For "Second Career" Nurses

[Mom2Chaos]

As I read the threads, there seems to be a common concern about the "dog eat dog" tension between colleagues and some general dissatisfaction with employers. I am curious, do you that have worked in other professions prior to joining nursing feel that the environment is far worse and more stressful, or is it not unlike "any" organization, where there are several dynamics and personalities at work.

As a pre-nursing student (after an 18 year career in financial services) and a new "non-clinical" employee at a hospital ED, I do not see much of what I have read about. What are your thoughts?

[Agnus]

Please, understand this is a safe place we come to vent. I was student when I first found this board. After a while I came to the conclusion everyone here was very negative, bitter, back biting etc. I was even one of those brash students that said so on this board.

The reality is if we hated our jobs we would not be in it. Years ago I was married to a cop who complained bitterly about his job. I did not understand why he did not quit. I did not understand how he could clearly "hate" his job so much and yet claim to love it.

We blow off steam here with others who been there and understand. It is a safety valve.

You stated two things you are new and non-clinical. For both reasons I would not expect you to see it. Just understand the problems stated here are real and universal to the realm of nursing. That does not mean that the situation is identical in every hospital and every unit.

If you are not observing it that is a good thing. Count your blessings as the nurse around you are.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Each person has a unique experience to share. Online forums are notorious for their members who vent and gripe about the negative aspects of their jobs. Not too many people post about how wonderfully their days at work progressed, because goodness is expected. However, twice as many people post about the bad things that happen. Please realize that we are all blowing off steam, and that this is a safe arena to vent.

Anyhow, I worked at a factory for three years prior to swapping careers. Ninety percent of my coworkers were males, and I personally did not see or feel the workplace discord or cattiness during my time at the factory. I did, however, feel more workplace solidarity between the workers at the factory.

Here's what I've witnessed during my short time in nursing: passive aggression, snitching, codependent behavior, bitterness, and coworkers with low self esteems. My info might be incorrect, but I've been told that other female-dominated career pathways (school teaching, librarianship, social work) are plagued with the same issues and, hence, offer similarly stagnant pay rates.

Don't bite me, anyone. I'm just relaying my uniquely personal experiences.

[wonderbee, BSN, RN]

From my experience, there are nursing specialties which attract specific personalities. My critical care time seemed to have more than its fair share of merciless outright in-your-face types. The work demands quick thinking and lots of techincal know-how. Not a lot of time for hand-holding when someone's bleeding out in front of you. In home health, the nurses didn't have to interact much at all with each other. Kind of cool to not have to worry about who's who on your "ouch" list. I'm new to psych. So far, there's only one nurse that I've met that could use an inservice on social skills. Other than that, they are the kindest bunch I've met so far. Understand this is just from my experience. My first career was legal assisting. I hate to admit it, but I really think it's a women thing. The life and death nature of it all just intensifies the behaviors.

[Agnus]

Don't bite me, anyone. I'm just relaying my uniquely personal experiences.

Chomp! yum yum yum.

[Mom2Chaos]

I am so glad to hear that. I had been thinking that perhaps much was based on venting. I have only had one experience with a coworker at the hospital being "condescending" and catty..... sadly, it was a very experienced charge nurse. I was acting as the unit secretary (a secondary function, for me) and every time I would tell her that she had a call, or that another nurse needed her (once, it was the triage nurse with a level 2 pt) she would roll her eyes and respond with "I don't care". Otherwise, the dynamics and personality struggles were similar to those that I had seen in the other companies that I had worked for. I am not in the least discouraged and feel that I have the strength to "survive" the personalities, but was just wondering if it was "even worse" in the nursing profession.

As was stated above, it does seem to be worse with women.....

[OldPhatMC]

Oh, it happens. After many years in the high-rolling version of Knots Landing that is known as the software industry (never met a defective personality in that business that I didn't have to pretend to like), I was much happier when I started my nursing experiences. Only thing is that I ended up on a unit with folks that were very much locked into the way they did things 20 or 30 years prior. So I was having to unlearn what I was trained to do and go back to old school methods. I was being encouraged to take shortcuts. Some of the staff clearly didn't want me around for whatever reason. And of course, I had to prove myself worthy with each action and suffer the consequences of each delay, mistake or poorly framed question.

On the other hand, I've helped out on other units where I fit right in and had the appreciation of the other staff members.

I've changed jobs to work someplace that valued me and made it clear that I was expected to be a learner and had already proved myself.

