i HATE my job. Does anyone else feel the same?

[Jenni811]

I absolutely despise my job. I work as a nurse in a intermediate/telemetry type floor. We are in the process of moving to a new hospital, so we were a telemetry unit and we are splitting into telemetry/intermediate care. We will be split eventually but right now kind of combined...its weird.

Anyway, I HATE HATE HATE HATE my job. I get so worked up on the way to work, up to the point I start getting massive headaches and offset my vertigo issues. I've always struggled with unexplained vertigo that comes with stress/anxiety. I can't stand patients and families who are so demanding and disrespectful.

I do my absolute best to put on my "fake smile" to please them. I'm a person of very short temper so it takes every ounce of energy in me not to slap some of them in the face. I got in trouble one time because a patient's daughter was giving me a really hard time and everything she said that came from her mouth started with "Well I'm a nurse and...." it would have been totally irrelevant to what she had to say. For example: "Well I'm a nurse and I had an egg salad sandwich for lunch."

"Well, I'm a nurse and I have a kitten named Dutchess" (that was actually a real one).

She was SO disrespectful, rolled her eyes every time I talked, very short answers. Finally I had it...I looked at her and said "I don't care if you are a nurse. I'm her nurse now and i will make the decisions on what I think is best for my patient."

Yup...I got in trouble for that one but I explained everything to my manager and she, deep inside, I knew agreed she was being ridiculous and I told her I just couldn't take it anymore. It went on for THREE DAYS, in 12 hour shifts and I was on day 4 with her. I snapped...yup.

Anyway, my point with that story is it wasn't this one time...it is ALL the freaking time. Patient's are so demanding. What on earth makes you think I want to "wipe your butt" when you can do it at home just fine? Ok...you have two broken arms, I will help you but if you are here for I don't know...Chest pain observation and you can feed yourself the 50 trays of food you just ordered and open the soda bottle your family snuck you in, why would you not be able to wipe your own butt?? What makes people feel the need to be so darn needy like this?? Don't put on your call light for me to pour you a glass of water from the water pitcher sitting next to your hand. You are perfectly capable of doing it yourself (I'm talking about people who CAN do it.) You are not a 65 year old baby, you are an adult who has wiped your own butt and poured your own water for I don't know, 63 years now??

I'm sorry I have to vent. Makes me feel better. Does anyone else feel this way about nursing? I feel so stuck in it and I want to get out. What else can I do with my degree that I would enjoy??

Once my fiance and I are married we want to start a family right away. He has agreed for me to quit my job at that point to be stay at home. I'm afraid I will enjoy not being a nurse so much I may never go back. What other career choices do people ENJOY as a nurse? I have my BSN.

[TylerT27]

I understand how you feel. I've been. Nurse for two years and I've worked every floor in the hospital. I'm in the army and they require us to rotate for up to a year to every floor in the hospital minus ICU and peds. Across the board. Patients are very demanding. It doesn't matter the floor or the diagnoses. Granted depending on Age, DX, and a whole host of other factors. Currently, I am a Progressive Care nurse. Occasionally, Ill have a truly sic pt. most of the time the pts problems exist because they are overweight, diabetic, copd from smoking, hypertensive, post drug/alcohol abuse ,etc... Long story short, they come to the hospital because they didn't care for the,selves and now they expect us to care for them. Honestly, does it really make a difference? Once you have these problems they don't just go away. The same people keep coming back over and over again. Considering, it is a military facility and we treat a specific population. Still, I have seen every type of person. The entire IN PT experience is like this. Managing problems that they, most like

Y, caused themselves. For whatever reason, such as lack of knowledge, depression, or whatever the case my be. Still, you can not claim ignorance to the fact that you smoked, drank to excess, and over eat your entire life. Now, they expect me to be there waiter. Obviously, I'm am venting frustrations. I do have good days. On occasion. However, it is still over shadowed by the bad, demanding, unreasonable patient that nothing I do for them is truly going to change their outcome or prognosis. That's what is disheartening about nursing I have experienced so far. I feel why did I go to school, study very hard, and continue to study hard and progress to care for a majority of people who don't or will not care for themselves and wont take personal responsibility for the unhealthy life they have lived. I don't car about the money or title. I just want to feel like a truly make a difference. I don't know where that is yet.

