How many of you hate your job?

Nurses General Nursing

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To all who have their BSN - do you hate or love your job as a nurse? I keep hearing from people on this site that they hate their job and wish they would have done something else with their life. Is nursing really this terrible? It seems to me nursing is a GREAT profession to get into. You basically get around 50k a year to help care for people. Call me crazy, but I don't think the job is really that HARD if you just have the right mind set. I would much rather be cleaning up people's **** (code brown) than sitting on my *** all day staring at a computer screen or doing marketing meetings. The other complaint I also keep hearing from people in nursing is that they hate their job because people gossip about them too much... haha- get over yourself. Who cares what others are saying about you, just do your job and don't let it get to ya. Let me know what you guys think!

Specializes in Critical Care, Nsg QA.

I have been a nurse for over 25 years, and have had good days and bad. Overall, the good has far outweighed the bad. I can't think of any other profession with as many options as nurses have. Most people only see nurses as doing only bedside care. That is only a small part of what nurses can do.

Anyone want to list the many jobs nurses are hired into? I'll start off with the easiest (quickly coming to mind), and others can add in the more unusual jobs.

Home health, hospice, school nursing, camp nursing, legal expert (med-mal). Okay, that took 5 seconds. What else do nurses do?

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You only want to hear from BSN nurses? I'm an ADN nurse and I like my job. As others have said, it's hard work "tending lives".

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I can honestly say I love my job. That doesn't mean I love everything about it, or that there aren't some days that I just need to vent, but honestly, I feel like I made the right choice for me when I became a nurse.

Sure, I hate the cattiness and gossip of some units, but I don't get caught up in that. I'm not here to gossip, I'm here to nurse people back to health.

I love being able to affect the lives of others. I work with both adults and kids, so I have done everything from take care of a NICU baby only a few days old, to provide comfort for an elderly person getting ready to take their last breathe.

I feel my salary is more than adequate, and I love working 3 days a week for the flexibility. Not many other careers allow such flexibility.

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Specializes in Emergency.

Diploma grad here. Have a BS too, so I'm crashing your party.

Yeah, I love my job. Code browns come with the territory as do annoying family members, illegible doctor handwriting, hal-baked orders and quite a few other things you'll learn about once you're on the job.

Based on your previous posts, it appears you have no real RN experience. S'ok. We all start at square 1. And as in every profession, some folks love what they do, some hate it but most are somewhere in the middle.

I'd strongly recommend losing the "I'm a BSN" thing. Will not endear you to co-workers once you get a job.

Also, remember that the primary reason for this board is to provide a place for nurses to vent to the only people who really understand. Other nurses.

Carry on....

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Specializes in ICU-MICU & SICU.
Please. tell me. you're exaggerating. :eek:

Not at all...I've never seen anything like it.

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Specializes in multispecialty ICU, SICU including CV.

I'm not sure what hating your job has to do with having/not having a BSN. Care to rephrase? What "job" are you talking about specifically -- bedside nursing, or other areas? I'm not sure what you are asking.

Seeing that I don't really know what you are asking, I'm going to answer any way I want :D -- no, I don't hate my job. Some days, I feel the burn (out.) Some days, it's all good. I love my coworkers. I work in a great, supportive environment. That has made the difference between me having a horrible day and going home in tears -- it's really, really important, and I am really lucky to work with the people that I do.

Retention is a huge issue, especially considering the cost of training in a new nurse. People are hanging on to their jobs more than ever now, though, with the market. I'm wondering if having people quit is less of an issue than it was 5 years ago.

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

For some reason your post made me smile instead of PO'd...I wonder why?

Anyway, though only a lowly ADN Research Nurse i currently love my job. I have for most of my 17 years as a non-acute care nurse for the most part. Obviously that might be different if I had done acute care.

If I must work then I really enjoy helping people when possible.

However, my calling is to be a full time volunteer for many different causes. That i would love!

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I really love my job. And is it weird to say that I think its fun to work in the ICU?

But some days I walk out of there and don't want to go back. A couple times, when I've had other things crappy going on in my life, I have thought about quitting. When I come on here, its usually to share with other nurses. And when I start a topic, its either because I have a question, OR I want to vent to anonymous people that have been there. My boyfriend listens, nods his head, but he has no idea of the ins and outs of our job.

It doesn't mean I don't love my job.

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Specializes in floor to ICU.

Still trying to figure out if you are a troll.

Not a BSN but am going to chime in anyway.

Nursing is not like the Johnson & Johnson commercial adds. Although I appreciate their attempts to lure in new nurses, the adds are a bit skewed. Too warm and fuzzy.

