Quitting without a notice

[turnforthenurse]

I'm looking for some advice on this.

I currently have an interview coming up and if I feel like the place is the right fit for me and they offer me the job, I will take it in a heartbeat.

I haven't given my 2 week notice to my current employer yet. I'm waiting until I have something lined up before doing so. I don't think I can last another 2 weeks at my current place of employment. Staffing issues are a problem everywhere but I have been placed in unsafe situations where I am taking care of very high acuity patients that is putting my license in jeopardy. There a bunch of other reasons as well but that is the number one reason why I want to quit without notice.

So would you quit in my situation? Have you ever quit without a notice? I know they say to never burn your bridges but I highly doubt I will be working for this company ever again.

Thanks!

[SmilingBluEyes]

I was working for a nursing home that was famous for understaffing and dangerous practices. They had a traveler taking morphine out and using it. Everyone knew. No one cared. I truly DID feel my license may have been on the line for that alone as I followed him and did counts with him.

Falls were commonplace and other things that did not get done.....trying to medicate 40 or more residents in 2 hours was pretty much impossible. Never mind dressing changes, skin assessments and other treatments.....

Still, I gave 2 weeks' notice.

Started a new job in an unrelated specialty 30 miles away. The cool thing was, they cut me loose a bit early and just did not put me on the next schedule, so I really only worked a couple more shifts there before I was done.

Don't burn bridges!

Imagine my surprise when the area administrator for all the local clinics came up to me on my first day on the new job, and said, "Welcome aboard, "so and so" said you were a good worker" ----- and ANOTHER "so and so" knew me also, and welcomed me, and all was positive. They knew the CEO, DON and the charge nurses at that LTC center! Never thought going from LTC to Dialysis, that would ever happen. But it did. Glad I left on good terms!

So yea, I am gonna stick to my guns and say, GIVE NOTICE.

Nursing is a smaller world than you ever can suspect. People know people.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

I was working for a nursing home that was famous for understaffing and dangerous practices. They had a traveler taking morphine out and using it. Everyone knew. No one cared. I truly DID feel my license may have been on the line for that alone as I followed him and did counts with him.

Falls were commonplace and other things that did not get done.....trying to medicate 40 or more residents in 2 hours was pretty much impossible. Never mind dressing changes, skin assessments and other treatments.....

Still, I gave 2 weeks' notice.

Started a new job in an unrelated specialty 30 miles away. The cool thing was, they cut me loose a bit early and just did not put me on the next schedule, so I really only worked a couple more shifts there before I was done.

Don't burn bridges!

Imagine my surprise when the area administrator for all the local clinics came up to me on my first day on the new job, and said, "Welcome aboard, "so and so" said you were a good worker" ----- and ANOTHER "so and so" knew me also, and welcomed me, and all was positive. They knew the CEO, DON and the charge nurses at that LTC center! Never thought going from LTC to Dialysis, that would ever happen. But it did. Glad I left on good terms!

So yea, I am gonna stick to my guns and say, GIVE NOTICE.

Nursing is a smaller world than you ever can suspect. People know people.

I doubt they will cut me loose early because the schedule is already made but who knows! Point well made! Thanks for the eye-opener.

[FeleciaSmith]

What makes you think that the grass is greener elsewhere? Life happens everywhere so what happens when you are short staffed at your new place? Are you going to jump ship again? I've learned that as a nurse you can only do what you can do. I don't think anybody license is at risk, do you really know what gets you in trouble or are you being dramatic?

Please give the folks a notice don't run out on them with all these mergers you would be surprised who might be ya next owner. Plus it's what professionals do, kids run out.

[BuckyBadgerRN, ASN, RN]

I think any job that hires you pretty much expects that you will be giving 2 weeks (at least) notice to your current position. Telling them that you can start tomorrow also sends a message to your NEW facility that you may do the same thing to them one day

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

What makes you think that the grass is greener elsewhere? Life happens everywhere so what happens when you are short staffed at your new place? Are you going to jump ship again? I've learned that as a nurse you can only do what you can do. I don't think anybody license is at risk, do you really know what gets you in trouble or are you being dramatic?

Please give the folks a notice don't run out on them with all these mergers you would be surprised who might be ya next owner. Plus it's what professionals do, kids run out.

I wasn't saying that I think the grass is greener elsewhere. I have plenty of questions that I have prepared to ask the unit manager during my interview.

Thanks.

