I have been working at a LTC/rehab facility for 2 months now, and I am pretty sure I am going to be fired soon. The other day at work my suprivisor kept bringing up how my job is "at will, could end at any time" several times when she spoke to me. My main problem from what they tell me is body mechanics (leaning over instead of crouching, twisting, walking under things while leaning over, etc.); I try to do proper body mechanics, but I do slip up from time to time because these are my old habits. The real reason I think I will be fired is because my suprivisor keeps claiming to "remind" me of stuff that I had never been told before. Like, for example, the other day I was in a new dining area that I had never been in that has a different dining procedure than the rest of the facility, that I was never told of. I started doing the procedure that the rest of the facility has and I was scolded for the rest of the day about "not knowing" even though no one told me about the procedure. Also, when I was in training for the first two weeks, every trainer I had did something different for mostly everything, hoyer lifts, bed positions, what should be done at what time, etc. and when I did the procedures how I was taught to do them, my suprivisor told me that "I haven't learned anything" even though I did the procedures exactly how I was taught to do them by my last trainer.
I feel like I can't win because whenever I do something as I was told how to do it by a trainer, my suprivisor always claims it's wrong and she also claims she has to remind me of stuff I was "supposed" to know but was never informed of before. I would like to get a new CNA job but I feel like I would just be setting myself up for dissapointment because of how things went at this LTC facility. I hear ALF are better to work in, but there aren't a lot within 20 miles of me and I would most likely have to commute to work and I am not sure if it would be worth it since most of my money would go towards gas at that point. I am also aware of home health companies (I also have a second job in home care that's part-time) but I am not sure I can do that either because the hours are sparatic and can vary and I am looking for something more stable. I would love to work in a hospital, but there's no way of getting into one in california's bay area without either knowing someone or having experience (and homecare doesn't count, and sometimes ALF don't count either when I have looked at hospital job postings for CNAs); and that's the only reason I was working in a nursing home in the first place. I know about patient transporters, but those jobs also have a lot of people scrambiling for them as well and are far and few between in terms of avalability here.
My plans now are to try to get basically any job in a hospital and go from there or getting pharmacy tech training and going from there, since I don't think anything I could do with my CNA would get me to where I want to go. I just want a job in a hospital so I will be all set for a job when I graduate from nursing school, and I almost feel like I wasted my time and money to become a CNA because the reality is so much different from school and being a CNA might just not be for me. There's plenty of jobs in nursing homes, but there's about a million people all with the same/more experience than me applying to hospitals that even when I have the experienced required, I would still be out of my leauge.
I am at a stand still, not sure what's the next step I should take because all jobs are hard to get in the Bay Area right now and I am just looking for something that will give me good experience to put on a resume and for an "in" for when I reach my future goals of becoming a nurse and hopefully put me one step closer to landing a job I actually want.
Does anyone on here regret becoming a CNA? If so, what are you doing/what did you do after deciding that this may not be your route before nursing? Did you go on to get certified in something else and now are happy in that position? Did you try working at different places and found a job you are actually happy at?
Thanks for any ideas, I could really use some right now to help me make my decision in the next step.
