For some, there's always a "reason" to look for a new job: your co-workers are mean, your schedule sucks, you weren't made to work night shift or a thousand other excuses. There is no perfect job, and the grass really isn't always greener. In fact, it almost never is. The secret to loving your job isn't getting the perfect job . . . it's loving the job that you have
"The nurses here are all mean to me -- it's a hostile work environment."
Actual excuse for leaving her fourth job in 12 months -- and remarkably similar to her reasons for leaving the other three jobs.
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"They're all bullies and pick on me for no reason!"
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"Crowds of mean people are following me all around!"
While I won't deny that bullies exist, there aren't any more bullies in nursing than there are in the general population. If you're having that much trouble with bullies, it's time to do some serious self examination. Chances are REAL good that it isn't THEM, it's YOU.
If you're having problems getting along with others, and those problems follow you from job to job, it's time to take a step back and figure out what it is that you're doing to irritate every co-worker you encounter. It took me too long to figure out that the co-workers in my second job really didn't want to hear how we did things in my first job. It took one particularly straightforward LPN asking me "IF it was so wonderful there, why did you leave?" to make me stop and think about what I was doing -- after I cried for awhile and blamed my coworkers for making my life miserable. After I figured things out, my coworkers were suddenly much nicer. It wasn't them, it was me.
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"It's a horrible work environment! I never get any praise, all they do is tell me what I'm doing wrong!"
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"I don't know what they want from me! I show up every day!"
(Real complaints from real new grads, neither of whom is still employed as a nurse. One of them is asking "do you want fries with that?" and the other is trying to convince her landlords that since they gave birth to her, she shouldn't have to pay rent.)
Not all of today's new grads by a long shot, but many of them, have been raised in the land of "everyone gets a trophy for just showing up" and parents who praised every move they made. I've heard that's a generational thing. Whether it is or isn't a generational thing, and perhaps it's a sweeping generalization, part of growing up is to realize that you aren't going to get praised for every soft, formed bowel movement or perfect attendance record. In the work world, you WILL hear about it when you screw up. Of course you will -- screwing up can kill someone, and even if you squeak by without killing someone THIS time, you may not be so lucky NEXT time. You may hear about it if you have a terrific idea that saves lives or money. On the other hand, sometimes your boss takes credit for the idea. You won't hear about it if you just do your job -- that's what they hired you for, and that's what they expect you to do. Learn to take pride in doing your job well, with or without praise from outside parties.
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"I'm miserable on nights -- I'm going to find a job that's straight days."
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"Some people just can't adjust to nights, and after a week, I know I'm one of them!"
The truth of the matter is that most of us are miserable on nights until we learn how to do them successfully -- which can take months. We can't sleep when we need to, can't stay awake when we have to and are nauseated when we're not ravenously hungry. We think slower, we move slower and we hate life sometimes. That's a normal part of night shift, and feeling that way doesn't make you special. It makes you normal. I know a lot of nurses who have shot themselves in the foot by changing jobs over and over in pursuit of day shift. They wind up in a specialty they don't like or a hospital with poor benefits and then they want to change jobs again.
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"My schedule sucks! This job is killing my social life!"
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"I can't work CHRISTMAS! I have small kids/lonely parents/a solo every year in the church choir!"
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"I don't know why the OLD nurses get such a good schedule and mine sucks!"
Chances are, the old nurse has a better schedule than you because she's been there for ten years and has seniority. Or maybe she's not constantly complaining about her schedule because she's accustomed to it and has made it work for her. One of the beauties of our profession is the flexible scheduling. If you absolutely cannot stand the thought of being at work while everyone else is at the barbecue, perhaps you shouldn't be looking for work in a hospital. If you are working or looking for work in a hospital because only some acute care experience will further your career goals, suck it up and live with the schedule for the two years it will take you to become competent in your job. There's a lot to be said for a "sucky schedule." I personally love going to the movies with my nurse friends on a Tuesday afternoon when no one else is there and the price of a ticket is only $6. Having three days off during the week is prime time to take the boat to that wonderful anchorage all our dock mates are raving about -- and we're the only boat there! Even the most crowded nation and state parks have a free camp site or two, and in the winter the ski lines are minimal. If you're married and have kids you can minimize child care costs by working when your husband is home.
