So you hate your job

Find out how long you need to be on your unit before you can transfer. Stay and transfer when you are able. Don't just quit if you wish to stay with that facility.

I would quit that early only if I was being forced into unsafe practice or was being seriously mistreated-or had another job to fall back on.

Plain old misery and job hating, I would stay for the minimum time needed for a transfer. I would never show or say how much I dislike the work. I would learn what I can, do my best, and plot my escape while getting paid every two weeks.

I quit a job during orientation once but during the first day with group orientation, HR informed us that if we chose to leave within the first 120 days, there would be no penalty and no 2-week notice required. Long story short, I hired hired for one area based on my many years of experience and once agreed, I was asked to learn an area that I had not one minute of experience in. I hesitantly agreed and the second day in the new unit, the NM began to harass me and expected me to function independently by day #3 even when I didn't even have access to the documentation system as of yet. I put up with this for TWO WEEKS with still no access combined with her harassment. I called all of the powers-that-be before finally making the decision to leave my position to someone who needed a job more that I did. (Thank God, I never quit a job before I'm comfortably settled into the next!) Even then, I keep half a foot in the door of job #2.

Always have a backup plan before leaving a job!

Say you are an experienced nurse and you just started a new job, and you hate it. I mean really hate it. You know this will never work out, and your in orientation. How do you tell your manager that this is not working and that you think it would be best to leave. Say it is not the hospital, just your department? You would like to stay with in the hospital system, but try a different unit? Have you ever quit during orientation? Did they put you on a no hire list? Do you feel bad about leaving?

At my current hospital system, whenever you transfer to another unit, you have a six month probationary period during which you can transfer back to your old unit if it's not working out in the new one. You might not get the same schedule/shift you had before, but you can go back. We had several nurses in my ED try floor nursing only to come back within a few weeks.

Did you transfer to a different unit, or are you new to this hospital altogether? If you transferred, you might be able to go back to your old unit, even if there's no formal policy in place, so long as you didn't burn any bridges and left on good terms.

I think it depends on a lot. I have heard of a nurse or two who "hated" a particular unit, called and told HR the situation and HR arranged for a transfer to a more suitable floor. However, these were nurses who were established in the hospital already and HR wanted to keep them around. If you are brand new to the hospital, this probably wouldn't fare well for you. I would advise try to suck it up, make the best of the situation for the minimum amount of time, and then try to transfer. In this time, I think you would want to network with other people in the hospital and perhaps be willing to float to other areas. Just my opinoin :)