I'd say that the whole hazing/eat their young concept is a function of the culture of the individual unit. In nursing school, there were semesters where we were on floors that were 100% committed to building the next generation of nurses. Then there were semesters in the same hospital on different units where we were disposable gruntlings. I've heard that some larger EDs have a personality change at shift change; the ED I was in did have this.

While I don't think that any form of newbie baiting is universally found, I would say that yes it does happen, I've lived it, and the triggers for it are highly specific. My favorite countermeasure is to be kind, polite, quiet, and balanced in my interactions so that there is no impression that I've aligned with a particular clique. Some potential triggers (sex/age/cultural connections) are outside of my ability to mitigate: I'm old and have boy parts, deal with it .

Other traits that tend to trigger or inspire hazing, such as being an EMS provider, are easily played down. I listen first to find the prevailing mindset before I mention my EMS background.

As I see it, just because a person became an RN yesterday doesn't mean they were born yesterday, but sometimes the worst will be assumed of a new graduate.

If you've been blessed with a kind and cooperative workplace, let the folks you work with know that you appreciate them.

Not sure if this was the direction the OP was going in, but it certainly felt good to blather on like this .

[smiletoday]

I like your reply regarding the type of nurses on each unit. IE: Crital care nurses are in your face. Can anyone tell me what type of nurses are in the labor and delivery and or float pool.

[medsurgrnco, BSN, RN]

The hospital nursing environment is typically much worse than that of other careers, and much more stressful. Nurses are treated like children by managers, have to deal with attitudes/incompetence from CNAs while being responsible for their work but having no power to change the situation, have to deal with needy/abusive patients/families, are stressed by the number of tasks expected to be done in narrow time frames, have to deal with many different nurses during their shifts and at the start/end of shifts, and are expected to be near perfect. I can think of no other job that has all these difficulties. While some nurses use this forum to vent, nurses are leaving hospitals in droves because they cannot tolerate the impossible work environment. Do some research so you know what you're in for if go on and become a nurse. There's research about nursing environments being full of people with personality disorders.

[Sisyphus]

I actively discourage people from considering nursing as a career. I became a nurse in my middle forties and consider it to be the worst mistake of my life. I was determined not to be a quitter and the joke ended up being on me. I have made it to a hospital outpatient pre- and post-op setting so it could be considered one of the nicer places to work in hospital nursing - we do get our legally entitled breaks unlike the acute care nurses on the inpatient floors. Still, if I had known in advance of the medieval culture I would encounter I would never(!!!) have gone into nursing. I won't rant but if you have a progressive mindset the nursing world will be like stepping off into an olden Southern plantation in terms of degree of culture shock (medieval, plantation, it's essence is feudal). Nursing might sound romantic, rewarding, inspiring, a way to give, and so on, but it will strip you of your self-esteem. And yes, I know the Florence Nightingales reading this are deeply offended. However, I ask my husband how common is it in other job settings for the employees to be driven to tears with stress? How does an educated workforce allow themselves to be denied legal breaks on a routine basis?

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

I am a second career RN who began at 32. My first career was as a juvenile probation officer where my colleagues were almost all men. We also had identical degreed backgrounds. In retrospect, the most important thing was that our jobs were essentially 9 to 5 with off hour problems handled by the police until the next work day.

I think a lot of the discord I saw as a staff nurse came from the unyielding 24/7 pressure on everyone combined with the bewildering varieties in educational preparation for the job. I can't think of any other career where people are brought to the profession in so many different ways. I think that creates a lack of professional cohesion. My opinion only, that.

I saw staffing pressures due to absenteeism [child care/sick kid/maternity leave shortages] that I never saw as a probation officer. To me that was the biggest challenge, far more so than any gender /personality issues.

I don't regret the change....my former career had a residency requirement which would have prevented me from ever moving....but I say this from the comfort of a community health nurse job. I could not have made a career through to retirement in hospital nursing.

[oldiebutgoodie, RN]

After 25 years in the IT industry, I went into the nursing field to "help people" and for job security.

The first 2 years out of school was hell. I think floor nursing is truly a lousy job, and the managers treat you like a cog in the machine, not like a human being. I don't know of other jobs where people work 12 hours without lunch or breaks, where the culture is negative and backbiting, and where everything is the nurse's fault.

I got out of bedside nursing as soon as possible. I now have a specialized job, see patients on an individual basis, and am 2 years away from an NP.

I think that part of the problem is that many nurses have never worked in the "real world" where they have had to grow up and out of their junior high mentality.

Let the flames begin!

Oldiebutgoodie