Here's the truth:
Most people are exactly as happy as they make up their minds to be. You cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose how to react to it.
Happiness comes not from getting whatever you want, but from wanting whatever you have.
And a final piece of wisdom -- wherever you go, you take yourself with you.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
To Ruby, and everyone else with her experience level: are people really that much more sensitive/spoiled now? For some reason I had always thought that nursing was a "job hoppy" sort of career field. Is it possible that things have always been that way, but you're more aware of it now since you're the ones who do the interviewing and training? Did people just stay working on the floor their whole career? (By the way, those questions aren't rhetorical or sarcastic, I'd really like to hear your opinions).
For the record, I'm also starting to get a little irritated with all this talk about "bullies" (not saying that it never happens). To me, a bully is someone who is targeting another person, actually seeking them out with a goal of being mean and hurting their feelings. Not someone who is just kind of rude when correcting someone, and makes no effort to be friendly otherwise. I do hear people complain that we only hear from out bosses when we've done something wrong. The way I feel, is that at work, not hearing from my boss is him/her saying "You're doing a good job, keep it up."
Things ARE different now. New grads always had life changes that necessitated changing jobs -- getting married and moving to Borneo, boyfriend the medical student matched at a university hospital 2000 miles away -- but on the average, they stayed a couple of years first. And it wasn't 8 or 10 people leaving every summer, but 1 or 2. Every unit had a core group of crusty old bats that had been there a decade or more and some two or three decades. Those COBs trained the newbies, so that they absorbed the unit values and traditions and the standard of care remained high. With only a few new grads every year, only the people who were good at precepting were called upon to precept, and their orientation was smoother. People did change jobs . . . someone who had been dreaming of the ICU transferred after a couple of years, and usually they liked it and stayed. Someone gets sick of tele after five years may want to give L & D a try -- and generally they'd have spent enough time considering what they wanted and didn't want and researching their move that they did like it. Usually. Now we have a constant churning -- Ten new people coming and 11 folks with under two years leaving. It's a whole different world.
Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
Things ARE different now. New grads always had life changes that necessitated changing jobs -- getting married and moving to Borneo, boyfriend the medical student matched at a university hospital 2000 miles away -- but on the average, they stayed a couple of years first. And it wasn't 8 or 10 people leaving every summer, but 1 or 2. Every unit had a core group of crusty old bats that had been there a decade or more and some two or three decades. Those COBs trained the newbies, so that they absorbed the unit values and traditions and the standard of care remained high. With only a few new grads every year, only the people who were good at precepting were called upon to precept, and their orientation was smoother. People did change jobs . . . someone who had been dreaming of the ICU transferred after a couple of years, and usually they liked it and stayed. Someone gets sick of tele after five years may want to give L & D a try -- and generally they'd have spent enough time considering what they wanted and didn't want and researching their move that they did like it. Usually. Now we have a constant churning -- Ten new people coming and 11 folks with under two years leaving. It's a whole different world.
I see the same thing in my department- and the OR is notorious as being the love it and never leave or hate it and leave really really quick. That was how it was when I started mumblemumble years ago, but now it's mostly the crusty old bats, crusty old batlets who don't quite yet qualify for full-fledged status but are really close, and a constantly rotating group of newbies who come in, orient, stay for a year or two (6-9 months of which is orientation) and then move on for "greener pastures". It's exhausting to be constantly precepting new nurses and demoralizing to finally get that newbie off orientation and be working with full staff only to have another one leave and start the whole cycle over again.
This job hopping complaint seems like a lightly veiled ageist generalization, same as the NETY people. TBH the ageist crap from both directions is rampant in this forum and getting sort of pathetic. I'm starting to gain this perspective that everybody in the healthcare field is in some kind of perpetual p*ssing contest with each other. Sad state of affairs.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
Things ARE different now. New grads always had life changes that necessitated changing jobs -- getting married and moving to Borneo, boyfriend the medical student matched at a university hospital 2000 miles away -- but on the average, they stayed a couple of years first. And it wasn't 8 or 10 people leaving every summer, but 1 or 2. Every unit had a core group of crusty old bats that had been there a decade or more and some two or three decades. Those COBs trained the newbies, so that they absorbed the unit values and traditions and the standard of care remained high. With only a few new grads every year, only the people who were good at precepting were called upon to precept, and their orientation was smoother. People did change jobs . . . someone who had been dreaming of the ICU transferred after a couple of years, and usually they liked it and stayed. Someone gets sick of tele after five years may want to give L & D a try -- and generally they'd have spent enough time considering what they wanted and didn't want and researching their move that they did like it. Usually. Now we have a constant churning -- Ten new people coming and 11 folks with under two years leaving. It's a whole different world.
