What's the shortest time you stayed at a job and why did you leave?

Nurses General Nursing

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for me it was 3 days. It was an extra job and I realized I didn't need the stress of working

in a more stressful environment than my

main job so I never picked up shifts there.

This is so timely! I just started a new job about 3 weeks ago, while staying per diem at my old job. I was debating if I should leave the new job and go back to the old job because I'm not liking the new job as much. It isn't worth the extra stress or headaches involved! My old job was fine, just in an area I was hoping to geographically move on from. New job is just--stressful. The people make it seem extra stressful even though it's not necessarily something to stress about, and it just makes my entire shift worse because I don't like dealing with stress.

I had determined today to give it two weeks. I talked to my old boss and ask if my job was available and she basically said any shift, any time. Just let her know and it would happen. I'm not sure if waiting 2 weeks is dragging it out when I already made up my mind. What do you think?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Dialysis, Hospice.
This is so timely! I just started a new job about 3 weeks ago, while staying per diem at my old job. I was debating if I should leave the new job and go back to the old job because I'm not liking the new job as much. It isn't worth the extra stress or headaches involved! My old job was fine, just in an area I was hoping to geographically move on from. New job is just--stressful. The people make it seem extra stressful even though it's not necessarily something to stress about, and it just makes my entire shift worse because I don't like dealing with stress.

I had determined today to give it two weeks. I talked to my old boss and ask if my job was available and she basically said any shift, any time. Just let her know and it would happen. I'm not sure if waiting 2 weeks is dragging it out when I already made up my mind. What do you think?

I don't think that waiting two weeks would be doing anyone any favors. You have already made up your mind to leave so sticking around is just going to prolong your misery and your new employer needs to know this ASAP so that they can make other arrangements.

I am in the exact same situation, except that I have been at my new job much longer than three weeks. My previous employer is in the process of working out a schedule just for me so that I can come back and as soon as this is confirmed, I am going to either go per diem at my current job or just leave altogether. Life is too short and my employer needs as much notice as possible to replace me, even though I am only part-time.

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When I first became an RN I worked one shift PRN in a long term care place. The place was a dump but I was greedy and wanted some cash. Anyway, I was supposed to work an 8 hour shift and got stuck there for 20. I never went back

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Not including orientation which was a week, 2 days.

I smelled the unit before I saw it-not good. Said to myself maybe their just having a bad day, when giving care and helping cna's noticed they carried febreze (supplied by the facility!) with them-seriously!!! Somehow made it through the first day, went the second day discovered one of the patients rooms (he was a quadriplegic) and his side of the room was full of old newspapers, empty cardboard snack boxes and other trash, I asked an aide who replied the patient "wouldn't let them throw anything out" . The room literally looked like a scene from Hoarders and I found myself thinking I need to call someone on this. 7-3 shift wouldn't put people who been in a wc for hours back in bed then argued with the nurse about the patient being at risk for pressure sores. I left at the end of that shift, never went back. They got shut down by the state 3 months later-I mean out of business, sold their other facilities shut down.

Interestingly I interviewed at an unrelated facility not long after for a per-diem job and the interviewer asked me if I knew about facility x-and then told me they had hired alot of their staff following the closing. I didn't accept that job... I still can't get over the aides carrying febreze with them

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

9 months. I thought that was super short, but you all have made me feel better now! :up:

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Did a favor for a registry DON and agreed to work at a nursing home one night. URINE. STENCH. FECES.The eyes of all the caregivers were beet red with the acid in the air. It was horrifying. A blind man on a mattress had had some sort of slop/food just throw into his mouth--ants were crawling on him.

I eyed the setup--three floor nurses for three halls and two fat, slovenly 'Supervisors' were savoring a fresh box of donuts.

I asked what the Supervisors did; one nurse said that they took over if someone got ill or called in. At times, they did admissions. But mostly they just 'supervised'.

The entire crew had come in. There were no admissions.

Suddenly, my knee went out--I limped to my car and drove to a Quick Care, thankful that my childhood arthroscopy scars occasionally did some good.

Then I called the Health Department.

Three hours total from start to fini!

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Specializes in NICU.

A week into orientation for Neonatal ,all they kept giving me only adult patients ,they put me in an areas beyond my scope,left me all alone there,a carotid iv ran dry and the resisdent attacked me cause i was in room,dont know where the primary nurse was,,but trying to get me to enter a TB patient in isolation all by my self with no back up support other than gown up mask etc,was the last straw.

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

3 weeks in a "cardiac unit", 3 days orientation, no assistance at all after that from anyone, no charge RN (ever), rude/arrogant/condescending Doctors... the list goes on and on. Stay and risk losing license, NOT

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Specializes in Geri - Edu - Infection Control - QAPI.
I had determined today to give it two weeks. I talked to my old boss and ask if my job was available and she basically said any shift, any time. Just let her know and it would happen. I'm not sure if waiting 2 weeks is dragging it out when I already made up my mind. What do you think?

I hope you're using those 2 wks to give your notice. You clearly don't want (or need) to be there with the added stress. Going back to the other job will provide you with a better mindset to think about your next move.

Good Luck!

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

3 months. Radiation oncology. I rocked the office nurse part, but the patients from the hospital were so acutely sick with pumps and needing high dose morphine. Way over my skill set and I knew I had to bow out.

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Specializes in LTC and Pediatrics.

3 months. A rehab/ltc facility. So many things wrong and so much stress. Doing PRN for them though. I am going to do PDN and maybe combine it with corrections.

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I don't think it was even two weeks. This was my very first CNA job about 30 years ago. It was a filthy and nasty nursing home.

The air in the place was straight up stale urine and feces. The smell clung in my hair and clothes. Foul!

The call buttons and bed rails were caked with dried feces.

I had my purse stolen the first day I was there.

An elderly man fell out of bed. He was just tossed back up in like a bag of trash. No one reported it to the nurse and no assessment for injury done. I was told it was no big deal.

I caught two CNAs making out on the end of a bed.

I was harassed for getting a compliment from a resident who told me I was "nice". The aides (all much older than me) were mocking me like I was in grade school, like "Oooh! Isn't she so niiiiiice!"

The aides lined up on both sides of the hall, waiting for me to walk by (which I was determined to do, though I knew it would not be pleasant) and they proceeded to further mock me and blow straw wrappers in my face.

Oh, but the childish shenanigans continued as a couple of the aides were adamant I should eat this chocolate cake that they brought from the soiled utility room.

Watched the aides loudly make fun of and verbally abuse: an old man who defecated in the shower, an old lady whose breasts were pendulous and tucked under her arms (!) and another lady crying in the tub because she was cold.

Finally, a teeny tiny old lady urinated in her wheelchair. Oh, she was wearing a brief, but it had been on her so long, the urine poured on out over the sides of her wheel chair. I watched this aide scoop the old gal up in one one arm, fling the completely drenched egg crate into the trash and then plop the woman back down in the chair. No, the aide still did not change the brief.

Now, after all the crap I put up with there, that last one finally threw me over the edge. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but anyone with any sense would have been gone after the first day.

I walked into the ADON's office, handed her my stinky blue smock and gait belt. I told her I'd never seen anything so disgusting in all my life (all 18 years of it!) and I was walking out now (finally!). To this day, I remember her shocked face and still cannot figure out why she would have been shocked. There was no way she did not know she worked for a stink-hole and that the employees were trash.

Well, that was the shortest. Immediately after that, I went to the nicest darn LTC in the world and stayed there for 12 years (and still rate it as one of the best experiences of my life).

P.S.

I've told some of these stories on here before. Sorry, for the repeat. Also, sorry for the length.

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