Fired from my first nursing job, before one year

Carrie RN · Nov 24, 2013

Being terminated can be like a death. Allow yourself to work through the stages. Do not stay in anger too long it will come out when you interview. Take what you know and move on to build your skills. You will not be black balled unless you give the hospital reason to. Understand many HR people have contacts in other facilities. While they can't disclose why you were let go, it can be detected in their tone of voice while they give your dates of hire. Get back out there.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · Nov 24, 2013

Thanks for all your responses, I will definitely take them in while I take this time to reflect.
What about getting something else? What do you guys think? Am I basically blackballed? Will it be harder or easier for me to find something?
Esme12, go easy on me will you? Yeah ive been pretty cocky, but believe me, im paying a really heavy price for it. One that I have been feeling at the pit of my stomach and my eyes every living second since. Dont get me wrong though, I appreciate/need your words, I just hope you can also give me some information to pick me up. I really need that right now...

My intention was not to hard on you (well...maybe a little) but to show you that maybe you need to rethink some of your choices.

We have all been terminated form one facility or another....and these days it seems to be a right of passage....unfortunately...((HUGS)).

Personally...I think they were a little harsh...however in the present job market with nurses essentially being a dime a dozen, sadly.... pretty typical.

Take a few moments to breathe....your career isn't over by any stretch of the imagination. Be angry, indulge in a good woe is me pity party....maybe team up with my friends...Ben and Jerry.... Then get up and move forward.

But you need to get back out there...you sound like you have what it takes but you need to moderate your enthusiasm a little. Nurses are an opinionated bunch....we never hesitate to say it like it is....we don't have time for tons of conversation so we get to the point. Take it easy...lay low for a while on your next position....Rome wasn't built in a day. You will get another job...learn from this experience and grow to be a better nurse.

You can do this...by coming back and saying that you needed a little reality and need some encouragement...you have already grown.

Good Luck!

dnsonthego · Nov 24, 2013

I have a few question for you----Did you make it to your first anniversary? If not how many months were you employed there? Are you a male nurse? Are you under 30? Additionally, what city are you in?

The reason I ask these questions is that I work in NYC. We do not hire nurses who left their first job prior to their second anniversary. The union contract we have requires that a nurse must be employed at least one full year before becoming a union member. Nurses that are let go just prior or in the vicinity of a year of service are nurses that are not going to make it----it is not fair but that is the system. When a resume comes in and the nurse has been in a facility for a year or less, we just delete the resume. Other hospitals may be different but this is the way it is in NYC now. I am sad for you but you really have a problem. In a different era, someone would have grabbed you up as you have been trained as a bedside nurse and have spent some time on the floor. Today, is different. Too many nurses out there--new and experienced. No need to take a chance on "damage goods". My best advice is to sign up with an agency. Working for an agency is tough... not enough work, being called off, being canceled when you show up at a job, being floated, odd shifts, weekends/holidays and nights, etc. But a least you are working. As for the other comments about your posting, you really need to reflect on your behavior and how you come across. Humble pie is hard to eat. Learn from your mistakes and play nice as an agency nurse. A manager may take a liking to you and offer you a job. Remember as an agency nurse, any drama and you are gone that minute. Good luck.

PS...keep your plans and dreams to yourself. You are there to work. Save your EMT training, etc. for your family/friends.

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Nov 24, 2013

According to nursing theorist Patricia Benner, it takes 2-3 years in one's role to become merely competent, yet I'm reading from your post that you regard yourself an expert. After six months. You are still a new grad, and as such, still a novice in your practice. You still have a lot to learn. Keeping that in the forefront of your mind will go a long way towards helping you in your next job. Good luck.

^THIS. :yes:

Sometimes life (and nursing) will give you a swift kick in the pants. Process what you've been through, and find another job. Be humble, and cast your net wide. :yes:

JustBeachyNurse, LPN · Nov 24, 2013

Being terminated can be like a death. Allow yourself to work through the stages. Do not stay in anger too long it will come out when you interview. Take what you know and move on to build your skills. You will not be black balled unless you give the hospital reason to. Understand many HR people have contacts in other facilities. While they can't disclose why you were let go it can be detected in their tone of voice while they give your dates of hire. Get back out there.[/quote']
An employer can absolutely disclose why you were terminated as long as it is the truth. This is a common myth. Most employers have a policy if only releasing dates of employment, salary and whether eligible for rehire. But HR can legally state you were terminated for failure to follow p &p, attendance policy, insubordination or whatever the truth may be...even though many do not.
Good luck. Get back out there it may be a big obstacle that you only completed 6 months of employment but not a total barrier. Many agencies require a full year of employment as a nurse before they will even consider you as a potential hire since they need nurses that require minimal orientation & oversight.

