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.

Specializes in Emergency.

Dear OP....

Consider Emergency Nursing.

Specializes in Med/surg, Quality & Risk.
Oh dear. I don't understand how people do Ortho. We occasionally get overflow orthos (or if they have a cardiac condition then ortho unit refuses to take them). They are the most demanding patients in the world. I have no sympathy for their pain when they are like that.

I broke my arm in 5 places and had bones sticking out of my skin and i could STILL function in life and not act like a baby. Yea, it hurt but the world was not ending.

We occasionally get overflow orthos too...I love transferring them from stretcher to bed. "Now now WAIT A MINUTE WAIT A MINUTE! HOLD ON!" "Ma'am let go of the rail, we are going to pull you over and if you keep holding onto the rail you're going to hurt yourself and us too." "HOLD ON HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE!" On and on for 5-10 minutes, just for a bed transfer. It. Never. Fails.

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
If they press charges then if I was the CNA I would press charges against her for kicking me in the face. I wonder what the family would say to that.

I had a patient like this. He kicked the CNA in the stomach and then he started throwing stuff at the night shift nurse. I have a very commanding voice so I came with the Haldol and told him stop his behavior. I was giving him some IM haldol and he said he is calling the police because we are mistreating him. I handed him the phone and said go right ahead. And if you do I will tell them that you not only kicked 2 staff members, you were throwing things at us and tried to bite one of the nurses.

I'm still waiting for him to call the police.... And I barely heard a peep out of him the rest of the day. And this wasn't his first dose of haldol either.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

*** In my hospital that lady would have found herself in 4 point restrains so fast her head would spin. It is our policy that any A&O patient that hits, kicks, bites, or in any other way harms, or attempts to harm staff or other patients we call the cops and press charges exactly as if the incident had happend on the street between strangers. More than once I have seen patients discharged from the hospital into the custody of waiting police officers, or seen patients actually under arrest while still in the hospital.

Confused patient who harm or attempt to harm staff get physicialy restrained until (if) another solution can be found (drugs usually, or maybe have a family member a bedside or other ideas). I, as rapid response nurse, am authorized to restrain any patient I feel is a threat to themselves or others without a physicians order. Of course we have to get the physician involved and have to get an order eventualy but so long as I am personaly on the sceen I can restrain anyone I feel needs it. And I do.

On many occasons we have had patients call the police from their bed. Our local police simply call the unit and tell us about it. They never respond in person.

Specializes in Emergency Room, Trauma ICU.
No, i would never attack patients or familes verbally or physically. I like to THINK about it, and vent and curse about it when i get home. I like to vent to others who understand. When i come home and vent to my fiance, he just will look at me and be like "Oh. Ok. What should we have for dinner?"

I have better luck venting to my dog than to others who don't understand what its like. So I come here to vent. and vent to others who understand me, and can tell me im not a horrible person for thinking these things.

The lady i went off on that one day, ANY NURSE would have done what i did and majority would have probably done it alot sooner than me. I put up with it for 4 days and 12 hour shifts. I was fed up. Yes, looking back i should have requested not to be with that patient anymore to "share the love" with the others. But my charge nurse that day is a very touchy/feely nurse and she was like "I really truley feel you are making a connection with this family."....i put on a smile and did it. But i would never hurt anyone physically or verbally. I would never swear nor yell at anyone.

Would i tell them like it is? Of course, if it is needed. And any nurse should do that. We are advocates for our patients. She was getting in the way of me caring for my patient so i needed to tell her. Just the way it is.

I'm honest, i tell it like it is but i try to be respectful. I have the right to THINK what i want and vent when im away from them. there is alot in my mind i want to say to patients and families, but i don't do it. I come here to say it and get it off my mind. It makes me feel better. Try it sometime!!! Im pretty sure you are not 100% florence nightengale. Even Nurse Flo would not put up with some of the stuff we do. Enough said :)

I never said I was Florence Nightengale, I'm human with my faults. Just from everything YOU'VE said on here you sound very very angry and very unhappy. Unless you find a way, soon, to channel those feelings, I feel you're going to snap at work and either say something that will get you fired, or really lose it and hurt someone. Maybe all you need is a vacation to recenter yourself, or get a therapist, or start a journal so you can write out how you're feeling. Or quit and find a new career. Good luck.

