OK...so here's my dilemma...I am currently a pediatric and woman's health nurse working in an under served low-income community hospital. There are days I hate my job and days I love my job...so overall I would say I tolerate my job. The perks to my situation is that I am a 0.5 evening shift nurse now and I bump my 5 days together so I can get 9 days in a row off and spend those days as a stay at home mom to my 2 little girls. My husband has a flexible work schedule so we currently need absolutely no daycare. My oldest just started Kindergarten and my youngest is 2-1/2. I currently LOVE my schedule and my home life the way it is now HOWEVER, my dream job has always been to work L&D and I've recently had a 2nd interview (they passed me up the first time the job came around but gave me a peer interview the 2nd time the position was offered) for a LDRP position at what appears to be a great smaller hospital in a decent community. This position is everything I want EXCEPT for the shift (3rd) and the FTE's (0.8...4 days/week). I would be working much more than I do now and I would have a TON to learn and need to do a lot of work related reading even after I got home. I'm torn between loving my life and tolerating my job and loving my job and tolerating my life...it seems like an easy decision, right?...stay in my current job and keep looking...the right job will come along at the right time...but the hospital I'm currently employed at appears to be on shaky ground. The new nurse manager for the hospital is awful and constantly changing our staffing, uniforms, reporting methods, charting methods, it's ridiculous! Furthermore, funding for our peds unit is deplorable and we don't really have all the equipment we need like continuous pulses ox machines, hand held pulse ox machines, etc... Also the level is professionalism is embarrassing. Nurses drop F-bombs loudly and repeatedly in the nurses station, staff are constantly on personal calls on their cell phone or texting in the halls. We can never get anything from pharmacy that we need in a timely fashion and diagnostics even when ordered stat are a joke! I'm actually embarrassed to admit I work there! Furthermore, our pediatric unit does not have a true unit manager...we are co-managed by another med/surg unit manager and they don't seem to understand or care about the needs of our unit. We are a small and overlooked unit and it is sometimes quite scary. I genuinely like almost all the people I work with (bad working habits aside) and can almost always find someone to work for me if I need them to and have almost always had a fantastic schedule...I'm so torn with what I should do... There has been a lot of talk about unionizing throughout the hospital since many of the other units are finally starting to deal with the same BS we've been dealing with for years now. The census is frequently so low hospital wide that other units are finally losing their CNA's and secretaries and are being forced to do primary care and unit secretary work that a lot of other nurses are beginning to rally together. But I honestly don't know that it will make much of a difference.
Oh, and another thought to consider...If I take this new job that is in the area that I want to be in and that values and encourages continuing education...I will have to put my youngest in daycare which will eat up all the extra money I will be making by taking on more hours. So I will be working 3 more days in a pay period and making the same or possibly less money than I make right now. I know it's only temporary and soon my littlest will be in school but I am the type of mom who likes to cook, sew, make Halloween costumes, and decorate birthday cakes, etc.. I'm afraid I won't have the time for all these things and be able to live my home life as fully if I take this new job. I'm stuck in a cross roads between professional development and family life and i don't know what to do. I really think that if things weren't so abysmal at my current hospital I really wouldn't be as torn but I think that not only is this a great position, it's in general, a better run hospital where I would actually have a future. Sigh....so what are your thoughts?...