[LaneyB]

I had a job that I hated and couldn't wait to escape. I took another job that is about an hour and a half away. I put in two weeks notice, and they asked me to give a full month so I didn't mess up scheduling. I did it, although I was pretty irritated. Within a year another person from my old place got a job at a hopsital near my new employer and we ended up working together on projects. I was happy that I went out on a high note because it would have been embarrassing if I hadn't. And she might have told people where I now work that I left them high and dry. I NEVER thought I would see any of the people from the old job again since it was so far away from my new one. I would definitely just do the two weeks.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Give your two weeks (or four weeks notice if you're a nurse) and work it out. Quitting without notice burns bridges and you never know when that's going to come back and bite you in the nether regions.

[Trinx]

My ex did this at his jobs. "No call, no show" was his policy. He was a psych nurse. Somehow, he managed to get hired as a travel nurse, and that was the end of that. Some people do this and manage to keep a job. I can't imagine how. I had enough trouble getting hired with great references. It's a horrible thing to do to the people you work with.

[Trinx]

I don't necessarily agree that nursing is such a small world, it depends on where you live.

I live in the third largest city in the country. Still a small world here.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

I don't necessarily agree that nursing is such a small world, it depends on where you live. However, I do think you should give notice if you are able to. I would especially feel bad for my coworkers that I would leave short handed; and also the pts that would be affected by short staffing. It's just professional and decent to give proper notice when leaving. And I agree with others who have said that even if you are not using them as a reference, your new potential employer can call them to find out if you are eligible for rehire.

Actually, when I quit my last job, I enjoyed the last 2 weeks I worked there after I gave my notice. Why? Because everything I did that I didn't like (basically the reasons that I was leaving) while at work, I kept thinking to myself "Soon I won't have to deal with this anymore! Yay!" It actually felt really good :)

Plus my coworkers made a farewell party for me and got me a gift, so that was really nice.

On my last day, everything felt very final. And it was very satisfying swiping my badge for the last time there :)

Nursing IS a small world. If you don't believe me, here's a story:

I moved from a small midwestern community to the east coast and applied for a job in a famous teaching hospital on their oncology floor. It was my dream job at the time. The nurse manager interviewing me was a graduate of my school -- two or three years ahead of me. Small world, right? She took note of my then-name and said "Ruby Jones . . . are you related to Dr. Jones?"

I said yes, without clarifying that he was my father-in-law.

"Oh," she said. "I dated your brother the last year I was in school."

She hadn't dated my brother, she had dated my HUSBAND both before and after we were married. I think the look on my face must have said it all. The conversation and the interview ended with a thud. I didn't get that job.

A few years later, I moved to the WEST coast. While there, I met a guy who was in management and had gone to school at the University of Small Midwestern State about the time I was working in their teaching hospital and dating my ex-husband. While chatting, it came up that he had graduated from nursing school and had done clinicals in the MICU, where I worked. He told me all about the hilarious graduation party he had attended and even dragged me off to his office so I could see a picture of all of the male students in his class attending the party in drag. There he was, in the middle of the group, standing right next to my ex-husband. Small world.

And then when I moved back to the east coast, a nurse I had worked with on the west coast (she was a traveler) was DON at a facility I was interested in.

When my father was a patient in a small midwestern hospital, his nurse was someone I went to school with about 500 miles from there and the manager was someone I had worked with in a different town about 100 miles from there.

When I was on the west coast, the hospital hired a new medical director. It turns out he was someone I had worked with on the east coast and with whom I'd had a major conflict. Fortunately, with 20/20 hindsight, he had decided that I was in the right. An intern that I worked with in the midwest was a cardiology fellow when I worked on the east coast, an attending when I worked on the west coast and when my father was hospitalized in the midwest (a different city and hospital system), he was medical director of the unit.

You can always run into someone who can out you as a bridge burner.

[CalNevaMimi, LPN, LVN]

I resigned recently. Gave 2 weeks. Nursing team is quite obviously not happy with me for resigning right now, but geez, I gave 2 weeks notice for their scheduling benefit. I've got 2 more days to go. It's been frustrating to finish out the time, and only one nurse has reached out to me to acknowledge my resignation, but burning bridges is not how I roll. Once it's done, you can't go back and un-do it.

[mic23455]

Give two weeks notice. I did that when transitioning from my old job to my new (current) job and I'm glad I did that. Also, at my current job, someone quit without notice and we all had to cover shifts for her for about two weeks (I even had to pull a double shift on one of those days and had to work on my day off on another).