trueblue2000 · Nov 24, 2013

This will be for sure a setback on your nursing career. It is not over, but, absent powerful family/friend connections in the desired hospital, expect future employment to be at much less prestigious facilities, locations, units, and shifts. Prove you are a safe nurse there and in a couple years you will be rehabilitated and eligible for the kind of job you just lost. In your position, I would take it as a good thing that you were terminated. Seriously, by what you wrote, I have no doubt that your cockiness was driving you down the road to do serious harm to a patient and consequently your license. You were a very unsafe nurse. The hospital did you a favor by stopping you before you got your license revoked. Better lose a job than your license right? This is how I would view the situation: a blessing in disguise. Now get your head up, change your moniker to humblenurse1, and start applying for jobs!

NurseDirtyBird · Nov 24, 2013

Ok, somewhat related question: How do you even cut a pill with scissors without crushing it?

DysrhythmiaRN11 · Nov 24, 2013

Humility is excellent and I applaud and welcome it...most of the time. But that comment above is a no-growth environment. Deliberately "dumbing" down your skills or holding back, to make your more experienced nurses appear good is not a good growing nor learning environment.
Two heads are better than one, and if even your experienced colleagues knew more, it also takes humility for them to learn from you as well.
Humility as with other good relationship behaviors should work both ways and not be one-directional.

In the nursing world, I have to agree that as a new nurse, they do not care what you know. You are expected to listen and if you think you know something they will chop your head off and eat you alive. I have learned that the hard way. I have learned to be humble, if you want to tell me how to do something, as a new nurse, I say ok, and move it along. If I don't want to utilize what you told me, I keep it to myself because evrything doesn't need a comment. Let me give you an example, I am an OR nurse and I am still fairly new, I had a 100 year veteran tell me that she did not need me to tell her what I need on the surgical field because she knows. All I was doing was asking her to give it to me since I could not get it myself as I was in sterile attire. She was so defensive because I had a little bit of knowledge and I am still new.... I had a migraine by the end of my shift with this lady. I was expected to shut up and respect her and she did not have to respect me. Did I put her in her place a little, yes but I also had a headache at the end of the case and wondered if she was going to go rat me out for doing a good job. Nursing is a rough career, people are mean, and sometimes you do have to dummy down or they will tear you APART. Ive witnessed it so many times, so sad....

totallackofsurprise · Nov 24, 2013

Based on your original post, I get the impression that your previous experience was as a CNA or some other nursing support staff. If that's the case, you may have felt -- in school -- that gave you an edge, because it probably did, especially in clinicals. Otherwise, as someone else said, I don't see how you could have 2 yrs experience but only 6 months on your first job.

Here's the thing: wherever you go, you will work with experienced nurses, some of whom will be bitter, nasty, unpleasant people, and enduring their presence will be a chore, if not sheer agony. They will not be up to date on everything, maybe not on most things. Maybe they graduated 20 or 30 years ago and haven't picked up a book since except for required continuing education and certifications.

That doesn't mean you can't learn from them. Every experienced nurse, no matter how much you can't stand them, probably has something to teach you. You just have to be OPEN to this -- and you have to ask. You can even learn from the CNA's/nurse's aides -- IF you're open to it.

By thinking that you were completely on top of things and handling it, you were closed off to learning from experienced coworkers. When people sense you're closed off to them, they close you off.

Nursing is a people oriented job. Your ability to get along with people (coworkers as well as patients) is just as important as your knowledge, experience, clinical expertise, etc. -- maybe more important. That is the foundation on which your work experience will be based, because nursing is a team sport.

If you act like a lone wolf, you will be treated as one; you'll have no support from your coworkers. They will give you enough rope to hang yourself -- and it sounds like that is what happened.

A normal reaction for a brand new grad -- at least, one who doesn't think he or she knows everything -- would be to ASK another, experienced nurse, "Can I use my scissors to cut a pill if I can't find the pill cutter?" New grads are famous for asking dozens of seemingly obvious (and annoying) questions of their more experienced coworkers.

It's not the fact that you did it that matters, it's the fact that you didn't even bother to ask anyone if that was okay to do. Had you asked, coworkers might have told you not to do it, or might have told you where the pill cutter was.

The big question is: why didn't you ask?

You don't mention your preceptor. Did you have one? Or did you get paired up with whoever was most experienced on your shift? If the hospital kicked you out onto the floor, on your own, after only 6-8 weeks of orientation, a) that was too little, and b) you should have asked for more, not happily gone off on your own as if you weren't a new grad.

