Men: Are you satisfied with your work?

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

LVN here almost done with RN. Currently working med/surg, hoping to get in the ICU.

Here's my question: Do you generally like or dislike your work?

I'm not trying to put down females, and I know females largely outnumber men in nursing which might skew the data, but it seems like a large number of the women I work with don't really enjoy being nurses or are complaining all the time (probably largely due to burnout, etc. etc). I also read countless posts of how nurses dislike their jobs. The majority of male RNs that I meet at work or in clinical seem to enjoy their jobs, or at least try to view nursing as more of just a job, and find the strong points to at least make it bearable. It also seems like men are less likely to deal with work-related BS, and are more willing to pick up and leave.

It could also be that I just work on an extremely busy med/surg floor that makes everyone very easily prone to burnout. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that nurses who work in specialties seem to be the most satisfied. I definitely do not mean for this to be an inflammatory post. I'm just curious.

[Rob72, ASN, RN]

Its pretty well documented that men tend to specialize within the field more quickly, and (assuming they pass the 5 year mark) tend to have higher job satifsfaction. Like it or not, much of this is gender-related. Men and women think, communicate and socially advance in very different ways.

Pros:

1) high concentartion of females in nursing lends well to an integrated, cooperative care model. Women simply integrate more.

2) lower concentration of males reduces exaggerated competitive atmosphere, and allows the men satisfaction with high performance with positive reinforcement from the team. (Read: "mothers/sisters cheering you on")

Cons:

1) sex. Pretty much the most problematic issue in co-ed work environments. Sex, sexism, sexual competition, sexual indiscretion, sexual discrimination, etc.. If a man can't keep it in his pants, or if he considers himself "better" than his female co-workers, it gets ugly, quickly.

2) cliques. Women are more cliqiesh (sp?) This causes difficulty with unit cohesion, and may also cause hierarchial inertia, as the collective strongly desires to reach consensus, vs. a decision. As long as men stay away from sex, they are generally more able to move between cliques, and may be decisive teambuilders.

These are generalizations, and any individual from either gender may fit more closely into the "other" group, but generally...:)

[ProgressiveThinking, MSN, CRNA]

Very interesting. I definitely do see the reduced competitive atmosphere in nursing. Although, women do seem to compete with each other over minuscule/irrelevant things. A lot of the higher-ups (admin, managers, etc.) who happen to be male seem like they wouldn't have experienced the same amount of success in a male-dominated profession. Guess I should just count my blessings huh?