Changing to a non-nursing career? - page 3

I too am on the constant look out for a non nursing position because I to am tired of the treatment we older experienced nurses are receiving at the hands of these clinical employers. The disrespect, the pure selfishness, the stress and health issues this kind of treatment brings on is not worth it.

Being a older nurse with 32 yrs of experience dooms one into one continous temp/time limiting job after another for all the worn out posted reasons here on AN. The stints on unemployment between these positions are emotionally and financially draining. One just gets out of the financial abyss when the position ends and it is followed by a 1 1/2-2 month stint on unemployment again and it's start all over again.

The discriminatory practices in nursing is rampant. Especially the ageism. If a nurse speaks out or reports on any kind of discrimination at their workplace, they are retailated against and terminated. Retaliation is another reportable offense and in other industries it brings big paydaysin the form of lawsuits. In nursing it is swept under the rug. No Nursing power house seems to moving in any direction to purge the profession of these practices. The metro areas of the country are the worst offenders.

I would love to get in a financial position where I could get a position in an legal office or a any business office non nursing related such as a home improvement store, any where, just to see if this kind of behavior goes on there.
It has left me unenthusiatic toward nursing. Not the expectation of nursing academia's whitepapers (related to older experienced nurses being kept in the profession) they planned on. And to that end I know i am not alone.

You took the words right out of my mouth. I have been brainstorming and am even forming a group that encourages each other about ways to strengthen ourselves and move on from our nursing jobs. For the most part it seems that hospital nurses are THE MOST unhappy of all the nurses. One good thing about nursing is the alternatives you have to move around to different areas whereas if you were an accountant, well you would be accounting somewhere. Let me know if you come up with a better alternative.

I hope to change to a non-nursing job someday soon. Or at least a non-hospital nursing job. I haven't even been doing this very long, but I know its not for me. I've even found myself daydreaming about my old crappy retail/restaurant jobs lately. I wish I'd listened to those voices in my head telling me it wasn't a good fit during school, but practicality won out I guess.