Pls, do not respond to this post saying I am a bad nurse and I shouldn't say this, etc, etc,

I'm just sharing a feeling and experience. I do care for people. That's why I am frustrated. If I didn't care. I would quit.

[martymoose, BSN, RN]

i had a pt the other day who od on a illegal drug. when they started coming around, they said "You are here to serve me!!, now where's my spoon and hamburger???"

Let me get that for you- I have the time.

[CaitlynRNBSN]

I don't think anybody is a bad nurse by saying they hate their job. We are just being honest. Sure some love their job and would not trade it for the world. I get patients who I adore and would do anything for them. It's the ones who don't take care of themselves, so bad to the point they can't even itch their own foot.

One morbidly obese, smelly, full of wounds, every diabetic problem in the book wanted me to give him a foot massage because his "foot hurts" His feet were all fungus like, his toenails were growing their own toenails. No way in a million years am I touching those feet. Sick.

I refused to do it, don't care what he thought of me afterwards. He can report me for all I care "my nurse wouldn't massage my feet." Yea??? i'm not getting in trouble for that one. Some people, I tell ya!! I wonder how some people made it as far as they did in life...

[Lukarets]

I hate my job as well. I work in a unit with NO techs to help. All RNs do total care for pt. idk if i hate my job, hate the place or hate some needy pts. All i know is I need something new. I can't transfer to a different unit because I need to stay with them for a year. Its so sad that I am a FTE, but only put in 2 days to work and my 3rd day are alwas R/O. Everytime I work there I dread...

We have pts like able, capable of reaching his table, but calling me because he couldn't reach it.

Pt who ask me to brew coffee for them (while I have 4 more pts who wants to either use the restroom/want some pain meds at the same time), i tell them they can call dining service for a coffee because it will take a while for me to come back with a fresh brewed coffee.

Pt who will call me because he needed help holding his urinal, while he is laying in bed. The most outrageous thing is that, this pt knew he calls often and apologizes about him urinating so much. So i finally said "If you quit drinking coffee, you wouldn't urinate as much." Ugh

Nursing!

[CaitlynRNBSN]

It's not only the patient's and families that are so ungrateful, it is the management and the "high ups." you know...the one's that sit in their office twiddling their thumbs while reading patient satisfactory scores on noise at night and response to call lights. You want quicker response time to the call light? Try getting out on the floor and answering a few. I would love what I do more if my job would allow me to do my job, rather than all this ridiculous stuff. I'm the type of person that is not confrontational. I just accept it, smile and move on. But it does not stop what I'm feeling deep down inside about situations. I don't know how much more I can keep bottled up inside me, but i'm thinking that it may soon be time to move away from the bedside. I've only been in nursing for 2 years and I cannot do much more of it. im 25 years old, I shouldn't be having these feelings so early on in my career. I feel like my "honey moon" phase did not last long at all!

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

A nurse for two years, have enjoyed 3 patients.. and

" a person of short temper".

We put up with a lot and no one enjoys the handmaiden role.You are not able to find anything positive in nursing.

Another profession sounds like the only answer.

[aywl]

Mark, will read later

[Gamecock73]

Read through all the comments and totally agree with OP and some of the other posters. I worked at a SNF for almost a year, after almost 2 years on an acute care floor. I left the acute care area thinking the switch would result in less stress. WRONG. Taking 8 pts, some violent, some confused, some positively demonic. LOL (The nurses often joked about having one particularly awful patient sprinkled with holy water or having a priest come in to do an exorcism.)

