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

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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.

I truly understand the frustrations, but I have to be honest...these types of discussions make me absolutely terrified of ever ending up as a patient on a med/ surg floor!

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
YES!!! I get calls CONSTANTLY from techs. (I.e. lab techs, ultrasound, MRI, XRay). they call me and will be like "Did Dr.X really want this PTT at 6:00? YES!!!!! if he didn't want it, he wouldn't order it.

I get so so so so annoyed with techs from places like that. it is constant, does Dr.X want contrast dye or not?? I don't know....figure it out yourself. Ugh, sorry if any techs on here. but seriously. figure it out yourself and stop making bedside the middle man.

while I feel your frustration....nurses are the middle man because we are the only ones who spend time with the patients.
Specializes in ICU.
I truly understand the frustrations, but I have to be honest...these types of discussions make me absolutely terrified of ever ending up as a patient on a med/ surg floor!

Don't be terrified - just be nice. And tell your family members to back off if they are harping on your nurse and he/she is looking very worn down. :)

Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

I love love love where I'm at now. I used to get nauseated the night before shifts at my last job...and I was just per diem!!!

One that I won't forget needed significant wound care (groin nec fasc). He would yell at me to work faster when tending to the wound, but then I wasn't being gentle enough. This was after properly pre-medicating him for pain etc. I gently but firmly told him that I *can* go a bit faster (obviously whipping through and doing a shoddy job wasn't an option), but the trade-off is it won't be as gentle; "given the choice, would you rather me be fast or gentle?" Yelled, "fast AND gentle!!" He was also on a fluid restriction but constantly thirsty, and the previous shift RN had done some math and told him how much he could drink and how often to stay within his restriction. Unfortunately her math was wrong. She didn't account for the 420 cc of fluids that came on each meal tray. :no: That was a fun one to explain.

Sounds like a change of setting is in order. I only read the first half of the replies, but see you love open hearts. Try to get into a CVICU!!! You will learn a ton, and my experience has been ICU families are very grateful. There's a few nuts in every cookie, but generally speaking you'll get a ton more respect.

Specializes in Acute Care - Adult, Med Surg, Neuro.

SERIOUSLY this story is no joke. We had a patient for months on end, in and out for pancreatitis flare ups. She was strict NPO except for "mouth swabs" i put that in quotations because that is what we call them. Every freaking 15 minutes she would scream from the top of her lungs "SWAAAABIE! SWABBIE!!!! I NEED SWABBIE! BRING BE SWABBIE. SWWWWWWAAAAABBBBIEEE" Perfectly capable of putting on call light asking for a mouth swab. The same time she was here we had a code blue from a open heart patient in the same hallway. and she is screaming SWAAAABBBBIEE!!! the entire time. we all ignored it, we were fed up with "swabbie lady." Finally one of the doctors in the code looked out of the room and yelled "SOMEONE GET THAT LADY A SWABBIE NOW. I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE!" welcome to our world Doctor! We explained to her another patient was in need of our care with urgent needs. "I don't care, i want my swabbie."

ugh.

LOL. Only in nursing.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Transplant.

Thankfully I wouldn't say I'm completely to the point of HATING my job, but recent (and rapid!) staffing cuts have made me like it a lot less. With literally 25%-30% more to do each day (combined with the fast pace of the discharge/admission cycle where I work) my patience is down while my anxiety/guilt are up. I have enough experience that prior to these cuts I typically went to work feeling like at least MOST days I could accomplish all necessary and important things...and maybe even have a few mins to spend with a patient who needed a bit more attention. Now those days seem to be gone. Still really like most of my coworkers but am growing extremely resentful that the current reality is goes something like the following: 1) Run around like a headless chicken 2) Discharge 3 (or 4!!) out of 5 patient and get them ALL back on your shift 3) Either scarf down lunch in 15-20mins or stay 30-45 mins late charting/catching up on random crap.

I do my best to stay calm and positive with patients and attempt to go the extra mile for them, but have been struggling a bit internally because like I said before, I'm privately getting quite resentful that my days now seem to mostly range from VERY BUSY to full-on chaos. And yes, I know I might be burnt out...thankfully should be transitioning to a new job away from my current environment in less than a year.

Thanks to all for letting me rant! :nurse:

yup, I hate my job

Been an RN for 2 years.. Worked level I Trauma ER and now CVSICU...

Hate both of them for different reasons, and like aspects of each for different reasons..

Im just tired of working my ass off, hardly getting a break, Working weekends, holidays, and rotating night/day shift and no way to increase your pay

Tired of seeing my friends make more than me, not be tired, get bonuses, and granted raises because "they thought they deserved one"

It saddens me.. it really does. I am damn good at what I do, and its a shame I feel I can no longer happily do this profession.

yup I hate my job Been an RN for 2 years.. Worked level I Trauma ER and now CVSICU... Hate both of them for different reasons, and like aspects of each for different reasons.. Im just tired of working my ass off, hardly getting a break, Working weekends, holidays, and rotating night/day shift and no way to increase your pay Tired of seeing my friends make more than me, not be tired, get bonuses, and granted raises because "they thought they deserved one" It saddens me.. it really does. I am damn good at what I do, and its a shame I feel I can no longer happily do this profession.[/quote']

What do your friends do for a living?? Sign me up!!

What do your friends do for a living?? Sign me up!!
. No kidding eh?!They are staffing recruiters for engineering firms. Basically finding engineers jobs, and the rest of his company does all the interviewing , benefits etc... I almost am about to tell him to sign me up lol

I'm so much happier since I started my new job without direct patient contact. The lack of shiftwork helps too.

. No kidding eh?!They are staffing recruiters for engineering firms. Basically finding engineers jobs and the rest of his company does all the interviewing , benefits etc... I almost am about to tell him to sign me up lol[/quote']

Ya know, I wonder if travel nurse recruiters receive the same kind of perks as your fortunate friends...I've been tempted to investigate it, but then I worry it's even more about 'the bottom/company line' than the damn hospitals.

Maybe Nursing's problem lies in the fact that no matter how hard we work to save/help/keep comfortable/kiss ass to the patient population, the hospital is reimbursed the same and therefore has no incentive to pay us more for our grand services.

Ugh. Lol

I am so thankful for allnurses and posts like this. I think these sentiments are really shared by the majority of inpatient nurses. I often suggest to younger nursing or pre-nursing students (with high GPAs) to go into an alternate profession, like pharmacy. I also think the original poster's comments are very specific to tele/step-down floors which are notoriously chaotic and stressful. And I say I'm thankful for these posts it is because reading allnurses over the past couple years, helped me realize my feelings about the profession were not unique, that it was stressful and undesirable. I work ICU currently, but am hoping to soon transition out of the hospital. There are people who do inpatient care as a lie-long career, but most of us know it is not a job to do when we get over 45 or 50. I have noticed that the people MOST satisfied with inpatient nursing are moms. Especially younger moms, because the schedule is so advantageous to family time. And in many places the pay is not commensurate with the difficulty of the job.

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