Week Three of Orientation and I’m Worried and Want to Quit…

[missnursegal98]

Hello everyone. I’m a new grad nurse on a Medical Surgical/COVID unit. I was hired back in July and was super excited to start after 3 long months of job hunting. However, ever since I’ve started the orientation process I’ve rethought my entire nursing career and want to quit. The atmosphere is unsafe and cruel.

To begin, the manager told me my schedule would be 3 twelve hour shifts a week when I was interviewing. I figured it would be 7 am-7 pm. Boy, was I wrong. I usually don’t get out of work until 8:00 or 8:15 pm. My preceptor sometimes even stays longer and lets me leave “early” as if 8:00 pm is early. So God knows how long she is actually staying. Until 8:30 pm? 8:45 pm? I drive home feeling drunk and honestly I could have sworn I was hallucinating from the lack of sleep at one point.

I can’t keep doing these 13-13.5 hour shifts especially back to back. When I was in clinical I saw nurses give report at 7 pm and get out at 7:10 pm. That to me is reasonable. But 8:00 pm? Really? Is that normal to get out an hour to an hour and a half later than when you are actually supposed to get out? Because if I would have known that, if someone would have been honest with me during nursing school I would have never gotten my degree in nursing.

Also we don’t get lunches. It is so busy sometimes we have to skip out on lunch. And even when we do eat, we constantly have to get up and leave our food to go help a patient or talk to someone else. Being 5 feet and 95 lbs, this isn’t healthy for me. I'm a small person. I need to eat or else I get shaky and fatigued and can’t focus. I’ve been sneaking snacks and drinking a protein smoothie throughout my shift, but I need a legitimate break where I sit down and eat a meal. You know?

On top of the getting out late and the break issue, my manager told me I have to work 3 Fridays and 3 Mondays a month because “no one else wants to work those days.” The real question is why aren’t they rotating those days and why do they all fall on me? I understand I am a new grad, but I don’t think that means I should be taken advantage of like that. Now that means on my weekends on (we work every other weekend) I will be expected to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday in a row because we are SO UNDERSTAFFED. And on my weekends off, I am expected to work Monday and Friday still. It just sucks because I can’t even get a long weekend, one of the main reasons I chose 12 hour shifts in the first place. I figured I would get a few long weekends here and there... So I basically have no life at this point. I usually visit my family and boyfriend on the weekends because they are two hours away, but now I can’t even do that very often. I’m just so upset. I am jealous of all the nurses out there who have Monday-Friday jobs who get out at 5 or 6 pm that’s all I can say.

I just want to say props to all the nurses out there who do this every week. Who work the long hours, sacrifice their lunches and bathroom breaks for patients, who can keep going and don’t let anything stop them… thank you for all that you do…but I don’t think this job is for me. I don’t know if I’m on the wrong unit, in a bad atmosphere, or what but I feel like I’m going insane and I’m so unhappy with my career choice. I come home crying and I just want to see my family and boyfriend again.

I forgot to add that during my orientation, I did something wrong. And one of the older nurses started laughing at me. Of course I turned red and felt so dumb. It was horrible. They are all so mean to me and act like I'm incompetent. 

I will feel like a failure if I quit my first nursing job a month into it and I’m scared it will look bad on my resume but I don’t know what to do. I’m just so unhappy and I want out. What should I do?

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[Squidpdx, CNA, LPN]

The things you describe are unfortunately par for the course in hospitals. If you value your time and also breaks, I encourage you to look to outpatient settings- I work at a FQHC and love it. I work four 10 hour shifts, with an additional hour lunch, and plenty of opportunity to take breaks when needed. There are lots of other positions in nursing, not just med-surg in acute care. Explore more of them. Nothing wrong with prioritizing your work-life balance!