That constant turnover has to be exhausting for the people who precept (I didn't do much precepting, so I don't know this for a certainty). I would also think it would be disheartening to put all that time and effort into teaching a new grad, only to have him/her leave after a year...or less. After a while, why would anyone want to precept?
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
This job hopping complaint seems like a lightly veiled ageist generalization, same as the NETY people. TBH the ageist crap from both directions is rampant in this forum and getting sort of pathetic. I'm starting to gain this perspective that everybody in the healthcare field is in some kind of perpetual p*ssing contest with each other. Sad state of affairs.
It is if you operate on the assumption that all new grads are young people.
As someone who has struggled with mental illness for most of her life, I wish happiness was that simple. Happiness and all that comes with it is far more complex than that.
PrincessBride,
I am right with you on the mental illness issue; I've had depression to a greater or lesser degree for nearly two decades, most of my life, and only recently have I begun to figure out the secret to happiness. Medication helps, and I haven't yet had the courage to get off my antidepressants, but the real secret to being happy? It's to give yourself permission to be happy. To say, "this activity makes me happy, so I give myself permission to do it." To say, "being around this person makes me unhappy," and then giving yourself permission to not see that person. I make it sound easy, but it's not. The first time you choose to be happy is HARD. It's easy to be sad, and easy to stay in the rut that makes you sad. The hardest part is making that choice to change.
Truthfully, my journey into happiness started when I decided that, even though I'd been told my entire life that where my family was currently living wasn't home and wasn't worth loving, I really did love my town and I did love my job and that I could be happy right where I was. My family didn't understand it when I asked them to stop making negative comments about our hometown and my employer (a large hospital which had employed both my parents in one capacity or another and left both of them feeling rather less than satisfied), and I got a lot of flack for it... for years. But now they don't make those negative comments; it's understood that I love the place and they don't, and nobody feels the need to make anyone else see their point of view. (Not that our conversations are exactly the pinnacle of positivity *sarcasm alert* but at least they're a different type of negative...)
Discovering happiness IS a lot more complex than people who have never dealt with mental illness can know. And yet, to claim that it is too complex to attempt to discover is an excuse to stay sad and never change. If you can defy your brain chemistry to grasp at happiness, you will be more successful than the person who has always been happy and never knew how low a human spirit can sink.
Happiness is not something to take for granted; it is a prize to be fought for and valued and treasured. Make the choice. Take the chance. Earn your happiness. It's not an easy road, and it sometimes feels so easy to fall off of, and absolutely no one will understand how hard you fought for it... but it's worth it.
I'm sorry this is not directly related to the topic at hand; I just feel very strongly about this, and feel that it ought to be addressed. Had someone told me in my youth that happiness doesn't come easily, I might have wasted fewer years embracing sadness.
(Which, incidentally, is related to the job-hopping issue: Happy people - or those actively seeking happiness - are less likely to be the type of people driven to job-hop for personal reasons. And really, don't we all deserve happy people in our jobs and our lives? Most especially if that happy person is ourselves.)
It is if you operate on the assumption that all new grads are young people.
I'm with you on that one. I'm a new grad nurse but I'm well into my 30s and nursing is my second career. The lack of work ethic or entitled attitude cannot be made as a blanket statement to describe all of us. However, I do agree that there is quite a bit of that entitlement attitude among the 20-somethings and younger. I'm not saying all but a good portion of that age group I'm sorry to say. I saw it in nursing school and I see it daily.