We had one patient recently who waffled between wanting to sue us for care he perceived to be shoddy, and making sexually inappropriate comments to the nurses and patients. He made a big fuss about one instance when we had a code going on at the same time he was undergoing prep for a colonoscopy. He was very angry there wasn't at least one staff member around to continually wipe his butt, and he knew one of the local news reporters and wanted to report us for it. Blah, blah, blah.

I too have truly enjoyed caring for about 4 or 5 patients during my time in bedside nursing. I got into nursing to help people, but at the end of the day, I never really got to see that I was making that big a difference. Taking all the abuse (verbal and physical) has just worn me down. Looking to go back into a nice, quiet office environment at this point. I may not make as much money, but at least I can come home with my sanity intact.

[CaitlynRNBSN]

I had one patient this past weekend that I truly cared taking care of. He was probably 1 in a million. I true train wreck on the phone, but when I got him, he looked healthier than me. Very very sick...he just didn't look the part, never complained, very very respectful and thanked me for everything I did. He would "cluster" his needs together so I wasn't running in and out a million times. "While your here, can I go to the bathroom so I don't have to call you back in?"...for him, I have all the time in the world and even if I didn't have the time, I would make time. He was just so respectful and kind.

all I ever want is to be thanked once in a while, or to be treated with respect.

On the other hand, I have a patient who is threatening to call his Lawyer because I had him in restraints due to being combative(VERY VERY strong man). He was chaptered, detox etc...you know the kind. I was called every name you could ever think of. such a pleasant man....

[chinacatRN]

I currently work in a LTC. The facility is a little different - we're not your typical "old folks home". We have a ventilator unit and most of our patients are there temporarily for SNF and pt/ot. I've only been there a month and I frickin HATE it.

When I was hired I was told RT would be on the clock 24/7. To handle the vents and trach patients. That was a lie. And trying to answer vent alarms during morning med pass is ridiculous. Not to mention the super needy patients who are freaking out at 0630 thinking they're going to die if they don't get out of bed or get suctioned RIGHT NOW.

Then there's management. Last week, I was called on my day off and told I needed to come in (a half hour drive) and write a nurse's note on a patient. Since it was my day off, my car was being fixed. I planned it for my day off purposely. I told them I'd come in as soon as I got ny car back. The administrator informed me that it was unacceptable that I didn't have my car and to be in by 2pm or I was fired. The training is horrible. I was accused of not being a team player, even though I do other people's work all the time - willingly, with a smile. Almost everyday I work, I'm there an hour or more past my scheduled shift. I've never gotten a lunch break - ever. Eating lunch consists of stuffing my face at the nurses station while charting. We're severely short staffed. Oh, and when I told my boss that I'm pregnant, I was yelled at for "hiding it" from them - they said I should've told them during my interview. Seriously? It's illegal to ask someone if they're pregnant during an interview. It's illegal to discriminate based on pregnancy, just like the color of someone's skin. I get told almost everyday that I'm doing something wrong. I live in constant fear of being fired - but it's not really fear when some days you hope to be fired just so you don't have to go back. The administrator -after finding out about the pregnancy - told me she'd fight any work related injury claims on my part because she thinks I'd get injured just to get paid while off work on maternity leave (that thought never even crossed my mind). So if I really do get injured I'm in trouble. Not to mention the fact that because if the heavy work load I feel like I'm unable to provide good patient care and everyday I go to work I feel like my license is in jeopardy. I feel like everything I do is scrutinized - like I walked into a big witch hunt and no matter how good of a nurse I am, I'm screwed because it's so busy there and so chaotic that mistakes are more easy to make than anywhere I've ever worked. I do everything I can to cover my butt, but I don't think it's enough especially now that I'm on their radar since I'm pregnant.

Anyone else in a situation like this?

[CaitlynRNBSN]

that is nursing for you and it is only going to get worse. Our hospital is actually talking about getting rid of CNAs because "nurses can do it." think about it....If our hospital does without CNAs i will be leaving. I doubt i'd even give 2 weeks notice.

[elprup, BSN, RN]

With over 700,000 allnurses members, one would think we could change the world for the better. Plus we are the largest medical profession in the USA.