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

Unfortunately, you are not pointing out unusual occurrences in hospital nursing. A 12 hour shift is rarely 12 hours, I'm surprised you found many nurses that were out on time before starting your own job. As far as the schedule, at my hospital if it's your weekend off, you are expected to work the Friday and Monday around it. And yes, sometimes you end up with three or four on around your weekend. You have to decide whether you can work in the conditions, or you have to speak up. You're legally entitled to a break, if your management gives you a problem, that's something for the labor board and you can tell your manager you will be contacting them. If you're working in the hospital these days, though, you're likely to find similar conditions almost everywhere. Sorry it's been difficult for you, good luck with figuring out what will work best for you. 

[JKL33]

Nursing schools do need an immediate adjustment in the way that they advocate nursing, which is too often to flat out lie about it and threaten what all will happen if nurses have certain expectations or don't conduct themselves according to others' interests.

Anyway, to back up a little. I understand that this is all very overwhelming. But in my opinion the prudent thing to do is control what you can reasonably control and then see where things lie and how you feel about them:

1. As best you can, be ready for report. Give report in a concise manner and then expect to be ready to leave around 1930 or very shortly thereafter. Conduct and comport yourself in that manner.

2. When it is time for your break, take your break. Give a concise report to whomever will be covering your patients and leave your work phone at your workspace. If taking a break is not facilitated, don't take a fake one. Insist on being paid for every single minute of work engagement. As simple as it sounds, you'll probably face some pushback on the idea. But that is what makes it into an issue and that is how things change. Often they don't change because too many people just take it; just work without being paid--don't get a real break because [xyz reason], and also don't get paid for the time they didn't get a real break. I have successfully refused to do this at workplaces. The law is that you must be paid when you are working. Period. Since most workplaces don't want to deal with having to pay for all these breaks that people don't take, they find a way to cover them.

3. Regarding your Mondays and Fridays, this is just the way the cookie crumbles. You didn't sign a contract or accept an offer that had anything to do with having a certain amount of days off in a row or having particular days off or anything else. If the unfairness of how Ms/Fs off are distributed amongst staff, it is a personal decision whether you tolerate that or not.

4. Regarding the family, the boyfriend and no life, some of that is just being a working adult professional. Innumerable working adults don't get to spend the time with their loved ones that they would like to, because life also includes responsibilities. Certainly there is a reasonable expectation that things will change when you are a working adult professional and no longer a student or a child, etc., etc.

5. If people at work are mean and that is tolerated as the general culture of the unit, that is not a good place to work and you don't need to be subjected to it. Habitually poor treatment and/or a habitually poor working culture is a reason to move on. However, if  occasionally someone acts like a jerk, that needs to roll right off you like water off a duck's back. Otherwise you are just torturing yourself by remotely caring about what jerks do.

6. Staffing and other issues pertaining to patient safety are a big deal. If it is objectively unsafe, that is a reason to leave.

You sound overwhelmed and again, that is understandable. But I think it's time to move into problem-solving mode. Start by making an objective assessment of the situation, change what you can change, then re-assess where to go from there.

Hang in there.

[RNperdiem, RN]

If this is your first "real" adult-level job, be kind to yourself; it is a culture shock, and it takes time to build stamina. The transition from student life to full-time working adult is not something addressed enough. 

The jobs are posted as 12 hours, but that does not include lunch, so when the next shift rolls in at 7pm, you still need to give report before you can go. Giving a concise report with the right level of detail is a skill nurses need to learn, and it is customized to your patient population. You get used to the 12 hour shifts just like anything else. It is like getting fit; the more you do it the stronger you become even though you were struggling in the beginning. 

The staying late business? I don't know, I give report and am outta there by 7:30. Keep up on charting throughout the day is all you can do. If the night shift comes in late, that is another matter.

I would recommend staying for now. Stay long enough to learn the basics of nursing and use that experience to find another job. If it took you months to land this job, the job market might be hard to break into in your area. Experience unlocks better jobs. Treat this job like a temporary assignment that you will get through until you land a better job.