In need of some first RN job advice

[iowaALF-RN]

Hello all - this is a little long but I hope you all can hang in there.

I graduated with my RN a month ago and I have since started looking for a job. I currently am in an LPN position at an Assisted Living Facility in my hometown. (A little background - through this agency I have had a couple problems ranging from not getting vacation pay when deserved to waiting 8 months to transition from a CNA role to an LPN role because I did not have "manager-like qualities".... probably because I had just graduated LPN school! I had to give my 2 weeks notice 8 months after that incident and upon receiving that notice they begged for me to stay and offered me exactaly what I wanted. In the past 6 months they have also "demoted" 2 Directors of Nursing to staff nurses.)

Anyways, upon graduation I talked to them about transferring to an RN role and the only thing that they had was part time until the director that they just demoted leaves (she is looking, but she obviously will not leave until she finds something). I made it clear that part time was not going to work for me and that I would have to go ahead with interviews that I had already scheduled. So I interviewed where one of my old Directors that got demoted was working and I was offered the job on the spot pretty much. I told them I needed to think a little about it and that I would let them know the first week of January. This job has pros and cons like all jobs do. I will have to travel between 2 facilities... one that is in my home town and another that is 30 minutes away. It is an Assistant DON position so therefore I am a salary employee. The salary is average... I would think it would be a little more for the position that it is (breaks down to $22/hr). I will only have to be on call one weekend a month (and that is for the job that is 30 minutes away but the DON there said that she normally gets about 1 call a weekend and it is something that can be handled over the phone). For the most part they said the CNA staff at both facilities are pretty independent and educated to make decisions. They told me it would never go over 45 hours a week.... which I know it still could and probably will some weeks. Hours are 8-5, M-F. PTO starts adding right away on my first day, but it cannot be used for 6 months which is fine with me. It will add up to 15 days in a year which is pretty good. Tuition reimbursement after 2 years of employment, which doesn't really matter because I have already started BSN classes and will be done before that 2 years is up.There are all the benefits you can think of including if you pay in 5% of your income to retirement then they will match 5%. The one thing that makes me a little weirded out is that if one of the nursing directors is gone on vacation or something I cover their directing position while they are away. I think that it is a little weird to offer that to a candidate that has pretty much no experience in nursing. Also in 4-5 years there will be a Director position open because one of them will be retiring, I don't know that I will be ready to be a director with only 4 years of experience. Of course and can choose to just stay in the position I am in but I don't know that I would want to drive back and forth forever. Another is that I know one of the facilities is not staffed very well with CNA's. I am not above doing CNA work by any means, but after talking with the DON there the only 2 times that I have(not the DON that I know)... it seems like she has been working too many extra hours and she is even telling me she is getting tired. I don't know why she would be telling me this... but it does scare a little.

I decided to accept this job on Monday this week 1/4/16. I went in to my current place of employment to work on Monday and at the end of my shift I told them that I was putting in my 2 weeks notice so that I can start my new job on 1/18/16. (I really do love the residents and the staff... I started at this facility as a CNA 3 years and 2 months ago and have been there ever since). The current director of nursing (whom just started about a month ago after our DON then was demoted to a staff nurse position) wanted me to stay to just do what I was doing already (filling medication boxes, checking counts and mars for accurate information, and doing med exchange at the end of the month). It adds up to about 3 hours a week and then 10 additional hours at the end of the month. I agreed, but with the condition that if I cannot do it then I can come it and say right then and there that I am done with no notice (she agreed).

That was all on Monday..... Wednesday evening I got a call from the human resource manager at my current job location asking me what it was going to take for them to get me to stay there... I told them there was not much that they could do for the simple fact that I had already accepted the other job. There was a meeting that I had to go to at that place of employment on Thursday so I told her I would just meet with her then. Upon getting to my current facility on Thursday I enter her office to meet with her and she tells me that one of the regional directors is there to meet with me as well... (our facility is one of a chain of 6 throughout mostly Wisconsin with 1 in Iowa (where I am) and 1 in Minnesota). That made me a little nervous but I just came out and said what I had to. It made me kind of iffy on the fact it has taken for me to give my 2 weeks notice before they will even consider trying to keep me. I also talked about the 2 demotions in 6 months. Both of them did not know what happened with the first one because they were not there at that time, but they did say that the second one was justified for safety concerns, which if that is the case I understand that. They did say they were sorry that I started 3 years ago and it was never once talked about where I was going and when I would have my degrees and that it has come to this. It seemed like he meant it. What the human resource manager then told me was that she has been working since the day that I talked to her to get a fulltime position made for me that was hourly (that was something that I had previously said that I wanted because the idea of salary does not really thrill me unless I KNOW I will not be working over 45-50 hours). Census is low so that is why it took so long to get approved because realistically they do not need the position, but they really want to keep me. I told them everything the other job was offering me. They told me that the position would be a 12-8pm position, however with the other nurse (who was recently demoted) probably leaving soon I will have the chance to slide into the 10a-6p time slot. I can do 12-8 for a little while, but I would not want that to be a long term thing. 10a-6p is doable long term. They have yet to come back to me with what cooperate said. I think the on call rotation is 7 days on 7 days off (while the other nurse is there it will be 7 days on 14 days off - even though in my opinion I think the current DON should be taking 2 weeks every single month... but that's none of my business - we haven't 100% gotten along since I have been there, but she thinks we have - hence why she wanted me to stay). I don't know if hourly they will allow me to be paid for the time that I am on call (I would say probably negative) and the disadvantage of this one is that I would have to work every other holiday I am assuming if I am hourly. However, I think that they are going to give me tuition reimbursement right away for my BSN classes (I do not know this for a fact because I just talked to them yesterday and everything has to go through the home office first.)

Pretty much I am in a huge rut. I have already accepted another job with a nurse that I know that I am fond of. On the other side I have the place that I have been employed at for 3 years, starting as a CNA, fighting their tailends off to keep me there. I would feel really bad having to call the other place and say never mind (can you even do that? I haven't signed anything yet besides the background check), but I also feel obligated to stay at my current place of employment because they specifically made a job for me and they are trying to give me as close to everything the other facility is giving me as they can. Of course I will not make a decision until I have heard what my current facility comes back with but I am supposed start the other job 1/18/16..... This has got to be one of the hardest decisions of my life.... it's keeping me up at night and what I really need to be doing right now is focusing on my NCLEX taking place a week from today! Please help me! Any advice given is much appreciated.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

This is long and wordy, cannot make heads or tails of what you're even asking. Please reformat or just give direct question

[Lev, MSN, RN, NP]

Get away from your old place of employment and never look back. Don't fall for their tricks to try to make you stay. They sound like a very unorganized company. Tell them that unfortunately you have accepted another job and had they made a solid offer earlier you might have accepted. To me it sounds like they have given you the run around so many times.

I also think you should negotiate for a higher salary for the DON job. Tell them it comes out to 22/hr and as a DON you should be making more than a new staff nurse makes. Ask for 10k more a year and they may give you 5k more.

[Atl-Murse]

TMI . Your ADON job will be more like 60-70 hours a week = bags of peanuts per hour. Look for other jobs, current job made you work 7 months as a CNA instead of an LPN ! Your loyalty is very inspiring ...not

[ED Nurse, RN]

I don't think a brand new RN with zero RN experience should be a DON or assistant DON.