Stop complaining about your job - It could be worse.

Nurses Rock Toon

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  • Specializes in CCU, Geriatrics, Critical Care, Tele.

You are reading page 2 of Stop complaining about your job - It could be worse.

Sadala, ADN, RN

356 Posts

Specializes in Med Surg.

Everything's relative. Sure, it can always be worse (for anyone in any situation). That doesn't mean that people's feelings about their current situation are invalid.

On the other hand... If you are a big whiny baby about the normal minutiae of life, that can get a little annoying.

What am I trying to say? There's a balance. Good to find it.

BSNbeauty, BSN, RN

1,939 Posts

I agree that everyone is replaceable however, it doesn't mean employers will get a competent nurse to fill a spot. I've gone to work for some facilities that were filled with "warm bodies". Sometimes employers do suffer when we quit.

Specializes in Medical Oncology, Alzheimer/dementia.

You just have to make sure you complain/vent to the right people. My husband & my mom are understanding, but that's about it. Anyone else would tell me be glad I have a job. And I am thankful to have a job, because just a few short months ago I was let go from my 1st nursing job.

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
Everything's relative. Sure, it can always be worse (for anyone in any situation). That doesn't mean that people's feelings about their current situation are invalid.

On the other hand... If you are a big whiny baby about the normal minutiae of life, that can get a little annoying.

What am I trying to say? There's a balance. Good to find it.

^Agree.

mappers

437 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Onc.

I'm getting a little tired of the "this economy" thing too. Corporate profits and Wall Street are doing very well, it just isn't trickling down to the worker though. The fat cats are sitting on their money waiting for....I don't know what. Makes me sick.

sneeds

134 Posts

I watched this and thought it was very good. Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare

sneeds

134 Posts

I don't feel it's an attitude thing with the scene I work within. I hardly get a chance to educate with all the changing orders relative to md's rounding times and all the intervention tests - when patients have to leave unit and all the pre procedure orders there within. OK ... stop... the bottom line is that I feel that I, my team and my doctors and their assistants have way too many patients to handle to answer to the upper management gameplan to keep our patients safe and within our scope of practice. You know what? This practice is in direct contradiction to what we teach to our patients. Too much stress on our healthcare team to live up to the profit making machine of upper management's war with the insurance companies!

sneeds

134 Posts

It's time we take care our our patients as well as ourselves. I read so much about fear about this basic tenet.

CloudySue

710 Posts

Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.

Before I went back to school for nursing, I was an elementary school teacher. I was a per diem substitute teacher for several years in many, many local schools and had to listen to daily complaint sessions in the teacher's lounge. I'd sit there with my lunch, quiet, while tenured teachers would go on and on about whatever was bugging them that day. I was a sub making less than $100/day, no benefits, no union representation, no guarantee I'd work tomorrow. I always wanted to speak up and tell them how lucky they were, and if every single one of them was fired tomorrow, the schools could have the entire school restaffed by noon with restaurant servers and pizza delivery drivers all armed with BSEd's and certifications. It's just not classy to complain about job dissatisfaction in front of people with NO job.

BrandonLPN, LPN

3,358 Posts

The "just be thankful to have a job" mantra is exactly what upper management wants us to say.

I'm a government employee in a union with great benefits and I make at least $5 more an hour than my LPN compatriots who work in local private nursing homes. I'm proud of this and see no reason why I should be discrete about it. And I see no reason why "market wages" should convince me to accept a penny lessor make a single concession.

When did words like "tenure" or "pension" or "union" become synonymous with "greed"? The real greed is in the politicians and business leaders who have systematically smashed almost everything the labor movement fought tooth and nail for.

I'll complain about working conditions whenever I see fit. I don't view my job as a privilege bestowed upon me. What an absurd way of thinking.

Ntheboat2

366 Posts

One of my RN co-workers was talking about all the bills she had to pay/repairs she had to do at her house in front of a patient one day. It wasn't really that unprofessional in the setting we are in because that's mostly what we do in psych is talk to patients and sometimes they get tid-bits of what's going on in our lives. The guy was talking about his wife working and things they had done around the house which is what brought it up.

Except...he had just lost his job. That's partly why he ended up in our psych facility was the depression that stemmed from losing his job. So, after she ranted for a few seconds about her bills, etc., he says, "Well, at least you have a job." It kind of puts things in perspective.

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.
One of my RN co-workers was talking about all the bills she had to pay/repairs she had to do at her house in front of a patient one day. It wasn't really that unprofessional in the setting we are in because that's mostly what we do in psych is talk to patients and sometimes they get tid-bits of what's going on in our lives. The guy was talking about his wife working and things they had done around the house which is what brought it up.

Except...he had just lost his job. That's partly why he ended up in our psych facility was the depression that stemmed from losing his job. So, after she ranted for a few seconds about her bills, etc., he says, "Well, at least you have a job." It kind of puts things in perspective.

^This post reminded me of a nurse I worked with that ALWAYS complained from the assignment she got, the pt's diagnoses, that made her job "so much harder" (this was a Tele/Stepdown unit that she had been working on for 15 years at the time) complained about the schedule she got (which was self scheduled) complained about other people's schedules.

One day she started her regular distaste of what she didn't like. I turned to her and said "It must be something you like about being here; otherwise why are you here?" Now, this was when I had been five years into the healthcare arena and was studying for my boards for my PN at the time...maybe I was naive, or maybe I wanted her to stop complaining, lol...I worked with the woman for two years on and off. That stopped her in her tracks. She said to me, "maybe I do..." After that conversation, she really didn't have much to complain about.

I'm not sure what she had going on in her life...maybe nursing is what she had to keep her going...*shrugs* I just know that day she put my question in perspective about her own happiness.

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