Bullying within the workplace

Bullying is unacceptable, I personally have zero tolerance for bullying and will make sure I don't fall victim to it again.
I've experienced it in many forms all my life, be it being called four-eyes in the playground, name calling due to my colour, inappropriate questions about my heritage, DV, or as a result of a power trip just because I am a DN. I am a human being, and I treat others the way I wish to be treated - with respect.
What we have to remember, is the bully probably has issues of their own which they project on the victim, they may be insecure, having problems of their own, jealous...whatever it is, they need to know that bullying is not the answer, it is inexcusable.
In the first instance, approach the person, or call them out on what they are doing, this way they are immediately aware that they can't get away with their nonsense with you. If this doesn't work, tell your boss that your colleagues behaviour towards you is inappropriate. Just follow the steps, double check your contract, seek advice from GDC or BADN. If it is your boss, check GDC guidance if he/she does not change their attitude. Remember, we must act in the patients best interest. If you are being bullied, and your focus is being disturbed, you can't give 100% to the patients needs. Remember your professional status, and be proud of who you are and what you are doing. In the past, many have just come to accept that this is the way and that being a DN is menial. It is not! Times have changed, regulations have changed. Perception must change.

xxx

Simple....next time someone at your work place is bullying you, get yourself a Dictaphone and record them unaware....so you say you are going to the boss with the recorded evidence, this will stop them in their tracks.

Shaznie

Hi Allison,

Thank you for understanding me. Even in my work place we don't do meetings, don't worry your not the only one ☺️

Thank you very much. All the best for you too.

Hi rexha,

I completely understand what you are saying. I work in a large practice and we have nurses that will work in a surgery and because they know a different nurse is going to be in there the next day they don't stock up or do the proper shutdowns etc. They leave it for someone else to do. If you do things the right way it is soon picked up on and the work is left to you so you do get put upon. We see it as telling tales if we go to the dentists and to be honest they are not bothered as long as the work is done. So in a way it is a kind of bullying because these jobs will be put on you because the others know you will do it right. Its hard to raise it as a problem because you just do everything as part of your job and it's always the way that if you try to act like them, you get into trouble for it.

Its a situation that could be raised, without naming names, in a practice meeting if you have them, just as a point of order. Having said that, we don't have practice meetings. I don't think everywhere is like us in that respect though.

Good luck with your exam and be a good DN which I'm sure you will. Rise above the ones who just see it as a means to earn money, there is job satisfaction when you get the appreciation of patients, they know the good DN's from the bad ones.

Hi Allison,

Thank you sharing your story and I'm really sorry to hear that.

I have another story as well, I don't know if it is exactly bullying. When i started dental nursing, my English wasn't that good because i was less than 5months in London and everyone knows how big is London and moving from another country and starting again everything from the beggining is really hard and stressful.
I use to go at the surgery and work hard on my training and being really quite, but i have to say that my employer and the dentist that i was working with were really helpfull and i thank them a lot.
But at some point after few months they employed another dental nurse and she started her training too. I helped her with her training when i was free and giving her lots of advise about nursing. The surgery that i was working was 2rooms surgery and everyone was preferring the big room, so she use to work all day on that room and just clean down at the end of the day and never upload the stuff, so basically the following day when i was working on that surgery i had to go up and down to get stuff because they were finished. This happend for a good 2months and i was saying to myself okay at the begging she didn't know well were was the stuff, okay it happens to finsih something and you forget to upload it or you leave a note and say that this X thing is finished. So I decided to say something to her and the dentist that we use to work with her was there,but she was working with both of us different days and knew our story well. I said to her: Look that i s not right what you are doing you find everything ready and you don't care about the rest; it's all about team working you must know that??!! And she turned making fun of me so i said I just wanted to let you know and i left the room and wehn to the surgery as we was on the lunch time.
She use to talk a lot on my back as my English as i said wasn't good, use to make fun of me but she never accepted that she was doing. I didn't care about her i finished my ROE and training and know i am taking my OSCE exam and she is still backwards, when she hasn't started yet her ROE and she extended her course. She tries to talk with me, or actually to be that fake friend when she needs me but i ignore her as I can't stand fake people.

So that's my story.


I absolutely agree with you that Nurses can't raise they voice as you said we have got only few peoples on our side. But if all the DN would go once or twice in strike you would have seen how things would have change even on our payment that we work hard and at the end of the day even if you are a qualified DN you get only £8/h. And all those employees who pays trainings nurses even under minimum wage and they want them to do everything and huver and mop at of the day as well. But we are the ones who are mostly in risk of getting diffrent diseases as we do all the instruments and cleaning the blood and saliva. We know well that our PPE doesn't protect us 100% and at the end of the day if you go backwards with your thoughts you feel like a cleaner( don't get me wrong for the cleaners i do appreciate what they do as it is a very hard job).

Hi gibbons,
I've noticed you've had lots of views but no-one has put a reply. Bullying is a very uncomfortable subject to talk about and even harder to admit to someone that it has happened to you. I think it's particularly hard for DN's as we seem to have very few people on our side. Most organisations that deal with the dental community tend to be pro dentist and we DN's struggle to find a voice and if we do we are very rarely heard. It's been this way for a very long time.
However, I can tell you about my experience. I wouldn't call it bullying per say, but it went on for a good few months and made me really depressed to the point I was crying a lot when I got home and even led to me having days off work because I couldn't face going in.
I have over 30 years in dental nursing. I have worked in a lot of practices over the years. A few years ago there was another DN in the practice I was working in, a lot younger than myself and had just passed her NVQ. We had been friends and I had helped her with her studies. However all of a sudden she decided to ignore me all the time. I asked her what was wrong but she just ignored me. Even if I had to ask her something to do with work she would just walk away. She then started giving me dirty looks all the time and making nasty comments to other members of staff in a way that I knew it was related to me. She never said my name but made comments and looked straight at me with a nasty smirk on her face making sure only I saw.
As I said I have loads of experience and for a long time just brushed it off, but because I never retaliated she got nastier and nastier and it was relentless every day. I suppose it added to my hurt because we had been quite friendly.
It came to a head because I was doing an NVQ course in another subject work related and half way through a recorded exam I had a panic attack. My tutor asked me what was wrong and I just broke down and spilled it all out.
My tutor went to my boss (with my permission) because I thought I was making a fuss over something that they wouldn't take seriously. Also I wasn't sure of the consequences and didn't want to lose anyone their job.
The outcome was that my boss had words with the DN, she apologised to me and it all stopped. We were never the best of friends after that but we managed to carry on working in a professional manner together. I do know she went on to target another DN in the same practice who just kept out of her way as much as possible. Then she chose a change of career and left. My tutor said it was bullying but I'd never thought of it that way. I suppose it was looking back. sorry for going on but I hope my story might help in some way

Most of us will have witnessed bullying at some point. Do you have any experiences that may help others overcome bullying or any ideas to avoid bullying within the workplace, please share them with us.