Just wanting to know people with more life experiences take on my situation. I work on a busy general medicine floor and absolutely have come to hate my job. I have managed to tough the job out for about a year and a half (new grad). Honestly, I am amazed and somewhat proud of myself for even managing that with my anxiety. I had hoped that with time my anxiety would get better but it feels the longer I am there the sicker, heavier (gaining lots of weight) and more miserable I feel. I work a ton of nights between my two jobs so feel like I rarely even get to see the sun and have no motivation to do anything but watch TV. I definitely want a way out but it is easier said than done. The patient assignments have gotten ridiculous with how short staffed we have been, on night shift nurses who are supposed to have 6 patients sometimes take on 12 patients (an entire POD with IVs, climbers, drug withdrawals, etc) with a nursing student extern. It's gotten so bad people have started to message our union about unsafe conditions but were sent back an e-mail saying that we are allowed to work outside our scope due to the current pandemic.
I have posted a few times on here and recently made the decision to move away from bedside. I've had such an awful experience with bedside, I doubt I will ever return. I am feeling so frustrated because for the past month I have been applying and feeling like I am getting nowhere. I have applied to several more office-based jobs or jobs out in the community such as vaccine centres as people on here recommended. I have had a few messages back all stating that I needed more bedside experience which was crushing.
The only really positive lead was my manager who stated that he would hire me for a clinic at the hospital that works Mon-Fri 8-4 (but more like 8-5). This sounds like the best-case scenario for me, but the problem is that he says a position likely won't open up for another 6-10 months. I asked if he would consider me still for the position if I went to a temporary job for 6 months and he said he would so long as I stay on casually.
I am at a loss of what to do here. My parents think I should stick it out for another 10 months at my current part-time hospital job with my other strictly nights casual job. I am going to be honest in saying that I can't imagine how much sicker I will feel and how much I will mentally struggle. It's been bad enough living like this for a year and a half I can't imagine going through another 10 months. I would definitely be open to working at the hospital unit casually if I could find a better job that would take me part-time somewhere else. But all of the less stressful jobs people on the site have mentioned (clinics, offices, etc) won't seem to hire me until I get at least 2 years of bedside nursing.
Did anyone else feel they were locked into 2 years of bedside nursing? Are there any other positions someone could recommend that would be lighter on me mentally or have more regular hours? I just feel so stuck and frustrated. ?