I'm not saying there isn't warm and fuzzy in nursing- there is but there is more brain power involved. I am speaking from an acute care perspective. You are responsible for people's lives. Sounds like a cliché. However, there is tremendous stress involved with that and it takes its toll. We are human and many times expected to act like we are superhuman. I am not a new nurse but I am new to the ICU and while I thought I realized the role that nurses play is important, I have been blown away. The amount of critical thinking skills and autonomy that is needed to care for these patients is incredible. It is truly the nurses at the bedside that keep these patients going for another 12 hrs (or 8 hours, however long your shift is). Nurses ARE the eyes and ears of the physicians. Although I am still orienting, I have had a few shifts (with an awesome preceptor, thank God!) where it was literally minute by minute trying to keep your unstable patient alive. I am lucky enough to work with a great group of nurses who look out for each other and work as a team.

I do not have the energy to get into all the BS paperwork, charting, customer service crap, crazy family members, exposure to infectious agents, nasty doctors or unrealistic expectations from mgmt.

Nurses work hard and earn every single penny that they make so show a little respect. Try and remember this post when you judge a nurse and accuse him/her of *hating their jobs* just because they are not all warm and fuzzy in their posts on this site.

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I love being a nurse but I don't particularly like my job. The cleaning up people's ****, even while the have it from head to toe, and decide to take the initiative to pee over the side of the bed onto the floor is the easy part. The paperwork is even doable although it's annoying and accumulates every year. We are also expected to wear many "hats" such as housekeeping, respiratory care, transport services, educator, and social worker just to name a few. The only computer time we get is "charting our assessment". You think people talking about your isn't bad then wait till you get into nursing and experience some nurse to nurse hostility first hand. Someone personally might not care for you and could sneak around just trying to find things you don't do or do wrong just so they can tell on you or write you up. There are many who gossip a lot and tell lies and you think "so what', right? Well wait till your manager takes you to HR over and over or tries to fire you and continuously writes you up because of these accusations. Management in most facilities do not back their nurses and even treat them worse. Families are rude and do not understand patient care. I work in critical care and you could have been super busy with a patient all night that coded and has no blood pressure, giving blood, multiple IV drips to help keep the patient alive yet the family comes in and complains that mama's lips are dry. Then you accused by your manager of not doing mouth care. (just an example)

I work in a place where the nurse to nurse hostility is worse than ever. I've gotten to where I hate to work with certain nurses and you have to continuously watch your back because nurses could change your IV pumps trying to get your into trouble or anything. Nursing is sooo much more than anyone can imagine. Not to speak how most are so mistreated and disrespected by egotistical docs. Then most people hear these issues think a nurse is burnt out. I see this routinely on allnurses where nurses are accusing other nurses of being burnt out. These people or nurses have no idea what a burn out is.

I would choose nursing all over again, because I love it, but you better make sure you go into nursing for the right reasons. I make six figures actually as a bedside nurse. We are the highest paid in the nation. But to have a better working environment and conditions I would give half of my pay away.

Love this..You are right on!

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Specializes in acute care then Home health.

I've hated every job that didn't allow me to work independently. It's not that i'm not a team player, its just that I found the politics (*** kissing, social crap, having to deal with the mother hens) exhausting. As if the job isn't hard enough. I left the hospital setting and I will never go back!

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I agree with some of the posts above. My first job after graduating was on MedSurg-Telemetry and I enter the job so optimistic to find out myself in a very hostile work environment. I loved the being a nurse part and taking care of my patients. Didn't even mind helping the Aids clean a "code Brown". What made me quit my hospital job was the way other nurses treated one another. I never wanted to take it personal but it seemed like the other nurses just wanted to tear you apart and eat you alive. I did not know a whole lot when I started my job and even my preceptor seemed to want to make my life living hell. She expected me to know everything and do everything myself while she sat on her butt making phone calls to her friends using the hospital phone. She was very rude to me all the time yet I felt bad because she was pregnant and didn't want to complain to my manager. My manager never asked how things were going with my preceptor or to evaluate her as a preceptor. I just felt like I was being watched all the time. Very stressful! The last drop was a time when I was working night shift after finishing my preceptorship program. I had 6 patients to take care of. Got 2 admitions at the end of my shift one that needed blood trasfusion and the other needed a bunch of IVs and a Heparin Drip. When it was time for me to go home I got done with most of my work exept some med orders that needed to be sent to pharmacy which was no big deal because the meds were to be given at 7am and my shift was over at 3am. Well the nurse that followed me was 30min late. When I was giving her report she started doing stuff in the computer and not listening. Then the next morning my manager called me and gave me a hard time because the nurse complained that one of the patients IV was infiltrated, that I didn't finish my admition's orders. That I didn't reposition a 300 lb patient every 2 hours (task that I assigned to the LPN which was nowhere to be found) But being young, dumb and hurt I failed to defend myself so I just quit. Bedside care its a battlefield and Im very disapointed of it. Nursing is a great profession but is the way nurses treat each other what kills it. I'm doing pediatric home care right now and I love it. When people ask me why I don't get a job at the hospital I tell them that I'd rather work with kids than spending 8-12 hours a day with a bunch of women.

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