual leave I worked with the placment lead and broke down crying because I couldn't do right for doing wrong. She basically told me that my mentor had had 3 students back to back (I was the 4th) and was in the middle of preparing for a court case (relating to her job and she was providing evidence) so she was clearly very stressed and over tired and not coping - and taking it out on me. She moved me to a new mentor and within a week I had gone from failing every other competency to being signed off on most!

Itdoes sound like a tick box exercise from their end. I once had a piece of feedback that the giver had intended to be a piece of informal feedback to be relayed to me as an area to improve upon. But once they said it it then became an official piece of feedback that my mentor was forced to act upon.

I wouldn't take it to heart, if you're unlikely to cross paths with her again and the job suits in all other ways then carry on and use the job to your advantage to get your foot in the door and bolster your CV.

ONE person making a negative assessment of you says FAR more about them than you!

This is almost verbatim what my personal tutor said to me when I had a similar issue during nurse training. I was young, naive, very hurt and worried sick it would impact my results.

It later emerged the person assessing me had taken against me simply because I had commented from a place of innocence and still learning myself on something she did that I thought merely odd, but that was a mistake she could have got in a lot of trouble over. She was trying to discredit me ahead of time in case I mentioned it to someone else.

That they're giving such weight to ONE persons likely prejudicial account with zero evidence would make me think twice too

However, what I will say, if you're wanting to go into nursing, you're going to deal with MUCH worse than this so I'm afraid there's an element of you needing to develop a thicker skin and a determination to prove them wrong

I was slim, young and blonde and booby when I did my nurse training I was frequently falsely perceived as a bimbo at the start of placements, by working hard, being willing to do whatever necessary and developing a good therapeutic relationship with patients I proved all but that one wrong.

I'm now short fat and grey and the boobs have dropped 

I would be asking why they are taking this feedback from ONE person compared to the feedback from all the others?

Yes I would too - but worded carefully

Maybe "I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me. However, I am concerned that the positive feedback from everyone else I worked with during this training is not being given its due respect. I am of course concerned that X Thought of me as unsuited to the role, but without specific examples I would like to know exactly why they formed that opinion. Is it possible that they misinterpreted my manner for some reason outwith my control? I would like to perhaps have a meeting with all 3 of us to discuss this and find a way to move forward. Also if I am to undertake a further weeks training and assessment I think it only fair that this be with someone other than her so that the assessment isn't coloured by previous experiences"

I am a registered nurse and unfortunately you do encounter people like this from time to time in this profession

Totally agree!

Some nurses and other hcps just HATE newbies and hate doing training etc but it's part of the job.

Sensible management knows who they are and pay their opinions little heed.

Which is why I said this is something you kinda need to get used to.

Several on my course fell foul of the orthopaedic nurse mentor, I was DREADING that placement she had earned the unfortunate nickname "dragon bones" but actually when I was on that placement I did well and she gave me an excellent assessment and even said once I completed training to let her know "I'll find you a job here I'll bloody invent one!" I think not because I was a better trainee just her methods suited me (extremely precise instructions (I have what was then undx ocd I'm very detail oriented - this is not always a good thing in nursing, "old school" methods favoured, stickler for the rules - I was a military brat I'm always very punctual, very rule following) I responded very well to her mentoring as I knew exactly where I stood with her. Plus I'm the type to not make excuses if I fuck up, I say "sorry you're right won't happen again" and she was a straight talker, we also had a similar fairly dark sense of humour which I think the other trainees hadn't yet developed.

Another mentor the others all got along really well with I did ok on the assessment but I really didn't enjoy working with her as I found her too vague, too undisciplined and didn't give enough direction. The others liked that placement as it was an "easy" one.

@unim sadly that can be an issue as can prejudice against newbies in general, better educated applicants, applicants of particular religions (I've worked in Catholic care homes where there's a preconceived idea that Protestant carers are "cold"), single mothers... people can be bigoted arses!

But trust me patients are MUCH more blunt and harsh as are their loved ones.

