You can always tell when I've been hanging out on the Allnurses.com forums too much -- I get up on a soap box. I'm amazed, though, at how many new nurses are grasping at straws to find "reasons" to quit their first jobs because they're unhappy and they're just positive that things are going to be better elsewhere. Even if there is no elsewhere in the immediate future. It's not THEIR fault that they're miserable -- it's the job. Or their co-workers are all mean and out to get them. (Probably because of their incredible beauty.) Staffing is a nightmare, the CNAs are all hiding and they're afraid they're going to "loose" their license. They'd better quit RIGHT NOW, so they don't "loose" that license. (I wonder if that one is as transparent to spouses who are looking for a little help with the rent -- not to mention those school loans you've racked up -- as it is to some of the rest of us.) The job is ruining their lives and their mental health -- they're seriously worried for their mental health if they don't quit right now. Where did all of these fragile people come from?
Seriously, folks. The first year of nursing sucks. You have the internet and all of that -- how could you not know that the first year of nursing sucks? It does. We've all been through it. The only way to GET through it is to GO through it, but there's a big group of newbies every year who are SURE that doesn't apply to them. No one as ever been as miserable as they are. No one understands. They HATE going to work every day. Management is targeting them and they're sure they're going to be fired. They're concerned that their mental health might be permanently damaged by the trauma of staying in that job ONE MORE DAY. Given the inevitability of "loosing" that license and permanent damage to their mental health, it's all right to quit that job tomorrow, isn't it? Or maybe it's that their DREAAAAAAAAM job is opening up, and they've been offered the job. It's OK to quit this job to take their DREAAAAAAAAM job, isn't it?
How do they even know their dream job is hiring if they have every intention of making their first job work out? What are all those job applications doing out there, floating around if they're serious about this job? You DID intend to keep this job for one to two years when you took it, didn't you? If not, shame on you!
The first year of nursing sucks. You're going to hate going to work every day, and some of you are going to cry all the way to work and all the way home. You'll be exhausted, both mentally and physically and your normal hobbies and activities may take second seat to the job. You'll be constantly afraid of making a mistake, and you will MAKE mistakes. You'll feel incompetent. You may lose sleep because you're worrying about your job. Switching jobs isn't going to miraculously make you confident and competent. It's just going to delay you on your path through that first miserable year. It may even look bad on your resume, paint you as a job hopper. (I'm always shocked by how many new nurses are on their third or fourth job in less than two years who will assure me that they're not job hoppers. Honey, if you're on your third job in less than two years, you're a job hopper. Really.)
Don't people have bills to pay? Or is it that no one feels responsible for paying their own bills anymore? How is it that so many people feel free to just up and quit a paying job without another one in sight? I guess I'm getting old, because I really don't get it.
I reach my one year mark next week, and thank heavens for this website. The frank, no-nonsense crusty old bats (and I say this with great affection) prepared me well. So much of the "horror" of the first year can be dealt with by simply changing your perspective. While there were a few speedbumps, I can honestly say that the first year of nursing has been pretty awesome for me. I haven't encountered one "new grad-eating bridge troll" nurse thus far. I'm pretty committed to starting shifts with, "Hey, I'm _____, nice to meet you. I'm still a little wet behind the ears, so I might have some questions for you, and if you see me do something stupid, feel free to whap me upside the head. Let me know if I can give you a hand with (insert annoying menial task here)." If I have downtime, I always ask if anyone needs a hand, and if there are communal tasks, I try to hop on those to show I'm a team player.
Pretty much though, I just try to do the following:
I rebrand all criticism as valuable feedback rather than trying to categorize it as "nice" or "mean."
I thank every person who tells me I do something wrong/stupid.
I am up front about what I don't know, and actively ask for help or advice when I need it
I am NICE AS PIE to everyone I work with, from CNAs to RT to staffing (Oh Lord, especially staffing) to HR.
I understand that I need to keep my lofty goals to myself (Telling someone you want to be a CRNA will only induce eye-rolling)
I have decided that feeling sorry for myself is against my religion.
