Quitting without a notice

[turnforthenurse]

I'm looking for some advice on this.

I currently have an interview coming up and if I feel like the place is the right fit for me and they offer me the job, I will take it in a heartbeat.

I haven't given my 2 week notice to my current employer yet. I'm waiting until I have something lined up before doing so. I don't think I can last another 2 weeks at my current place of employment. Staffing issues are a problem everywhere but I have been placed in unsafe situations where I am taking care of very high acuity patients that is putting my license in jeopardy. There a bunch of other reasons as well but that is the number one reason why I want to quit without notice.

So would you quit in my situation? Have you ever quit without a notice? I know they say to never burn your bridges but I highly doubt I will be working for this company ever again.

Thanks!

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

So yea, I am gonna stick to my guns and say, GIVE NOTICE.

Nursing is a smaller world than you ever can suspect. People know people.

Even across country as more people relocate or go to online classes with one another. The world is getting smaller every day!

[BSNbeauty, BSN, RN]

Nope. Me leaving without notice has not impacted my career ( as of now). I've since gotten my act together and found a decent facility to work for. In April it will be three years.....

[Postpartum RN]

Nursing IS a small world. If you don't believe me, here's a story:

I moved from a small midwestern community to the east coast and applied for a job in a famous teaching hospital on their oncology floor. It was my dream job at the time. The nurse manager interviewing me was a graduate of my school -- two or three years ahead of me. Small world, right? She took note of my then-name and said "Ruby Jones . . . are you related to Dr. Jones?"

I said yes, without clarifying that he was my father-in-law.

"Oh," she said. "I dated your brother the last year I was in school."

She hadn't dated my brother, she had dated my HUSBAND both before and after we were married. I think the look on my face must have said it all. The conversation and the interview ended with a thud. I didn't get that job.

A few years later, I moved to the WEST coast. While there, I met a guy who was in management and had gone to school at the University of Small Midwestern State about the time I was working in their teaching hospital and dating my ex-husband. While chatting, it came up that he had graduated from nursing school and had done clinicals in the MICU, where I worked. He told me all about the hilarious graduation party he had attended and even dragged me off to his office so I could see a picture of all of the male students in his class attending the party in drag. There he was, in the middle of the group, standing right next to my ex-husband. Small world.

And then when I moved back to the east coast, a nurse I had worked with on the west coast (she was a traveler) was DON at a facility I was interested in.

When my father was a patient in a small midwestern hospital, his nurse was someone I went to school with about 500 miles from there and the manager was someone I had worked with in a different town about 100 miles from there.

When I was on the west coast, the hospital hired a new medical director. It turns out he was someone I had worked with on the east coast and with whom I'd had a major conflict. Fortunately, with 20/20 hindsight, he had decided that I was in the right. An intern that I worked with in the midwest was a cardiology fellow when I worked on the east coast, an attending when I worked on the west coast and when my father was hospitalized in the midwest (a different city and hospital system), he was medical director of the unit.

You can always run into someone who can out you as a bridge burner.

Wow, point taken.

[beckyboo1, BSN, RN]

My thought is that yes, you can leave without notice but who is to say that down the road you won't decide to interview for another job and when you go for the interview, BAM, there is one of the managers from the place your ran out on, who has since taken a job with the company you want to work for.

[dreamer30]

Everyone is right!! Definitely give notice buuutttttt.... what is your call in policy? Honestly if I had a night how you described... I would call off for a couple of days (or whatever your facility allows). You need a little vacation after that. If you plan on leaving you really don't need the PTO and let the points rack up. You won't be there to get the written warning (maybe).

I know it sounds horrible but nurses do it all the time. Sounds like your job is stressful and you don't want to become that nurse that cries before her shift everyday. I'm a big believer of taking care of self 1st.

[danielle2000, MSN, RN]

I say if you are definitely not going to return to that employer, quit! I have resigned from one of my jobs and was hired years later because I did leave on good terms. You have to do what is in the best interest of your career. If nurses chooses to work in crappy conditions how is that leaving them in a bind? They are putting themselves in a bind working in facilities that do no value them for the start. I presently like where I work but if there are no positions for NPs I would graciously give them a month notice for good measure.

[sissiesmama, ASN, RN]

If you do leave without notice, do not tell a soul where you will be working. Your management will most certainly call their management and say negative things about you. You could lose that new opportunity and find yourself unemployed.

I have turned in my badge at the end of a shift in a dangerous situation and said I won't be coming back. All nurses should have another job to fall back on, even if you just work there one day a month.

