Financial crunch. Need part-time job.

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I need to find a job to pay my rent & food bill. Everything else is covered with my college loan & credit cards. I'm in an accelerated BSN program so it takes up time. My schedule is like this:

Mon & Tues: Class 8am - 5pm

Wed, Thur, Fri: Clinicals 7am - 2pm

Accelerated programs cram two years of nursing training into one year. That is why the schedule is so killer. As you guys can imagine, I don't have a lot of time, so I was thinking about a weekend or evening type job.

Anyway I'm looking to make $8 - $12 an hour. I have a friend making $12 an hour walking dogs! :eek: Too bad I'm too broke to afford a frickin' car or I'd walk dogs too. As for my resume, I am pitifully unskilled. I wish I did waitressing when I was younger instead of retail. Retail in my area pays only $6 an hour.

Since school is a 40 hour a week job, I can only work part time. I am free 4 - 11 pm on Wed, Thur & Fri and weekends are wide open.

While the job exp. would be great, I want to avoid hospital work for 2 reasons:

1) After clinicals I am sore. I can handle a job that is physical labor, but not the same labor as clinicals (eg. moving patients)

2) I have 16 hrs of nursing class, 21 hours of clinical, and about 8 hours of homework a week. The last thing I want to do is add more nursing related stuff to my schedule. I need a change of pace.

My program strongly discourages working, but I think they'd strongly discourage living in a shelter while in nursing school. Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated. Except for the fear that I won't be able to pay my rent on Feb 1st, I'm pretty relaxed about the money crunch b/c I know that I'll be making a decent living as a nurse next year.

Thanks for any help you can offer. Have a safe holiday.

Caroline

Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Peds, LDRP.

MelD....

THANKS for confessing!! LOL:) I know for a fact people do this all the time and they do it for jobs a lot more prestigious than waitressing! I wouldnt have thought of it, but several ppl Ive talked to about jobs told me I should...lol, so Im thinking, why not? Its just waitressing, not brain surgery, right? and if they did catch u, what would they really do besides not hire you or fire u later? u dont have to use it for a reference anyway. I live in Central FL and used to live in east TN so my plan is to say I waitressed at this italian food/pizza place that I remember burned down. sometimes u gotta do what ya gotta do....

on another note, I saw this place on monster.com that is hiring for waitresses and hostesses for a mens club (not a strip club but Im sure its close to it!) and u get $24.50 and hr, no tipping allowed, and a $500 a month clothing allowance! Im not really comfortable walking around in slutty clothes for my job, but if times get really hard..........................:roll

:chuckle

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Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

luv4nursing,

When I was 18 and lived in Houston, I worked at one of the higher class strip clubs as a cocktail waitress. I wore a decent amount of clothing and the work was easy, physically (mentally..well, that was a different story). I only made $2.13 an hour, but pulled in an average of $200 a night in tips. There were nights when the dancers were more than generous with me and I would walk with more than some of the dancers did! But I could only deal with the crap for about 6 months and then I had to quit. Watching what went on and seeing all the problems most of these girls had was enough for me to overlook the money I was making.

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Melanie--you have a stronger stomach than I do. I could never work in one of those places. Just thinking about it gives me the willies!! One of my former roommates was a stripper and it was sad the stories she told about her co-workers and how everyone assumed she was a prostitute. Also it seemed a lot of them would smoke crack 'just to get through the night'.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Tele, Peds, LDRP.

Melanie,

you seem like the coolest person! Ive related to a lot of your posts and u look like a girl I would hang out with(like what time will I have to hang out in nursing school though, huh??? lol). congrats on your new job, u go!

Yeah, you are right about waitressing in the mens club scene. I was half joking, but its true it would be a last resort if I really needed the money. One of my friends say that it would be too easy to get used to the good money and get "caught up" in that lifestyle. A lot of other, not so legal things are going on behind the scenes at those places, which is something I definitely want no part of. Plus Im a really passive person, so I dont know how I would handle a lot of men making rude comments or trying to touch me. It would get to me, unlike some people who could just play along or cuss them out....lol:) just curious though, how did they ask for you to dress or was it a uniform you wore there? I mean is it the type of stuff u would wear out to a club or skimpier than that? If Im going out to a club, Ill usually wear a halter top or half top, usually with black "club pants" or a skirt....Im just wondering if thats what you would wear or if thats considered conservative in a place like that. Im not the type who is comfortable going around half naked....haha.

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Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

luv4 nursing,

I wore a little black miniskirt, black nylons, black heels, a black push up bra, and this really pretty black and gold beaded vest over my bra. We had the option of wearing just a g-string instead of the skirt, but I chose the skirt. We also were given the option of wearing a black tank top, but I did find I made more money when I wore the black push up bra.

It took me several weeks to get used the environment. I think my first night was spent pressed up against the wall, wishing I could become invisible. I couldn't believe all the women who were just walking around half naked. But after a while, I became good friends with a few of them (the normal ones..not the screwed up ones). But it was difficult as some of the men didn't understand my job title was "Cocktail waitress" and not "Stripper". And the girls were always really nice when it came to tipping. I would get tipped out at the end of the night if I sent them to a high paying customer (I kind of felt like a pimp if you must know).

It was a fun experience, but not one I would want to go through again.

And the other poster is right...there is a lot of alcohol abuse and drug abuse in that world. A lot of the girls "needed" it to get through the night. And the men that run those places are pigs (for the most part). They think women are nothing but boobs and an a**. Definitely not something I enjoyed putting up with...I demand a bit more respect than that. :D

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Waiting tables is an option but it can be a bit physical and stressful, depending on where you work. Hosting is easier, and pays less, but it may help take some of the edge off without being too much of an intrusion on your studies and clinicals. You could probably pick out a few restaurants near school or where you live and strike up a conversation with one of the managers, or to the staff (bartenders and servers can be insightful).

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I'm entering my second semester of nursing school and work part-time in a family restaurant as a waitress. There's been loads of nights I've worked for only 5-6 hours and walked out with $150. There's been some nights I've walked out with only $15! With waitressing you never know how well (or how badly you're going to do) but it still beats working retail. When I started waitressing I was very much the newbie....However, trust me, you learn. And the money? Even on the nights when you don't do so well, you make it up on another night so it all balances out.

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