What is the worst nursing job you ever had?

[RatherBHiking, BSN, RN]

Just curious...

My very first job was my worst. The older nurses invented the phrase "nurses eat their young" I think. They would purposely lead you astray by flat out lying then laugh as you got in trouble. Literally laugh and snicker. They purposely "forgot" to schedule me lunch breaks every day then say go whenever so I'd have to find someone to cover me so I could eat and then they would refuse to cover because they were "too busy". They also tried to conveniently go to lunch when their patient's meds were due and ask me to give them. I did twice. I learned quickly they were just taking advantage of me and then another new nurse was giving their meds. (This was on nights.)

My other worst job was surgery. Many of the surgeons screamed at you during surgery and many of the techs gossiped and put people down so bad I thought I was back in high school. No thanks-life is too short!

My favorites were OB and school nursing. I left OB due to all the issues with hospital nursing: short staffing, forced over-time, politics, etc. I do miss OB a lot sometimes and think about getting back into it and then I smack myself. I do like this job a lot and every time I have left it in the past I end up missing it too so here I am. :)

[KKEGS, MSN, RN]

I've only had 3 nursing jobs (home care, NICU and school nursing) but of those 3 home care was my worst because the pay was so awful. It was my first job out of nursing school and I worked night shift a lot. My patients slept so all I did was give meds through a G tube, change out the formula for their continuous feeds every 4 hours and clean and sterilize equipment. It was very lonely.

[Nurse_JackieVA, BSN, RN]

My last job - first in VA. Caught nurses lying about me to cover their mistakes during my orientation, the unit was more focused about looking good on paper that actually doing great work and saving lives - sooooooo focused on customer service and kissing butt.

Never in my life have I been so stressed out and the patients weren't even acute - walkie/talkie stable. Terrible. I ended up in the ED with CP and when I called out from the ED - mind you my unit was on the 3rd floor - the charge asked if I was still coming in. That was the last straw. I quit.

I do miss the acuity of the hospital but not that floor. That was a learning lesson.