You tend to find they don't do a whole lot of work themselves but spend a lot of time criticising

Yep! They tend to be worried an enthusiastic newbie will show them up, they also tend to be "passed over" for promotion - actually not promoted as they're lazy and often incompetent, but they think they're the bees knees and "in charge" cos they've been there so long! Doesn't occur to them they haven't advanced cos they're shit!

Your decision but I think you need to consider that nursing IS a tough job and you will get far worse thrown at you than this - verbally AND physically. You need to be able to bat it off and crack on or else it'll really stress you out

Remember the manager wasn’t there and has only this other person’s word on what happened, so from their point of view it’s completely reasonable to give you a further chance to demonstrate what they are looking for. You can always leave later if it’s not a good supportive working environment once you get in there.

I had exactly the same issue when training for teaching and am now not pursuing that career ever again. The lack of specific examples for objections, and the hostility which quiet people are greeted with makes this sound the same. Seriously, the cultures in these places need to be blown wide open because it has consequences for hard-working individuals and in fact for services as a whole.

In this day and age when work does not pay the cost of living - care work for goodness sake is notoriously low paid - the amount of politicking going on in these 'vocational' areas is disgusting. It leads to staff who are very very good at sucking up to senior staff, but potentially less good at doing the actual job. The state of employment in the UK really pisses me off, so you have my sympathies op.

It could be a good example for future interviews. Eg one feedback out of 30 was was negative but unable to provide examples. I could have quit but I didn’t I asked for detailed feedback redid a week and aced it.

Do they do this regularly so they can use it at a later date to sack you easily should they wish too 😏

just a thought 🌸

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

The person who gave you the negative feed back sounds like a little Hitler to be honest.

The OP wrote that this person was ‘quite unfriendly’ and ‘wanted to pick holes in everything’....and you have labelled them a little Hitler. Get a bloody grip. That’s an overreaction and unhelpful.

OP, I think you should persevere based on this:

• it’s a job caring for vulnerable adults. Consider it reassuring that they place a lot of emphasis on caring manner. Try and take the feedback less personally and look at it as a wider more general essential requirement.

• consider that the person you were shadowing may not be used to working in such circumstances and may have been nervous themselves and overcompensated with their attitude/feedback.

• think of the long game/ the bigger picture. Go in fighting and think “what would qualified nurse me say to my younger self 10 yrs down the line”

I was going to say that in order for you to "reflect on your provision" you needed to know what the specific problems were, and it sounded as if the feedback was too vague.

Then I reread
"I genuinely have reflected on the day the bad feedback was referring to, and nothing notable happened at all. The staff member I was shadowing was quite unfriendly and seemed to want to pick holes in everything. "

I think it's those holes you need to reflect on - it sounds as if the staff member was probably very specific on the day.
Now, whether her issues were nit-picking or important, I don't know, and whether she gave you an opportunity to demonstrate that you had learned from what she said, I don't know either. But maybe there was something you needed to learn. It might have seemed like picking holes because none of them were major issues - but part of training someone is showing them how to do things even better. If your attitude was to think she was picking holes rather than "yes, I'll try doing it that way in future", perhaps she had a point.

Ironically there is a Thread on here asking if Bullying Bosses ever get their comeuppance.

The type that continually bully staff to the point staff leave and the turnover is huge.

🌸

I'm a nurse too you will, unfortunately, find one of these staff members on every ward, on every student placement etc. It's difficult to handle but do not let them knock your confidence.

Reflect on it, have a look at some communication info to do with nursing and see if there is anything new that you could learn and report back to the boss lady that that is what you have done. This will be a good one to bring up in future nursing interviews.

It doesn't matter whether you feel you were not cold etc but take it as a learning opportunity and show that, rather than you think the old witch was right.

You could survive another week and if they still come out with b.s, just try another company and don't mention this one on your CV/application for the next one or any other jobs. It could be just that one powerful/senior individual didn't like your face and so it's effected what the others think. It happens sometimes.

PP's are right that you could use it as an opportunity to try and appear even more caring in all your future work.

