The worst job you had before becoming a Nurse?

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What was the worst job you had before becoming a Nurse? How has Nursing changed your life?

I worked as a kennel tech at a vet for a summer. So. Much. Dog. Poop. Dog poop is bad enough by itself, but in a pretty warm area, the smell is awful. I remember around 4th of July they were getting soooo many calls to have dogs boarded so they were finding ANYWHERE to put dogs (that was within reason and safe). They opened up the old clinic building and were putting huge crates in there and it was nuts. Where we could normally board I think 60-75 dogs, we ended up with 125 over 4th of July. Because we couldn't magically crap out a ton more runs for outside time, it meant crazy long hours for the THREE kennel techs.

In general the job wasn't terrible I guess. It was a weird mix between lots of dog crap and helping the vet techs with random stuff. Like if an animal had been euthanized but the owners didn't

or couldn't bury it at home we would dispose of it, but in the mean time it would go in a freezer. So one time it was me and a vet tech stuffing a HUGE golden retriever into an already very full freezer.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

I worked at Target for 2 days. On my 2nd day, we had a group orientation. The supervisors came in drinking coffee and such. We were told we weren't allowed to drink our own coffee in our own canisters.

Prior to that experience, and after that, I worked for myself and was used to freedom and autonomy.

I quit. I continued working for myself.

As a nurse, I was able to drink coffee at work.

Yup, coffee is the most important factor! [emoji23][emoji81]

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Worst job was as a child care associate. I loved the kids- always had a tender place in my heart for them, always will, however, this center was poorly managed and inadequately maintained. I didn't know about child-adult ratios at the time but I knew it wasn't right for a 17-year-old to be left solely in charge of 6 toddlers for any long stretches of time. Sometimes the main teacher would be floated to another room and I would have the whole 2-year-old room from nap time until around 4, 4:30 when kids started going home and the rooms could be combined. The director was mean and nasty from day one, and the last straw (or close to the last straw) was when I witnessed the main teacher withholding lunch from one particular baby for the third day in a row for "misbehaving." I thought it was cruel the first time it happened, but by the third day I realized she just didn't like the little boy and would use any excuse to abuse him. I reported her to the director, who in turn wrote her up on suspected misconduct and the teacher started being really mean to me but at least she left the little boy alone. I quit a week later.

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Not a nurse yet, but working at Wendy's was the worst. It was simultaneously the most boring and the most stressful job I've ever had. I never worked so hard for so little money. I would go home smelling like sweaty, fried butt every day. The only good thing was (most) of my coworkers were really awesome and sweet. That said I only lasted a month before I noped outta there.

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

I had two secretarial jobs before I became a nurse and I loved them!

I also was a waitress at a few chain restaurants and to be honest those weren't bad although I wouldn't recommend working at the Waffle House to my worst enemy.

The worst? Hostess/busperson at a locally owned restaurant. One very busy Sunday morning, the only other busperson who reported for duty (one came in then went home sick) walked out because he was accused of stealing tips. I myself was accused of stealing tips a while later. There were three managers and they all hated one another - one had me file a grievance against another one. There was a lot of nepotism which added to the fun. And the owners would come in to eat and rearrange things, come into the kitchen, tell the waitstaff exactly what they did wrong, etc. And then it was up to the waitstaff how much we were tipped out at the end of the shift.

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

My worst job was one of my engineering jobs.

I had been laid off from a great job when they closed our plant, my wife wasn't working, and my child had serious medical problems. I took the only job I could find in order to try to keep our heads above water. It was for a small, mom-and-pop operation that had some serious ethical problems and was screwing their customers and their employees alike.

I had to take a 20% cut in salary and a huge cut in benefits. As I began to integrate myself in the company I got to know a senior engineer who had become a shell of a man. He was earning even less than I was and had no hopes of getting any more (I sat in on a meeting discussing compensation in which the owner said, 'we don't need to give him a raise; he can't go anywhere'). One day, he was out for a walk with his wife when he suffered an acute MI and died. The boss put me into his position.