Specializes in Intermediate care.
We occasionally get overflow orthos too...I love transferring them from stretcher to bed. "Now now WAIT A MINUTE WAIT A MINUTE! HOLD ON!" "Ma'am let go of the rail, we are going to pull you over and if you keep holding onto the rail you're going to hurt yourself and us too." "HOLD ON HOLD ON JUST A MINUTE!" On and on for 5-10 minutes, just for a bed transfer. It. Never. Fails.

hahahaha!!! so true. I'm the mean nurse and put the side rails down and im like "NOW LET GO!!!"

And here i am thinking our hospital attracts the crazys when it is clearly a problem nation-wide! and they are ALL THE SAME. You have to laugh at it.

Once had an ortho patient who refused to wear is ETC02 monitor for his PCA pump. So i finally got fed up with giving him the "talk" about why he needs to wear it. Finally i had it and i told him "Look. If you don't want to wear it that is fine. take it off...see what happens."

So he takes it off and his PCA pump paused and he was unable to push the button because of the emergency lock on it if it isn't sensing a breath. It beeeped and beeped and beeped for like 30 minutes (I had it so quite others couldn't here it). He had his call light on like 5 times in that 30 minutes for us to shut the beeping off.

My reply was "We have one of two options to stop the beeping. 1) You put your ETCO2 monitor back on or 2) we shut the PCA off. Let me know when you decide" he ended up putting the ETCO2 monitor back on and never complained about his ETC02 monitor again. Problem solved!

Specializes in Current: ER Past: Cardiac Tele.

OP, I know how you feel. I have seen MANY nurses who completely agree with you! And I was only in my first year of nursing and I was sick of babysitting these patients. For the most part, I can smile and bear it. I mean, everyone acts weird when they're in the hospital, right? Right? That's what I try and tell myself. After almost a year on a cardiac telemetry unit, I knew that if I stayed I would end up hating my job, since I was already leaning that way. So I changed it up! I went to the ER and I have been there almost a year, and I still love it!!! Why don't you go to critical care or emergency? It might be the new challenge you need. And you get sick patients. Though in the ER, there are MANY patients who are not sick and are playing with the system, but it's always a good story ;)

Specializes in Intermediate care.

I feel like critical care would be more up my alley. Because, this is how i see it. Once a patient gets to a general floor like mine it usually means the patients condition is improving. Then this is when families get demanding because they think they know it all. Sometimes they know JUST ENOUGH to be annoying, but not enough to make sense to us. They pick up on medical lingo that means absolutley nothing to them.

Once had a patients husband ask me "What was her GFR today?" i was like "Do you know what GFR is?" his reply..."no"

They pick up on that lingo from them being in the ICU. when a patient is in ICU they have 23940293 lines hooked up, monitors beeping, alarms going off. Families are like deer in headlights on a critical care unit. They don't question you and are more likely to keep their mouth shut because they know absolutley nothing (unless they are healthcare professionals).

i could totally be wrong, but fromt he times i have floated to critical care that is how i see it. (Our unit is the only unit that is able to float to critical care to take care of the overflow patients until beds open up so i've been there).

Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

I love my job and I love my confused patients.I love working bedside.

Specializes in Critical Care.
I love my job and I love my confused patients.I love working bedside.

For those of you that love working with confused patients please let your coworkers know! They will love you for taking them off their shoulders. Some people do handle confused people well. I'm not one of them! God bless you if you can handle the confused and demented patients!

Haha. Oh God the swabbie story was just too much. I laughed and laughed. It's easy to laugh about work stuff when I'm not at work. Guarantee you I'll be ready to smack a freakshow by tomorrow night though. Which is when I return to the nuthouse.

Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.
For those of you that love working with confused patients please let your coworkers know! They will love you for taking them off their shoulders. Some people do handle confused people well. I'm not one of them! God bless you if you can handle the confused and demented patients!

About half to three quarters of our floor is confused.lol

The Day I Started to Hate My Job: A patient throttled me. His effort to kill me was unsuccessful but it made an impression on my neck and on my mind. I've been spit on, kicked, hit; never bitten though.

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