Shortest time you held a nursing job?

Noney · Aug 22, 2003

One day.

Sometimes you just know it's not a place you want to work.

N

purplemania, BSN, RN · Aug 22, 2003

One year. First year after graduation. Felt overwhelmed with 10-12 pedi pts. in a tertiary care facility. Their acuity was way higher than my confidence/ability.

ptnurse · Aug 22, 2003

4 weeks. Noney is right, sometimes you just know it isn't right and trying to make it fit when it doesn't just will not work. I am usually a "hang in there" kind of person, but sometimes you just gotta cut your losses.

Teshiee · Aug 22, 2003

One weekend. My first LVN job at a nursing home. It was terrible the CNA's looked at you like you owed them money plus the staff developer was a power freak. Apparently there was a miscommunication on what hours I was working. I showed up at night to work when he claims I should have came in day time and because of that there is no position for me. I laughed, because they barely had anyone working there. So I just told him consider this verbal statement my resignation and walked out and found another job in 2 days.

Athlein · Aug 22, 2003

Hospital/nursing classroom orientation plus one 12 hour shift! Took a perdiem job for a unit in which I was qualified. Was then switched to another, highly specialized unit my first day on the floor. Was told that the position I was hired for had been given to another employee, so I was moved. I moved, too - right on down to another hospital!

CseMgr1, ASN, RN · Aug 22, 2003

One day. On the day I was supposed to start work at a facility, my son, who was three years old at the time, woke up in the middle of the night, screaming with a raging fever of 104 degrees. I rushed him to his Pediatrician's office, who diagnosed him with a severe strep infection, an ear infection and conjunctivitis (all contracted from day care, of course). And, to make matters worse, my husband was out of town on business and our son was too sick to return to day care, and I had no one else to care for him.

As soon as my husband returned home, and our son had been cleared by his Pediatrician to return to day care (which was three days later), I reported for work...with a copy of the doctor's statement. My supervisor, to my horror, tossed the excuse aside and proceeded to berate me for not being dependable, and told me it was my responsibility to find someone to care for my child. I responded very coldly that it was my responsibility to care for my child, as I saw fit. She didn't like that, and told me that I needed to "reconsider" my position.

I already have, I responded, then turned around, walked out of her office and never went back. :angryfire

sjoe · Aug 22, 2003

One day. With increasing experience, it takes less time to see through the BS handed out in job interviews and see more clearly the actual reality of the working environment--which tend to vary only in the degree of dysfunctionality.

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Aug 22, 2003

You guys were smart! My very first job out of nursing school should have lasted about 3 hours.......only I hung in there for 3 months. It was in a nursing home where they got away with staffing 2 aides for 28 residents (it was supposed to be 1:10 on day shift) by making the charge nurse responsible for the remaining eight. No med aide until noon. And almost all of the residents on my wing were ambulatory Alzheimer's pts who escaped on a regular basis (facility was too cheap to build a fence all the way around).

Well, not wanting to be thought a quitter, I stuck with it until the day the facility administrator berated me for eating lunch. I'm not kidding. She came in to the lunchroom and proceeded to rip me a new one because I had dared to take a 5-minute break and gobble a few bites of food so I could keep my strength up. Forget the fact that I NEVER took the half-hour lunch the law provides, let alone breaks.....The next day when I came on shift, I was "demoted" to CNA because I "couldn't handle" the demands of my job.

The place was closed down less than a year later.

lsyorke, RN · Aug 22, 2003

10 Weeks! Hired as Assistant Nurse Manager for a developing new GI unit. After hire and being promised all the support we would need we found out we had 1 11-7 nurse, no unit secretary, and a 3-11 staff that were having literal fist fights . The final straw was the day I had a 9 patient assignment, no unit secretary, orienting 2 new RN's, had to find staff for 3-11 and 11-7, and a surgeon who wanted all his patients in one section of the unit ("so I don't have to walk so far"), and a administrator telling me to not tell anyone how bad the floor was!!!!!!

Time to move on quickly!

Nurse89 · Aug 22, 2003

two weeks

I gave my 2 week notice the very first day!

what a long two weeks

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Aug 22, 2003

One shift

My first job I was doing homecare for a woman with CP and when I helped her out of a taxicab the cabdriver drove away before I could move the wheelchair. She was knocked over, right on top of me, and I refused to take her out again via cab, so never got another shift.