It might be an exercise in seeing home you deal with negative feedback-

As an employee would you a) go off on one b) take it on board c) quit on the spot

if you can re do the week, i'd do it

Actually it would be interesting if this was a test of how you handle difficult feedback and unfair complaints! Because I’d imagine care workers get plenty of them...

they essentially need to box tick that I have been given feedback, taken it on board and demonstrated in my provision following the feedback that I am capable.

Ask them to ask the person in question for precise feedback because you want to take it on board yada yada but as she hasn't given examples it's difficult to know what the precise issue is.

Dd does a lot of agency work and had something like this happen a few years ago.
It turned out that the company in question did this to everyone to the point that in the end no agency could come up with staff that they hadn’t given a bad review to

It was either take the perfectly good workers they had said couldn’t do their job or not open their doors.
They ended up making Dd one of the managers.

If you can I would check that this isn’t a normal occurrence.
Some companies operate like this. It doesn’t matter how good you are they don’t want to give anyone the job and just have a series of staff doing a months work then getting someone new in till they run out of people.

I'd be interested in what the manager, who gave you negative feedback, was told about you, but probably along the lines that you have lots of experience, great references, had a brilliant interview...

So, jealous colleague knocks you down a bit.

There are a lot of witches in the care community that think they are better than everyone else. Find somewhere else if you can. Care work is hard and emotional enough without someone adding shit .

I'm a clinician and I've left clinical work to teach instead.. (nurse education). I hate to say this but I'd leave now. I was bullied persistently by a spiteful more junior member of staff from the day I started in my last role. Although I was well liked and respected by the majority of people there her unpleasantness spread and I ended up on some ridiculous "performance review", interestingly I found the paperwork buried under a seat in my car today. I took great joy in ripping it up and stuffing it into a bin! Never happened before or since in over 20 years. It was the work of the bully and one of the reasons I left.

Private care work is rife with this kind of thing, petty spiteful women with small lives who seem intent on making other women look small. Having worked in the NHS and private healthcare it's worse in private as there's more nepotism and cronyism and it's far more insular but others may have different experiences.

Basing things on one person's feedback in which they did not provide specific examples really undermines the value of the feedback.
So try not to let that get to you sufficiently to put you off pursuing this type of work.
What would concern me more is this 'My manager took that as me being ‘unable to reflect on my provision’.
What can you reflect on when there were no examples given to support the feedback!

I agree with the posters who said you should bite the bullet. However to be fair if you have to redo the week then the shadowing should be with another person, to gaurd against the fact that this manager might have something against you.

As a manager when you conduct a staff appraisal, you should always be careful to give clear examples of any criticism. I havnt worked in care but I have worked extensively with the public. Someone may do the job adequately in the physical sense. However if their responses to a customer were terse or unfriendly (without actually being rude) I would regard that as unsatisfactory in a service role. Even if the customer themselves was challenging I would expect my staff to be civil and professional.

For your manager to say you were "cold and unfeeling" may simply mean that you didnt laugh at his/her jokes, kid along or exchange in banter with the clients. It can be as simple as that. Criticism of a staff member's "attitude" is often arbitrary and situational.

Since you go good/satisfactory reports from other team members I would not worry about the feedback of one person. Redo the training and fill a gap on your CV. Its only a week.

Sounds like piss poor management. Id be wary of working for them.

Suck it up. Take the extra week training and do the job.

If you do that then you have a sound basis of relevant experience to move on to nurse training.

If you back out now, you risk a reference that says "She failed initial care training, refused the offer of further training, so we were unable to offer her a care worker job".

@2bazookas

Suck it up. Take the extra week training and do the job.

If you do that then you have a sound basis of relevant experience to move on to nurse training.

If you back out now, you risk a reference that says "She failed initial care training, refused the offer of further training, so we were unable to offer her a care worker job".

The OP doesn’t have to mention this ‘training’ on her CV (sounds more like a ‘trial period’ tbh) and if she left why on earth would she use them for a reference?