This! One reason behind this is no matter how large a city u live in, the medical community is a lot smaller. Word gets from one facility to another, can happen innocently enough - didn't believe it until I saw it happen to an old co-worker who didn't just burn a bridge, she stuck some C4 under that sucker and lit the fuse.

Anne, RNC

[FeleciaSmith]

I wasn't saying that I think the grass is greener elsewhere. I have plenty of questions that I have prepared to ask the unit manager during my interview.

Thanks.

Questions don't answer the feel of the unit the work place politics. What makes the job you have suck? Have fun and so what's best for you.

[FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN]

Give notice. When talking to your new employer, your old employer cannot say much about you. They can't give an opinion on your work ethic, say they thought you were a witch, etc, because you could sue them and you would win. They are limited to when you started, your wage, your reason for leaving including whether or not you gave notice. It makes you look bad to leave without notice. It's not about burning the bridge back to this employer, it's about burning the bridge to other places you want to go.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Everyone is right!! Definitely give notice buuutttttt.... what is your call in policy? Honestly if I had a night how you described... I would call off for a couple of days (or whatever your facility allows). You need a little vacation after that. If you plan on leaving you really don't need the PTO and let the points rack up. You won't be there to get the written warning (maybe).

I know it sounds horrible but nurses do it all the time. Sounds like your job is stressful and you don't want to become that nurse that cries before her shift everyday. I'm a big believer of taking care of self 1st.

My facility operates on a "point" system...if you call in (no matter what the reason is) you get points and after a certain amount of points they will result to disciplinary action. They're pretty stingy with the amount of points you're allowed to have, too.

I've never actually called out for a mental health day or whatever. Although it's very tempting at this facility I work at now, it's just not me.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

Nursing IS a small world. If you don't believe me, here's a story:

I moved from a small midwestern community to the east coast and applied for a job in a famous teaching hospital on their oncology floor. It was my dream job at the time. The nurse manager interviewing me was a graduate of my school -- two or three years ahead of me. Small world, right? She took note of my then-name and said "Ruby Jones . . . are you related to Dr. Jones?"

I said yes, without clarifying that he was my father-in-law.

"Oh," she said. "I dated your brother the last year I was in school."

She hadn't dated my brother, she had dated my HUSBAND both before and after we were married. I think the look on my face must have said it all. The conversation and the interview ended with a thud. I didn't get that job.

A few years later, I moved to the WEST coast. While there, I met a guy who was in management and had gone to school at the University of Small Midwestern State about the time I was working in their teaching hospital and dating my ex-husband. While chatting, it came up that he had graduated from nursing school and had done clinicals in the MICU, where I worked. He told me all about the hilarious graduation party he had attended and even dragged me off to his office so I could see a picture of all of the male students in his class attending the party in drag. There he was, in the middle of the group, standing right next to my ex-husband. Small world.

And then when I moved back to the east coast, a nurse I had worked with on the west coast (she was a traveler) was DON at a facility I was interested in.

When my father was a patient in a small midwestern hospital, his nurse was someone I went to school with about 500 miles from there and the manager was someone I had worked with in a different town about 100 miles from there.

When I was on the west coast, the hospital hired a new medical director. It turns out he was someone I had worked with on the east coast and with whom I'd had a major conflict. Fortunately, with 20/20 hindsight, he had decided that I was in the right. An intern that I worked with in the midwest was a cardiology fellow when I worked on the east coast, an attending when I worked on the west coast and when my father was hospitalized in the midwest (a different city and hospital system), he was medical director of the unit.

You can always run into someone who can out you as a bridge burner.

Wow!

Thanks for all of your replies, everybody. I'm going to go the right route and put in my 2 weeks. Once I have something else lined up, that is.

[NickiLaughs, ADN, BSN, RN]

So slightly different but I accepted a job offer but then received an offer at a much higher paying/better hospital system. I called the other facility the Friday before I was supposed to start and apologized as it wouldn't have been worth their while to put me through a weeks orientation and then leave for another position. The sad part was it was a rather large hospital system, and while I'll never work for them for a bit we thought about moving to an area where they predominantly owned all the hospitals. Sadly, I'm not sur if she put me as a do not hire or not, but if she had it could have potentially limited me down the road.

i totally get how you feel, I've worked at terrible places and they were shocked when I'd show up for my last day. If you feel that uncomfortable and if your license is in jeopardy then go ahead and put in your two weeks now.