I feel like they should change the title of this site to "reasons why my job sucks"

Nurses Relations

Published

People on here need to realize that when you complain on here (and for some that all those individuals do) it really dissuades us new grads from continuing into the profession. First and most obvious question, Does anyone actually like being a Nurse? I mean granted I don't think anyone loves all aspects of their job, but does it seem like a nightmare every day? Secondly, name the best part of your area and your biggest pet peeve.

Sorry had to rant.

:snurse:

Dear new grads,

Nursing does suck. And honestly, why would we lie to make it seem like it's better than it is? What benefit do we get from new nurses entering the field? More competition and oversaturation of the market? More people entering for the perceived "easy money" who hate patient care?

So many people enter nursing for money and scheduling reasons - but you know what, once you're in the field, you realize that it's definately not worth it.

1. Money - Working in a hospital as a new grad will get you between 45-60K. Sounds great for a starting salary, right? But what about upward mobility? While your business friends are starting in the low 40s, they're getting yearly promotions and soon hit 80-100K. What about you? Still slaving at the bedside for a similar salary...doesn't seem so great anymore does it?

2. Schedule - 3 days of work per week!? Who wouldn't want that!? Sounds great..until you get into it. First, shifts are usually 12.5 hours - adding 30 minutes for report - but you get paid for 12 due to lunch. In addition, it's not a desk job where you can just run out the door when the clock strikes the golden hour. If a patient is coding, you're not leaving. If the nurse taking over for you is late, you're not leaving. Add another 30 minutes, on average, for that, and you've got 13 hour shifts...13 hours with one break for food, and rarely any time for anything else - you always have to run and find someone to cover your patients if you need a break/bathroom etc. It's like being in elementary again and asking the teacher for permission to pee. Also, 3 days a week sounds great in your head when you think "so I'll just work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then get a 4 day weekend! Woo!" Wrong! It's ANY set up 12 hours. Sometimes you work every other day and don't really get any extended time off during a week...and then the next week you might work all night shifts and be too tired to enjoy your days off. Or maybe you will work only on weekends (common for new grads at bottom of the totem pole) and sure you'll have a 4 days off...but what will you do? All your friends will be working on your days off! The scheduling thing is the single worst thing about nursing. You never really know what days you will work and won't except a few weeks in advance. I miss the security of knowing I worked M-F, 9am to 5pm, and that it never varied.

3. Nurses are often treated like crap. Doctors can't fuss at patients when something goes wrong...so they fuss at nurses. Patients are often afraid to fuss at doctors...so they fuss at nurses. The nurse is the middle-man absorbing all of the abuse from both sides. Add on to that the fact that many other nurses (not all, I've worked with WONDERFUL nurses) are very catty/hard to get along with.

4. Get used to dealing with gross stuff. Someone craps all over the bed, and you're expected to just clean it right up. It's absolutely disgusting and at times my stomach does flips from the smells. No other person in the hospital has to deal with that at that level. Doctors, tech, respiratory, x-ray, etc - they all just notice the smell and make sure to "let the nurse know."

5. Stress - you have patient lives in your hands. So while you're working your third night shift in a row and running completely on energy drinks, standing at the sink trying to literally clean sh*t off your face while an old lady's family yells about why you aren't getting them a 4th warm blanket, you also have to make sure your consiciously aware of your other patient's pressor drips running out...

It's quite frankly, a horrible job, though it does have it's moments of joy - like being recognized for a good job. But 85% of it is nothing but filth and stress. It takes a toll on you physically and mentally, and the pay just doesn't justify the job.

While AN does support its members, often what I notice is this: Someone asks a question. Various members respond. OP decides they don't like the response (s) and informs members that they are unsupportive or "eating their young", which is not the case usually. The OP received honest answers. OR, the OP has already decided on a course of action, but proceeds to argue with various members about their response. Don't ask if you truly do not want to know. Just because all members are not in agreement does not imply that we are unsupportive. Discussion is the purpose of this site. Furthermore, the attitude of some new grads ie: "No one likes me..." Is getting old and tired. I was a new grad also, and I've learned long ago that life is generally what YOU choose to make of it.

I never said anything mentioned above. I am unsure where you are getting that information.

Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.

*****As equals and that we all need to help each other on the job.Period--hershdog*****

That's where I see the issue.. Most of those replying aren't saying they don't help out on the job, they are talking about venting ONLINE.

I, for one, have mentored many,many staff from CNA's to RN's to CMA's thru my years of nursing. I have worked in hospitals, Home Health and Nursing homes.

I have not had only good experiences in any of these places, nor with the staff I have mentored.

Would I have loved a place to come and vent my frustrations with no worries that those reading would not understand?? YOU BET!!! Only a nurse can understand what a nurse experiences. A student cannot, unless they are also a nurse; a new nurse cannot, unless they worked at a different level of nursing prior.

I know that nursing struggles vary greatly between work areas, and even staff in the same work areas. I handle things differently than you, and where I am not srtugglin, you may be, and visa versa. Would the onle struggling benefit from learning from the one not struggling? I think so, would the one not sstruggling learn from the one having trouble?? You bet!!

I guess what I am saying is, take fromt he posts what you need too, leave what info you can tohelp others and if a post distresses you because of its negativity, say a prayer, or send a good thought out to the one struggling, because tomorrow that could be you...

That's the point tewdles, it's NOT all about me, so my responses don't need to add to the problem. The OP has a legitimate concern, for her! The responses don't need to be so sarcastic and cold, do they?

...him*

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
That's the point tewdles, it's NOT all about me, so my responses don't need to add to the problem. The OP has a legitimate concern, for her! The responses don't need to be so sarcastic and cold, do they?

