I'm considering enrolling in a nursing program after being a developer in IT the last 10 years. This comes after a lot of soul searching about 'what I want to do with my life'. One of the reasons that draws me to nursing is the flexible hours. I
hate working 8-5 with only 2 days off. I hardly have anytime to enjoy 'life'.
Going into nursing would allow me to work 3 12-hour shifts and give me time to pursue my hobbies like painting and photography.
I was just wondering if this thinking is valid. Do you enjoy having the opportunity to work 12 hour shifts? Is this one of the reasons
I work 5, 12's a week and have wondered if going into IT would be worth considering ! LOL
Since I work in IT, and am considering nursing, I am extremely interested in why you feel IT would be more appealing than nursing. Maybe we can help answer each other's questions?
I work 8-9 hours per day, M-F in a smaller IT shop. Luckily I don't have any weekend or off-hours support. Depending on your IT job, you normally have to be on-call atleast part of the time (anywhere from every other week to one week every other month) where you might not get not get called at all or you might not sleep for a couple days. I have seen the extremes of both spectrums.
For me, the 3 12's is what appeals to me the most, and also feel I'll find nursing to be much more meaningful than staring at a computer screen all day where you cannot see how your work really benefits anyone sometimes. As for you, I'm not sure exactly what makes you want to switch, but any job where you work 5 12's is bound to cause some form of burnout. Maybe you just need to reduce your workload or take a short break. Trust me, if you were working 60 hours per week in IT you would not like it either. And IT is normally salary so 20 of those hours would be unpaid.
It was just a joke.... But being the only guy where I work, and being more "computer savy" than most people I work with... they all come to me with their computer problems. And it has been suggested on numerous occasions, "Why don't you work in IT?". But I realy don't know as much as they think I do... just more than them.
Yep...I've seen our hospital's IT guy in at 2AM to fix computer problems, charting issues, etc...
after my 36 hrs...I can call it a week, and forget about the place until I'm on duty again.
If you do work nights, you DO lose a day to sleeping/not wanting to do anything at all.....but I use that day to catch up on house stuff or paying bills, things where I don't have to leave....
Hey it's the techie club in this thread! I've been a software engineer for 20+ years, a few of those years in IT departments, though most in development departments of software companies. I switched because
1) I wanted to get more meaning out of my work -- I wanted to do something where the value of my work to society was less abstract. I wanted to help people. The vapidity of the corporate world gets me down. I longed to be of use and to go to work each day knowing that the work I do is something that really matters to real people in need. I have sat in countless meetings in corporate conference rooms seeing someone get all worked up about something that, to me, just didn't matter. I find it increasingly difficult to pretend things matter to me that really don't.
2) I was tired of the rat race of hiring binges and layoffs that go with the software industry... the layoffs almost always occurring when every other company is laying people off, thus dumping software engineers out into a sea of unemployed software engineers with little hope of finding a job until the economy improves.
3) corollary to number 2 -- I wanted career security. When I chose to go into nursing, the outsourcing of software development jobs to developing countries was at its peak. What seemed like a profession that would always be around was no longer a given. Nursing will always be around and there will always be a need for nurses.
4) I live in and love living in the city. Software jobs tend to congregate in suburban office parks along the various highways outside of town, requiring a commute by car, slogging through traffic every day. Every time I found a job I could get to via public transportation or bicycle, the company up and moved to one of the aforementioned suburban office parks. Even some that were located in reasonably convenient suburban office parks sometimes moved to less expensive quarters even farther away from the city when the company outgrew their space or the rents got too high. The hospital where I work is in downtown Boston and has been there for nearly two hundred years. It will be there long after I'm gone.
5) I worked as a software engineer during the glory days of software engineering. There were all kinds of wild innovations going on from the late 80's through the end of the 20th century. Now, software is more of a commodity and potential employers no longer seem to value innovative developers, but are concerned with which design process you follow and how well you can articulate that design process. While I recognize the need for process when working in a development team, I have always adapted to the particular process of my employer (or have created my own when there wasn't one). It is something that can be learned in a few days... and is thus not something I spend a lot of time thinking about. It bores me to tears.
All that being said, I have had jobs and consulting gigs where I was able to work some of my hours (or even most of them) from home... I will miss this about software engineering as well as the flexibility to create my own hours. However, on the flip side of this, I won't miss pretending that punctuality and hours in the office do matter for a job that they really don't. I don't have a problem being punctual in nursing because it really matters whether I'm there or not. My not being there means someone else has to do more work or stay longer, which isn't fair to my co-workers.
Oh and one other thing I don't miss about software engineering.... deadlines.
That feeling of dread that one gets when one has too much work to do and an unrealistic or inflexible deadline that is rapidly approaching, making relaxation difficult.
At the hospital, I work hard, but at the end of the day, when the shift is over, my work is done. The next shift I go to work is a brand new day with a clean slate.
That is just how i prefer to live my life. I'd rather work extra hard a few days per week, and only have to work 150 days per year, and have 215 days off, as opposed to my current schedule where I have to work around 250 days per year and only get 115 days off.
That's exactly how I felt and almost made the switch. 1 more semester to go .
I have worked double weekends as an LPN and still do. I love it, having 5 days off just works for me somehow :chuckle. I just hope that there is a hospital/facility out there for me that would offer me an opportunity to work doubles as an RN. Not too many in my state of Arizona. I will settle for 12s though.
Unfortunately I learned the hard way that there is only 5 mins allowed to edit the post
I wanted to add/ask that a new grad in Phoenix, AZ c 0yrs experience starts at about $24+change at any major hospital. This is a benefited position. If you work pool or registry you can make more. What can that same new grad expect in like Boston, Detroit, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami area? Also someone told me that some states have unions, true or false?
In Boston, you start at approximately 28 bucks an hour plus differentials. I know of people who make considerably more than that after they get some experience though.
Unfortunately I learned the hard way that there is only 5 mins allowed to edit the post
I wanted to add/ask that a new grad in Phoenix, AZ c 0yrs experience starts at about $24+change at any major hospital. This is a benefited position. If you work pool or registry you can make more. What can that same new grad expect in like Boston, Detroit, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami area? Also someone told me that some states have unions, true or false?
Many Ca hospitals have Unions. I have heard the pay range is from high 20's to 40's depending on location, shift ect...
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aka_steven
32 Posts
I work 5, 12's a week and have wondered if going into IT would be worth considering ! LOL