Need advice!!!! I hate my job

tokmom, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

Welcome to the real world. JK...sorta...

Maybe this tele stuff isn't your style. Could you stick it out for a year and transfer to another speciality? That is the beauty of nursing. Lots of different areas.

I was in the honeymoon phase my first year out of school, but soon learned that it was a lot more fast paced than I thought it would be.

Phoenix Nurse · Apr 10, 2011

You need to get out of there and find another area. Good luck

starsgirl78 · Apr 10, 2011

I totally understand what it's like to be in a job you hate. My first job as a new grad turned out to be miserable. I made the mistake of bailing for the first thing that came along after putting in just over a year with them. 3 months later, the new job let me go without a reason. (I live in a state where they can do that.) Now I'm unemployed going on 6 months in a crappy job market.

My advice to you is to try your hardest to find something stable if move on from this position. If you have a job, even a sucky one, you are better off than a lot of nurses. I don't want to see someone else end up in my position. It's not a fun place to be.

Good luck to you and be careful out there!

:)CoreyB · Apr 10, 2011

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

graceomalleyRN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

Corey B,

While you may utilize this forum to "get motivation" to get through nursing school, please bear in mind others use the forum for different reasons. In this case, the OP needs support and advice from other nurses who have gone through or are going through a similar situation.

You say that your "best advice" is to tell those who don't like their jobs to simply "QUIT." That is not a mature response to job adversity, and it would be nothing short of career suicide for a new graduate nurse to do this without having another job -- and jobs for new graduate nurses are as scarce as hen's teeth in most parts of the US. I graduated last May from a well respected local university and half of my class was unemployed six months later.

To the OP: I was in a similar situation, so I totally relate. However, I did not get the extremely valuable tele experience you are getting. Once you have a year or so of that, you can easily get jobs traveling in critical care/ICU or ED, etc. I'm sure you wouldn't just quit without having something better lined up, but if you do find something else I would be sure it's something with tele unless you have no interest in ever doing that sort of nursing again. To be honest, I think it may be too soon to know for certain whether you like this area or not. Part of hating your job may be the first year learning curve, and part of it might be (as others mentioned) seeing how different "real world" nursing is over student clinicals. There's quite a difference, isn't there?

Hang in there and absorb everything you can. I hated my job the first few months too but I like it more the longer I am there. If you get that crucial year in one area you will be very marketable. If you move around the first year, I think it might end up being problematic for you in the future unless you're moving up, or into an area in which you are more interested. Best of luck!

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

roma4204, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

"This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world."

DO NOT insult a nurse about being a nurse when you are not one yourself. You have no idea what it is like until you are in those exact shoes.

merlee · Apr 10, 2011

I do not understand why students are not given 'real' assignments on their last clinicals. Why so many nurses who come here are disillusioned about what happens on the floors when they start to actually work.

Floor nursing is very hard work, but can be very fulfilling. Are we turning out too many nurses who have not had the opportunity to juggle their priorities?

And any job may take 6 months to a year, or even longer, to actually master. Why do so many of us think we should be fully developed in just a few weeks?

Give yourself some time to master your skills, learn to prioritize, and comprehend all the new material. Take care of yourself.

Best wishes!

SnowboardLovinRN · Apr 10, 2011

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

Well maybe we wish nursing students would realize this is a nursing forum not a place just for your motivation :rolleyes:

Lamesz · Apr 10, 2011

Lolita Kitty- I am in the same boat as you!! I just graduated in December as well. I am on a surgical floor, and I am hating it. I love to talk with patients but there just isn't enough time to do it. I dread going to work, but I know I have to stick it out. Best advice I can give you is to find a hobby where you can focus your time and fustration...I joined roller derby and this seems to help...and it is a lot of fun! My hopes are that with becoming more familiar with our areas of nursing, we will like it more! Good luck and let us know how things go...it's good to know that someone feels the same way!!!

eyeball · Apr 10, 2011

This is not directed at you, but my goodness I wish everyone would stop complaining. I'm really looking forward to being a nurse, and I come to this website to get motivation, and then I see countless posts about hating jobs and how this happened at work and the pay is not enough and I have too many patients BLAH BLAH BLAH...Here is the best advice I can give. If you don't like your job...QUIT. What are people going to tell you in a forum that will make your job better. get real and grow up this is the real world.

I don't want to rain on your parade but if "everyone's complaining" there just might be a reason(s) why. I used to come on this site as a nursing student and was periodically freaked out at how unhappy so many nurses seemed to be. I could have written the original post...I really dislike my job. The work is hard, the hours are long, breaks are nonexistent (sweatshop,sweatshop,sweatshop), the responsibility is huge, the level of autonomy and control is nil, and I don't feel respected, valued, or appreciated by anyone other than a handful of patients. I really want to like nursing. Going into my workplace fills me with dread. So far the rewards are pitifully few.

Aeterna, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2011

I can sympathize...really! I'm a little less than a year in my first RN job ever and I can definitely say that it's a tough journey.

I remember having two difficult patient assignments in a row (as in, 2 days with one assignment, a couple of days off, and 3 days of another difficult assignment!). It was also the point in time when I started taking on a full assignment on my own. I felt so pathetic and discouraged that I broke down into tears at the nursing station. Fortunately, the charge nurse and the nurse educator were there to support me - the nurse educator even stayed past her 9-hour day to help me fix what was wrong and get me back on my feet again, and then proceeded to tell me her own new-grad horror stories (and to see her now as a VERY knowledgeable and competent woman was encouraging).

After that, I had better assignments and I look back now and realize, yeah, they were crappy and extremely difficult days and even seasoned nurses would probably struggle with those assignments. Everyone has horrible days at work every now and then. It comes with the job, unfortunately! But just keep going forward, learn from the experiences, and know that they will make you a better nurse in the end.

Oh, and here's a tip that my other new-grad friend and I agree on:

Find a nurse or two who you know will always be willing to answer questions or, in general, support you. They say that nurses eat their young and, to an extent, it holds true in some cases. However, there will always one one or two nurses around who will remember what it's like to be new and will help if you ask. Identify who these nurses are and approach them if you don't understand something or are feeling overwhelmed. I know it helped me quite a bit.