CNA vs. Fast food: Which is tougher?

[Beldar_the_Cenobite]

I currently work fast food, is being a CNA tougher than working fast food? Where I work it's a high volume restaurant. I'm not going to say everyone there is the quickest on their feet when there is a huge demand but tonight I got sent home early for the night because I guess I'm not good enough for what they needed while our system went down. I'm so ready for CNA school. I hope if I can find a job that it wont be like my experience where I work now.

Does anyone have experience in both areas? I try my best to move with a sense of urgency and still know how to do my job with what I know in how I was trained.

Would you rather work fast food or keep your CNA job?

[MountainBikeChick]

If you consider CNA work to be "low of a decision", I'd like to request you not do it and stick with the fast food job that you're finding difficult to handle. (I worked at Jack in the Box when I was 14 for a year and managed to handle it easily...) You'll likely not treat your patients with the dignity and respect they deserve. You think they like you wiping poop of their butt or needing someone to feed them after being independent for 70 years because they had a stroke? CNA work is not "below" nursing - it's the basic foundation of what nursing is! As a nurse I wipe just as many butts as a CNA does.

[SororAKS, ADN, RN]

I worked at both before becoming an RN. When I did consider becoming a CNA, my mother (a practicing nurse) told me it wasn't about the benefits or pay; it was about treating people with dignity and respect when they are having the worst day of their lives, or a life altering heart attack, or being incontinent of urine or stool or both when they have been fastidious their entire lives, or when they are spitting/cussing/swearing at you because they are acutely intoxicated/drugged up following a car accident. It's about being there for others when they are desperate, lonely, dying, and afraid; and its about doing a balancing act to care for many of these at once for hours on end with irregular lunch or dinner breaks or even a trip to the bathroom.

Just something to think about.

[Raven Sierra, BSN, RN]

I've done both - fast food for 7 years (high school and 1st time through college) and CNA for 3 years. CNA is harder, by far, IMO.

With fast food, your customers usually leave fairly shortly; with CNA work, you will probably have the same patients throughout your shift, maybe even for months or years, depending on your particular place of work. CNA work is harder physically and mentally - you lift patients who may weigh twice or three times what you do, you have to recognize abnormal symptoms and report them, you are partially responsible for a person's well-being. If you don't turn them, they may develop pressure ulcers. If you don't feed them, they may not eat. I'm not belittling fast food work, but CNAs have a lot more responsibility riding on them.

That said, I'm appreciative for my time as a CNA. The experience has been invaluable in nursing clinicals.

If you want experience in the field before you enter nursing and if you want to network for good nursing position after graduation, choose CNA. If you're just looking for a job, I'd stick with fast food. If you're looking at CNA for the pay only, stick with fast food. Just my two cents.