On my last shift it will take every fiber of my being to not blast that old country song Take this Job and Shove It out my car speakers as I tear out of the parking ramp.[/quote']
Hey Pink!
Rough start. One big difference is that you've yet to quit one job before finding another right? In my worst job hopping days I still would work both jobs for a few weeks (usually one PRN status) before "taking the other foot off". Weekend plan rocks! I've been on it for several years and it has padded my paychecks extremely well.
Wow, what a rant! One shoe does not fit all. I've been in nursing since 2006. As a private duty home health nurse and previous med surge nurse, I can promise you every job ends up sucking even if it was great in the beginning. My point, it is not about being a new grad, it is the profession. Underpaid, unappreciated, must work 12 hours shift, cancelled shift, using PTO (if you get it) to fund the cancelled shifts, must plan when you are going to be sick...no calling out!, omg, the list could go on. Why nursing? For me, what use to be "I want to make a difference" is now "how do I get the biggest BUCK for my services?") It's the struggle folks. No compassion for nurses, yet nurses MUST be Mother Teresa. Really, before you go into nursing, do your homework!
Seriously? I hope to high heaven that you've been hacked or some other reasonable explantion for saying you want to work where the patient is unresponsive and you don't have to interact with them or their family members! Oy!
I quit my first job after 6 months to take another god forsaken medsurg job in a bigger city, the only reason was to move into big city for better job. Let me ask you OP, have you even hated your job? Lol, I mean, I am wondering what kind of departments you have worked at. I am plan to quit here after my 6 months so I can transfer within the hospital to somewhere where the pt is knocked out and I don't have to talk to them or the family member. So shame on me for not holding on for 1-2 yrs hating my job and my life.
Anyway, what kind of job do YOU have? If it's some kind of hotsy totsy easy job, I will not accept you for writing this ridiculous thread. Unlike you, I am determined to find a workplace that I really enjoy and love, and by no means I am sticking out more than I need to in order to achieve that "DREEEEEEEEEEAM" job which seems so infantile and worthless to you. Thanks for the laughs, but this was pretty ugly thread.
You can go back to the 1970's, 1980's or whenever and find that nurses ranging from GN to seasoned RNs with years of experience under their belts had some very bad names for their employers. In terms of treatment while things aren't orange blossoms everywhere, they are by and large streets ahead of the days when you could be gotten shot of by lunch time for say being caught not wearing a cap or because you told Dr. Dreamboat to keep his hands to himself.
I appreciate this. When I first started reading comments that stated nurses have it tougher now because it is all a "corporate" world I was wondering if anyone had any history of nursing classes?
Nurses weren't treated with much respect. It wasn't better in the olden days. We've come a long way baby.
Let's just start with training to be a nurse in 1884.
In nursing school I wasn't even taught how to use a MAR, so what do you think they taught me about the real world of nursing? And I was aged before I started nursing school, so the facts of life, even as they apply to nursing, should have been somewhat evident to me. As usual, Ruby, you are right on target. Within the past week or so, I was thinking similar thoughts myself. My client even told me today that she couldn't understand how my predecessor could say on one hand, how much they needed the job, yet on the other hand, they didn't want to get off their behind to do anything, (specifically, change the patient's diaper. Imagine that, a nurse gets paid to change the patient's soiled diapers, but the mother has to do it for her!). That nurse is now not working. I hope she has plans for her bills.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Preach it, Ruby!
I reach my one year mark next week, and thank heavens for this website. The frank, no-nonsense crusty old bats (and I say this with great affection) prepared me well. So much of the "horror" of the first year can be dealt with by simply changing your perspective. While there were a few speedbumps, I can honestly say that the first year of nursing has been pretty awesome for me. I haven't encountered one "new grad-eating bridge troll" nurse thus far. I'm pretty committed to starting shifts with, "Hey, I'm _____, nice to meet you. I'm still a little wet behind the ears, so I might have some questions for you, and if you see me do something stupid, feel free to whap me upside the head. Let me know if I can give you a hand with (insert annoying menial task here)." If I have downtime, I always ask if anyone needs a hand, and if there are communal tasks, I try to hop on those to show I'm a team player.
