If you work in a mostly female workplace, are you expected to hate/dislike the patients your female coworkers dislike?

cross-posted from: linux.community/post/482215

where I work we have a not very loved bed bound male patient: he is short with answers to my female coworkers and refuses to take his medication but has never attacked anyone and has never yelled at me so far. To me, while he is rough and can come off as unfriendly, he is not somebody scary and I don’t understand why my female colleagues rant constantly about him.

I go into the room, ask if he plans to take his medication and if I can check his vitals. He agrees? fine, he doesn’t agree? I don’t push it, I simply explain why it’s important that he takes his medication, document and move on to the next patient. I have the feeling that my female colleagues nag him and that triggers him.

I feel neutral about him but not a single female coworker I’ve asked likes him. Today one of them asked me if he was unfriendly towards me and I answered their question with a no. One colleague replied that he’s been unfriendly to ‘each and everyone of your coworkers’

I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking this, but the way she said that I thought she was inviting me to hate him as much as them, if that makes sense.

I don’t care. If a bed bound patient acts aggressively I call security, they may call the cops while some security personnel deals with the aggressive patient and I’ve already moved on to the next patient and left the danger zone. And document.

Do I have to be part of the hivemind?

Crow ,

My workplace is very similar to yours, I’m a guy and work.almost exclusively with women. Many people will treat me better and assume I have a higher position than my coworkers, it boils down to sexism. The same thing is happening to you, you are being treated better by this patient because you are a man. Your coworkers are just looking for some compassion or empathy from you. It would be good for you to offer that to them. You should also think about why you never saw this before and why you jump to this being a mean girls type situation.

e_t_ Admin ,

It sounds like you're male and so your sexist patient is nicer to you than to your female colleagues. The tone of this post strikes me as dismissive of their experience, like because he's not so bad to you, they must be exaggerating. You're not obligated to hate this patient on your coworkers' behalf, but maybe express some empathy for them?

jeffw ,

Empathy towards people experiencing sexism, or an other form of discrimination, is a useful skill to develop.

DigitalTraveler42 ,

“Should I use my brain to make my own decisions, or should I save CPU and RAM by being an NPC?”

d00phy ,

Why can’t you do both? Sometimes, have an opinion about a thing, and other times you maybe just don’t care enough to devote the CPU/RAM to it. I love the way you phrased it though!

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