I hate my job/career

[MJPN2012]

I know that this has been a topic of other threads but I need to rant and may need some personalized advice. I hate my job with a passion. I hate my job so much that I hate my life and I don't know if I want to be a hospital nurse. I work on a med/surg telemetry floor. We usually have 7 patients, occasionally 8, and I can't even think straight with that load. Even the nurses that have been there 20 years can't keep up with it. I've been an RN for 5 months. I was a home health LPN before then. I've had this job for 3 months and it's been so awful. I get off at 7 but typically don't get out until 9. I was told I could pick my schedule, but they change it to the worst schedule I could imagine. Other nurses seem to think I'm an idiot when I give report and miss a few things because I've been too busy to do anything but the bare essentials. When I get 5-6 patients, I have no problem. But more is torture and my home life is suffering from my misery. It seems like nobody on our floor likes their job. I get the worst patient loads, like 2 needy patients on opposite ends of the floor or 5 needy patients on top of an admission. I don't want to be one of the other nurses that has been there for a year or two and still has these problems. Am I just a complainer? I can't deal with how badly this affects me everyday . Any advice?

[MJPN2012]

jadelpn, I actually left home health bc of the low pay and no benefits at my company. I still work a shift there once every couple of months. But I wanted the med/surg experience as well. I didn't like when people/family would ask me medical questions and I had no advice or ideas of how I might help them bc I had no experience with anything. My company was different. It was like babysitting peds patients for a full shift and doing some nursing care. I liked it, just wasn't getting the experience. Maybe a different home health job would suit me in the future.

I have put in notice that I will be going prn at this job, to allow me time to interview at other places. If I hadn't, then with the schedule I'm given, I would have no time whatsoever to interview. I only get one to two days off in between shifts, and working nights, that barely equals a real day off. I won't quit without something lined up.

I do want to try another med/surg job first, to get the experience that I wanted. Then, if I find that the hospital isn't for me, I'll know that I've done all that I could do. As I said, if the other nurses that have been there longer than me seemed like they had time to get their work done then I would feel better. But it seems there is no hope since they have some of the same problems. I've thought about this so much and everybody here has validated what I feel, that I should try somewhere else. I don't think there is a reason to stay and be miserable when I know there are other places around with better ratios. I just kept second guessing myself, thinking that I should be able to tough this out and deal with it for some reason because I've only been there this long.

I just have a feeling it's not going to get better. Management is so set on cutting costs that even if we have the nurses to work, they only let so many because if we have more patients it costs less money to staff. It's not worth it to me anymore to spend a day crying when I get home to recover from my night. After talking here, I don't see any problem with trying another job. Life is most definitely too short, and I feel so much better making this revelation.

[MJPN2012]

Also, I do know that at another job I'll still be perfecting time management and learning and improving. I'm prepared for it not to be perfect, as long as it isn't so disasterous. At least I think I'll be very prepared for less patients after caring for this many. I would be happy with a happy medium, 5-6 patients where I'm busy but I feel like I can provide safe care and do more than the bare essentials. I really feel like it's not too much to ask to have a workload that allows me to give safe care. Theres a difference between busy and downright crazy.

Right?

[roser13, ASN, RN]

Don't just ask questions in an interview, OP. Ask to shadow for a shift in order to get a better idea of the feel of the unit.