Pretty much though, I just try to do the following:
I rebrand all criticism as valuable feedback rather than trying to categorize it as "nice" or "mean."
I thank every person who tells me I do something wrong/stupid.
I am up front about what I don't know, and actively ask for help or advice when I need it
I am NICE AS PIE to everyone I work with, from CNAs to RT to staffing (Oh Lord, especially staffing) to HR.
I understand that I need to keep my lofty goals to myself (Telling someone you want to be a CRNA will only induce eye-rolling)
I have decided that feeling sorry for myself is against my religion.
What an excellent attitude!
You cannot change those around you, but you are the one in control of how you react to them.
Whether or not many new nurses believe it, most criticism is meant as valuable feedback, to help you improve your practice. Some of those nurses providing that feedback are better at it than others; being poor at providing feedback does not diminish the value of that feedback.
Being nice to everyone ought to be standard operating procedure -- but for every newbie I've seen complaining of being "bullied", I've seen one who didn't bother to be nice to someone.
If only everyone had your positive attitude, that miserable first year would be a thing of the past. I will freely admit that much of the misery of my own first year of nursing was self-induced. I didn't know how to work well with others. I would have complained of being bullied -- and there been an internet, an AllNurses, or someone to complain to. With time and perspective, I've realized that no one was bullying me -- I was just lost and feeling sorry for myself. Those "mean" nurses were simply trying to help me NOT kill my patients!
I think a large part of the problem (patient satisfaction surveys and corporatethink aside) is the pride some nurses have in being "crusty old bats". There seems to me to be a culture of "we had to put up with it/earn our places/kowtow to the system, so you must too". This in turn perpetuates the culture of bullying and meanness and stops nursing advancing as a profession. Do you see this with junior doctors/lawyers/engineers etc? Of course not.
Seriously, crusty old bats, get off your high horses/broomsticks/whatever you ride and knock it off. You are not helping.
Specializes in MCH,NICU,NNsy,Educ,Village Nursing.
Spidey's mom--I can remember a doc wanting a chart that I was sitting over a foot from, and he was standing about directly in front of the chart rack in which it was located. I pointed to the chart he was asking for, as I was doing my own documentation and kindly said "It's there." Well, I chuckle now, but at the time I wanted to bop him on his noggin....he rolled his eyes and did a "Huff" type noise as he reached in front of himself and grabbed the chart from the rack. That was the most empowered I ever felt in my early days of nursing.......especially after being from the school that said "when a doctor enters the charting area, you should give up your seat so that he/she may sit and chart. After all, they are busy and need to get to their offices." Or, some such nonsense......
nekozuki, LPN
356 Posts
Preach it, Ruby!
I reach my one year mark next week, and thank heavens for this website. The frank, no-nonsense crusty old bats (and I say this with great affection) prepared me well. So much of the "horror" of the first year can be dealt with by simply changing your perspective. While there were a few speedbumps, I can honestly say that the first year of nursing has been pretty awesome for me. I haven't encountered one "new grad-eating bridge troll" nurse thus far. I'm pretty committed to starting shifts with, "Hey, I'm _____, nice to meet you. I'm still a little wet behind the ears, so I might have some questions for you, and if you see me do something stupid, feel free to whap me upside the head. Let me know if I can give you a hand with (insert annoying menial task here)." If I have downtime, I always ask if anyone needs a hand, and if there are communal tasks, I try to hop on those to show I'm a team player.
Pretty much though, I just try to do the following:
I rebrand all criticism as valuable feedback rather than trying to categorize it as "nice" or "mean."
I thank every person who tells me I do something wrong/stupid.
I am up front about what I don't know, and actively ask for help or advice when I need it
I am NICE AS PIE to everyone I work with, from CNAs to RT to staffing (Oh Lord, especially staffing) to HR.
I understand that I need to keep my lofty goals to myself (Telling someone you want to be a CRNA will only induce eye-rolling)
I have decided that feeling sorry for myself is against my religion.