*** The OP set the tone. When a person posts in an aggresive manner I assume they are sending a signal for how they would like to recieve replies.

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

It isn't that anyone hate new grads. Quite the opposite....but these experienced nurses are NOT paid one dime for their time and energy invested and the extra amount of time it requires to mentor new nurses. New grads are not being given the education they deserve to prepare them for the nursing field.

I think the venting coincides with the economical environment we are surrounded by...people are struggling. You have to let off steam somewhere or you will explode....so many come here because we understand.

To the question originally asked by the OP......I have been a Nurse for 34 years. There have been great moments and moments not so great. What is the best part of my job? The patients. The worst part of my job administration and the patients.

Lets stick to the topic of the thread.....as posed by the OP

First and most obvious question, Does anyone actually like being a Nurse? I mean granted I don't think anyone loves all aspects of their job, but does it seem like a nightmare every day? Secondly, name the best part of your area and your biggest pet peeve.
Good Lord... new grads some of us are very relieved and happy to see you, your smiling faces, your desire to see things done right, and your appetite for knowledge. :( one of the reasons you see so much negativity on here is that it is difficult to FIND a good place to vent. The fact that this is anonymous and others can relate is PRICELESS.But I am sorry for some of the responses you are getting. :( boy some of these people are downright cold and forget that they were new once!!! :sarcastic:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love be watching the reality show Tia and Tamera, and Tamera just said "You can be real without being rude." and "You can be conversational without being confrontational." I personally love that we have a place to vent, and when I don't feel like hearing it, I'm learning to not read it. I'm in control of my actions. Anyway, I've been doing some self reflecting and have been guilty of a little rudeness myself. I encourage all nurses when responding to posts to consider the quotes I mentioned above. Do we all need to retake therapeutic communication? I WELCOME debate, but good lord, learn to communicate and respect eachother better.
Maybe you should try to remember when you too were a New Grad and how you were so eager to learn about nursing in the beginning. And if nursing is so miserable and horrible why not leave the profession and allow fresh new people to take the jobs you seem to despise so much. Nursing is about caring for people and that in it's self will never be a negative for the person who truly does this job for that reason.

Please, tell me more about what nursing is about. I assume that knowledge comes from the many years you've been practicing nursing?

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

OP, I found this other thread today (someone had resurrected it). https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/i-feel-like-788677.html

Seeing as this is the second thread you've started about how nurses on this site seem to hate their job, I think maybe you need to take a good look at yourself, and determine if nursing is really what YOU want to do. You shouldn't let those of us who find AN a safe place to vent discourage you if it really is what you want to do. The fact that anonymous posters on an internet website are discouraging you speaks more about you than it does about us. Keep in mind that when people have a job, the times that stick out to them are the really really good days and the really really bad days. Those days in the middle kind of just run together. And human nature is to talk about the really really bad days. Nurses can find the support of other nurses here; I know I can't find that at home since no one else is even in the health care field. I suspect it's the same for many of the posters who vent here- we're venting to people who can identify with us.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
First and most obvious question, Does anyone actually like being a Nurse? I mean granted I don't think anyone loves all aspects of their job, but does it seem like a nightmare every day? Secondly, name the best part of your area and your biggest pet peeve.

*** Yes! I love my job. I haven't loved every job I have ever had in nursing. My current job is a lot of fun, I get tons of respect, find helping people in critical need very rewarding, love the teaching that comes with my job (teaching nurses, students, patients and their families), love being in a leadership position without actually being anyone's boss, and provides me with about as much autonomy as any hospital nurse can have. On top of all that I have good benifits and am paid very, very well.

I didn't ge this job right out of nursing school. I slogged my way through several kinds of ICUs, including SICU (what I consider my true home), MICU, CCU, PICU, CVICU as well as ER at several levels. I have worked at huge trauma centers and tiny little rural hospitals. Since I have alwasy had at least two jobs and have done some travel nursing so I haven't job hopped as much as it sounds like. After a number of years doing those hard and often thankless jobs (never hated them) and building my skills I found myself being offered some really great jobs. My first really great job was on transport (mobile intensive care ambulance). That lead to working on mobile intensive care on various aircraft. That job lead to my current job as full time rapid response nurse. A job that didn't even exsist when I graduated from nursing school. I have been offered nursing supervisor jobs that required a BSN ( I didn't have a BSN until fairly recently), was offered a job as service line leader for a hospital's brand new open heart program. That job required an MSN, but as the DNS told me "it's more important for us to get the right person into this job than a person with a degree".

I started off making around $30K/year and now make well into six figures NOT counting OT. Not bad for a third career RN (medic with infantry & dairy farming) with all of 9 months (counting the month we had off for Christmas) of college under his belt. Yes I went from haveing never set foot in a college or university to RN in less than a year, for a total cost of $2600 and that was before online programs. (still possible today for certain people). Got my BSN in another year of part time, online college more than 100% paid for by my employer (I say more than 100% since I was allowed to do much of my school work on paid time).

I have a number of peeves. As it relates to you I am peeved at how poorly new grads are being prepared by nursing schools. I am peeved at so many new grads, in particular from direct entry MSN and accelerated BSN programs, who don't expect to have to do much hard physical labor as a bedside nurse and their complaining abut why they are not in managment yet, after less than 2 years at the bedside, peeves me off. I am peeved by stupid nursing fads (scripting anyone?). I am peeved by the false and self serving "nursing shortage" propaganda. I am peeved with the stupid computer based documentation that, while it has the potential to make nurses jobs easier, so far hasen't. Geeze can't we get a workable system that can be learned in an hour and actually reduces a nurses charting time, while at the same time providing easy access to patient information? I could go on and on. Oh well, at least people hardly ever shoot at me as a nurse:)

hello

hi !!!!

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