I'm with you on that one. I'm a new grad nurse but I'm well into my 30s and nursing is my second career. The lack of work ethic or entitled attitude cannot be made as a blanket statement to describe all of us. However, I do agree that there is quite a bit of that entitlement attitude among the 20-somethings and younger. I'm not saying all but a good portion of that age group I'm sorry to say. I saw it in nursing school and I see it daily.
When I couldn't survive or being threatened to be fired with the job I enjoy, the solution is to find a greener grass. It works alright for me. If I have had let my emotion dictated my future, I'm still living in poverty today. I begun in the most terrible job on Earth at such vulnerable age. Perhaps, I'm exaggerating it. I have been a job hopper since I was 10. I worked in agriculture, houses, restaurants, stores, and offices. Some job I had deprived me from sleeping properly. I fell asleep in my classes. At age 30, my back is starting to have symptoms such as pain/pressure around my cervical and sacral spines [i'm not being hypochondriac]. Surprisingly, I'm physically young.
Today, I'm working on my pre-nursing prerequisites.
My husband quoted, "You can't avoid psychos, but you can join the psychos."
These days, we all have to know how to deal with certain people to protect ourselves.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
If you can't handle night shift, then you just are doing it wrong? No acknowledgment for differing physiological abilities to adapt? Or psychosocial? Are you aware that there are mountains of evidence showing shortened lifespans and health consequences for people who work night and worse, rotating shifts?
And it takes months? What about those who are rotating shifts? That is impossible to adjust to.
You cannot always choose what happens to you, but you can sure as heck try your dardnest to get what you want.
Granted, night shifts and rotating are difficult. But I've seen far too many posts from people who conclude that they are one of those (few) people who just CANNOT handle night shift after one shift. Or less. You cannot know whether or not you can successfully do nights without giving it a try. Rotating shifts are difficult, but they're not impossible, either. I've been rotating (by choice) for a decade now. There are plenty of plusses to rotating, if you're open to seeing them. I've even started a thread about it.
Nights and rotating shifts are a fact of life in a majority of hospital jobs. If you want to work in a hospital, you'd be well served to find something you LIKE about nights and rotating.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
A million times this. ^^^
I don't believe in job hopping, though I do believe in looking out for one's best interest. What drives me batty in these discussion is the attitude described above. How can we blame people for behaving as their parents raised them to behave? If sweeping generalizations can be made about a generation, it can be generalized that their parents (those in management now) wanted them to be that way.
I don't have to work with their parents, so why would I go looking to blame them?
I haven't seen constant put downs, either, although I have seen many MANY new grads and younger employees interpret constructive criticism as nastiness and bullying. You're right -- not all preceptors should BE preceptors. But to blame preceptors for being nasty and bullying rather than taking a look at the MESSAGE in the criticism that is less constructive than you would like is to be completely unprofessional and stunts your professional growth.
Let me fist say, Ruby, that I pretty much like everything that you post, however, I'm going to have to disagree with this point. I'm sure we've all heard the saying "it's not what you say, it's how you say it." I believe it's not the constructive criticism itself that's being interpreted as mean or nasty, but the manner in which that criticism is delivered. It could be the tone in a persons voice or the expression on their face that can cause what they say to be interpreted as being mean or nasty, even if they didn't mean it that way.
One other thing. I do believe that there are some people out there that are just way too sensitive. They can take everything you say the wrong way. No matter what you say or how you say it.
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
Things ARE different now. New grads always had life changes that necessitated changing jobs -- getting married and moving to Borneo, boyfriend the medical student matched at a university hospital 2000 miles away -- but on the average, they stayed a couple of years first. And it wasn't 8 or 10 people leaving every summer, but 1 or 2. Every unit had a core group of crusty old bats that had been there a decade or more and some two or three decades. Those COBs trained the newbies, so that they absorbed the unit values and traditions and the standard of care remained high. With only a few new grads every year, only the people who were good at precepting were called upon to precept, and their orientation was smoother. People did change jobs . . . someone who had been dreaming of the ICU transferred after a couple of years, and usually they liked it and stayed. Someone gets sick of tele after five years may want to give L & D a try -- and generally they'd have spent enough time considering what they wanted and didn't want and researching their move that they did like it. Usually. Now we have a constant churning -- Ten new people coming and 11 folks with under two years leaving. It's a whole different world.