I found myself being asked to do work for which I wasn't qualified, some of which required a license which I didn't have. I learned as much as I could but was terribly nervous because my work-product had lives depending on it. Whenever I would reach out to people who might be able to help me, all I got was, "You have no business in that role." So there I was, middle-aged, rapidly depleting my savings, and trapped in a job for which I wasn't qualified but with no other options. At the same time I learned that the company had recently appropriated employee contributions for medical insurance premiums and 401(k) deposits in order to cover their own cash short-falls. They were also blatantly violating the terms of contracts with customers in order to prevent customers from cancelling orders that were far behind schedule and of dubious quality.

During that same time, I was aggressively searching for other opportunities. I did receive one offer but it was immediately rescinded when I tried to negotiate a salary closer to the one I'd had prior to the aforementioned 20% cut. Every other job for which I applied - and there weren't many - I heard nothing but crickets in response. I networked like crazy but, just crickets.

I looked into grad school in the evenings (of course mom and pop not only would not provide any financial assistance, they wouldn't even let me leave during the day to attend classes). After a short period of time my wife became very angry with me for not being home enough. I was trying to balance a poorly paid salaried job (meaning work whatever hours it takes to get the job done but receive not a penny more for your trouble -- start at M-F 0800-1700 and then add days/hours as needed... but never less than 40) and engineering graduate school in the evening... and try to have some time/energy/emotion to share with my family. I was receiving direct and indirect statements about my lack of worth and value to the industrial world. I had essentially become that shell of a man that I had met when I started that job.

I became so depressed that I couldn't summon the energy to even brush my teeth. It was weird but I went for weeks without brushing my teeth - despite how nasty it was... I just... couldn't find the motivation. Very weird.

How has nursing changed my life? It provides great wages and benefits with a clearly defined work schedule and duties which I find not particularly taxing. I excel at my nursing role and receive accolades from my patients and my bosses. I am routinely validated by my colleagues in the various clinical roles.

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.
Night shift server at a 24 hour diner. Oh how I miss the drunks, perverts, and bad or no tippers. The other nights I didn't get enough tables to pay the bills.

Drunks and perverts? Sounds like a standard shift in the ER! :laugh:

Right?!!

And they don't tip for ****!! (Though despite my protestations, a nice old lady through $40 at me for walking her to her car late at night)

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Right?!!

And they don't tip for ****!! (Though despite my protestations, a nice old lady through $40 at me for walking her to her car late at night)

Our patients have a tendency to bring us lots and lots of foods. Doughnuts mostly. Good ol' Southerners.

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Specializes in Nursing Leadership.

No worries. The DON and the MDS coordinator came in and worked only AFTER I walked out. She was probably glad I quit.

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I really hate sales so I would say my worst job was the summer I spent promoting an online financial service. Our clientele was mostly elderly regulars and nobody seemed to want anything to do with a computer. Or with me. I basically stood around a bunch and tried to look busy. These elderly customers often wouldn't even interact with me because they knew my role and were suspicious that I would befriend them and then try to sell my product. My manager thought that the answer to this obstacle was for me to wear a ridiculously oversized vest with a bunch of bright slogans and buttons on it. She thought it "created a fun buzz." The only thing that strategy achieved was to stop the creepy older guys from hitting on me so often because I looked so embarrassing.

My best pre-nursing job was working at a local ski hill. Pretty much everyone from my high-school worked there at some point. It was a pretty relaxed job and we could ski for free before or after our shifts.

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I have more..

I lasted a month or so doing door to door soliciting for a non-profit environmental activism-type group. I got the most donations in the poorer neighborhoods, though they were smaller. Rich folks didn't answer the door half the time.

Cons: my pay was based on how much I got in donations

I didn't really feel strongly about the views I "supported" nor did I jive with my crunchy granola co-workers

I got so freaking bone cold walking door to door for hours; that was the final straw one night. I went up to my boss when he came around in the pick-up van and said "I can't do this anymore." He looked at me like "yeah, I know." I was awful.

Then there was my brief stint as a knife salesman. I made one sale, to my Dad.

Thank God for nursing

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Worst job I had was working at Tim Hortons

Employees are allowed to have an acct for goodies and get deducted the following pay period.

I was caffeine high all the time and gaining weight from all the carbs I devoured

half my cheque practically went to my bill :confused:

JK

but a job is worse when working with a racist coworker :no:

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