Not asking coworkers, not mentioning your preceptor -- to me, these are red flags. I'm utterly perplexed that with six months on the job you actually believed you were handling things and were as confident as you say you were. All the new grads I started with were as bumbling and confused and constantly uncertain as I was, constantly feeling like they weren't cutting it, and afraid they'd picked the wrong career. (We were hired directly into ER as new grads.) We were stressed, we were prone to backing off and letting the experienced nurses take over when we got critical ambulance runs, we were about as UNconfident as you could be.

An experienced nurse, the sister of one of my fellow new grads, told us this: In your first year, your first job, you just do what you're told, and you don't understand why you're doing it. By the second year, you still do what you're told, but you start to understand WHY you're doing what you're told to do.

And that is pretty much how it went for us. I didn't feel really confident until my third year on the job. So I can't understand how you could have felt as confident as you did. That's just... bizarre to me.

It sounds like your perception of your abilities was very different from others' perceptions of your abilities, and that the gap between them was widening as time passed. That kind of a disconnect is troubling. As others have said, you need to think about how and why all this happened.

If your hospital is part of a chain, being fired at one in the chain means you can't get hired at others. You have a tough row to hoe, here. Most hospitals do not want to hire nurses who worked less than 1 year in their first job.

Agencies will hire you, but be aware that agency nurses are often thrown into assignments with little or no orientation to the hospital or unit, and expected to hit the ground running. You may also be resented as an agency nurse, which means coworkers will be less likely to help you out. (You may also be welcomed at highly understaffed facilities; it's not all bad.)

If you are resented, you will not have as much opportunity to absorb "by osmosis" the knowledge and tips experienced nurses could give you. Despite that, DO NOT tell your coworkers that your experience is less than a year unless you've known them for at least a few months and you truly feel you can trust them. Most staff nurses are (understandably) suspicious of agency nurses, because in many facilities, agency nurses do not have good reputations and are not considered good nurses. Many people think that agency employees (whether nurses, pharmacists, or physicians) "couldn't cut it" in a staff position at a hospital, or can't get hired as staff somewhere because of bad references or lack of experience. In your case, that would be at least partly true.

You're between a rock and a hard place. It's hard to see how you got here except by your own behavior. Your best option -- which is not a good option, but it's maybe the only option -- is to seek agency work. Apply to as many nursing jobs as possible at hospitals not affiliated with the one you were fired from. But, the economy is only slightly better than it was, so you will likely face an uphill battle trying to get a staff position.

As others have suggested -- you need to reflect on this experience. Defensiveness is natural as your initial reaction to getting fired. But don't wallow in defensiveness. You really need to examine your own actions, every step of the way during those first 6 months, in order to see where you started to go wrong. Because it probably was a number of little things at first that started to accumulate before the write-up over using scissors to cut a pill.

In addition to cultivating some humility, you need to develop better people skills. This is especially true if you're a male RN surrounded by females, because then you're not only dealing with people, but gender specific communication differences. I worked in IT for 12 years before being laid off and going to school for nursing. I was used to working with nearly 100% men. When I started my first nursing job out of nursing school, working with nearly 100% women was a huge culture shock for me. Huge. Especially since I was never particularly 'one of the girls' because I had been 'one of the guys' for so long.

All of that nonverbal communication stuff they taught you in nursing school or any transcultural nursing classes you may have taken -- it's not just useful for working with patients. It's necessary for getting along with your coworkers. You need to be able to recognize people's social cues and clues. I suspect there were many that you blew past before the write-up and before the firing.

Good luck.

ETA: Forgot to say, agency nurses also sometimes get the heaviest work loads and assignments, the most complex patients. Staff nurses often figure, "Let him/her have this train wreck; they're getting paid more than me anyway." I say this having worked both as a staff nurse AND as an agency nurse (and as an agency nurse that got hired on as staff after a 3 month contract assignment). That's just the way it goes. But, like I said, it's not all bad. Some chronically understaffed hospitals are profoundly grateful to have the help, and some staff nurses are too, because then they get breaks and lunches they might otherwise not get if there weren't agency nurses helping out.

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Nov 24, 2013

Straight up? I threw up in my mouth a little when I read you cut a pill with scissors!!!! I know where my scissors go and what they do and no way in HE!! would I pop a pill in my mouth that had been cut with those babies!

I know you said it wasn't arrogance, but dang, that's certainly something that through itself at me as I read...

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Nov 24, 2013

@MIghtynurse, how do you have two years nursing experience and this is your first year?

Wow, I hadn't even noticed the OP screen name. Says a lot...

BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN · Nov 24, 2013

I also had to LOL a little about your comment on taking the EMT course so you could challenge the EMT-P licensure. They are VERY different beasts than nursing. I know, I was an EMT for 20 years b/4 going back to nursing school