Which position would be better?

[RatherBHiking]

I have two job offers from two different places and I'm not sure which would be better.

First: Night shift, less pay and better benefits, 40 min commute, less turnover

Second: Day shift, more pay, 20 min commute, more turnover

The first job I'm concerned about the nights and a 40 min drive home. In the past when I've done nights I've been so exhausted I'd fall asleep at stop lights. I also would wake up after about four hours and not be able to go back to sleep and have a bad headache the rest of the night. That was many years ago so maybe it would be different now???

However the second place is notorious for being short staffed with a higher turnover and Dr's get away with yelling at the nurses a lot. ( I have friends who work here and this is what they tell me. ) However I know I'd handle the day shift better and the shorter commute would save me a lot of time. 

I currently work M-F but I'm bored and need a change and hate the five days a week. I'm always tired after work and don't feel like doing anything. Weekends I'm busy catching up on everything so I never feel like I get a real day off. I don't HAVE to change or do anything though but I get excited over the thought of something new and only working 3 days a week. 

Any suggestions or advice? Thanks!

[anewsns]

23 minutes ago, RatherBHiking said:

This is why I wanted advice. I’ve learned when it comes to oneself you don’t always see the forest because of the trees. I know I wasn’t seeing everything clearly due to emotions. My outpatient job isn’t boring in the fact I’m not constantly busy, just in the fact it’s tedious, same old thing, no longer a challenge etc. I was excited to make a change and actually get offers but it’s starting to sound like I’m exchanging one set of problems for another. Thanks for your advice!  

Good call, maybe a day surgery center or urgent care would be better! 

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

Do you have a family and/or children under your care? I think that would be my most important consideration. I get bored easily too and would have been willing to put up with more stress if I could go home and put my feet up.

If you took a new job, are there other positions similar to your current job nearby? Would you be able to return to outpatient if you wanted to?

[RatherBHiking, BSN, RN]

My youngest is in college. I left acute care to be there for my kids. Now that they are all grown I don’t have to worry about it. 

There are no similar jobs and I probably wouldn’t be able to return to that job anytime soon. No safety net.

I’m starting to explore options outside of nursing and/or returning to school for something else maybe. I just need some kind of change. 

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

On 9/6/2021 at 4:47 AM, RNperdiem said:

How about option 3: Stay with your dull but low stress day job for now while applying for other nursing jobs. Those two choices don't sound appealing at all. Hold out for something better.

I second that.  Stay with your boring, low stress job, at least for now.  It sounds like you work in an office.  Look for other office jobs, some have 4 ten hour shifts.

The way things are in hospitals now I would avoid it.  There are worse things than being bored believe me.  Being so stressed out because of high acuity and short staffing is not an improvement.  I was so stressed due to the short staffing, constant alarms of tele, bedchecks, bipaps, call lights and the latest creation,  remote monitoring with a camera that would sound such a loud blast the first time I heard it I thought what the hell is that!   To get rid of sitters they have these stupid cameras that confused patients don't listen to the voice coming out telling them to stay in bed and then a shrieking tornado like siren comes on and you walk in the room and are right in front of the damn camera telling them to shut it off, waving your hands and it takes forever for them to realize hey someone's there.

Also short staffing can turn into frequent mandation of 16 hour plus shifts!  Three 12 hr shifts sound great, but not so much.  I did nights as it was a slower pace, but between sleeping before and after your shift, it wasn't like you really had 4 days off.  You either slept before your first shift or came in sleep deprived and either slept your last shift and wasted the day in bed or stayed up and felt like ***.  You get screwed on holidays as you work either the night before or the night of so essentially every holiday and God forbid if they put you on/off every other day working nights!  I usually worked two days on and two or three days off as it was best for my sanity that if the first night was hell I knew I only had to get through one more night!  I didn't have the energy to work 3 twelve hour shifts as I felt so sleep deprived and you have no time for anything than work, sleep, shower and eat, unless you can get by on 5 hours sleep. 

When the crappy corp took us over and were trying to get rid of the older nurses, right before covid hit, they scheduled a couple older 60+ nurses to 5-12 hour shifts in a row!  I'm not kidding you and the union and management were yelling about this, yet it wasn't fixed for the nurses!  For some unknown reason I escaped that torture as I would have called in and taken two days off to boot!  This happened at least twice to one of the nurses.  It wasn't a one off and it wasn't a mistake!  When the nurse luckily got a low census from the compassionate floor supervisor to help, a manager angrily called and demanded to know why she wasn't there!  Such a POS!  The irony of it a few months later when covid hit and staff were quitting in droves the same manager came around and told her how she valued and needed her.

There were so many times I wished I could have gone back to my pleasant if somewhat boring job as a secretary during all the years of bedside nursing, but financially that wasn't an option and this before Descension dump and covid!  So I suggest you think this thru carefully.

Actually if you are still working your boring office job you are lucky because they lost so much staff by us that they pulled office nurses, techs, PT/OT and sleep lab into the hospital to be helpers to make up for all the staff jumping ship.

[SmilingBluEyes]

Ummm I would not work where doctors yelled at me. I have no tolerance for that crap.

Always go where it's less toxic.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

On 9/6/2021 at 7:54 AM, RatherBHiking said:

I’ve experienced this many times, as well as many nurses in this area, at all three hospitals in our town. I don’t mean a Dr getting irritated but full out screaming as his (always a he) face is red and people stop and stare. It’s better than it was 20 yrs ago and at some you can file a workplace harassment form but consider yourself lucky it has never happened to you or even seen it. The third place I didn’t apply to I was told in an interview once our Dr’s are professional and don’t yell. Yet I saw it almost every day and was reamed out myself by a surgeon for holding a case up and it wasn’t even my fault. One also liked to throw instruments like scalpels across the room one one tech got hit and they still let him practice. I quit that job. 
 

Thanks for the insight.  We don’t have great choices of hospitals to work at in my area. ?

I've experienced it only a handful of times and the reality is they are the jerks!  Thankfully the majority of Dr's I've worked with have been good, decent and respectful.  Although the ones who are jerks tend to be surgeons, arrogant with a God complex.  But I have heard of the temper tantrums and throwing things in the OR being tolerated and I don't know why and then they wonder why they can't keep staff!

[speedynurse, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-P]

I think it depends what you are up for. I personally would go for the day shifts but that is essentially because I know the last time I did nights, I essentially crashed and burned…..never a good situation to return to.
 

It depends on what works better for your life….is it money or the commute or the insurance or the doctor-nurse relationships?

Personally - most doctors and nurses seem to relate fine to each other . In all honesty, coming from the ER - I don’t put up with garbage. I expect my opinions to be listened to when I have a patient safety concern and vice versa. Nurses don’t like the way they are treated? Then do something to change that….my philosophy is we are all human beings and can figure out a way to work together. 

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Wow, you must be bored stiff if you are considering going to acute care! I don't work in a hospital, never have and never will unless I have absolutely no choice.  I've never heard anything good about it and sadly it seems that it just keeps getting worse.  Granted people don't usually go to an internet forum and rave about how much they love their job, but with so many nurses complaining about essentially the same things no matter where in the country they work there's some there's more than a little truth to it.  

[RatherBHiking, BSN, RN]

I'm not sure why everyone thinks just because I don't work in the hospital my job is low stress. It's boring to me in the fact I feel like there's very little skill involved in what I do, not that I'm not constantly busy and go without lunch most days and forget to use the restroom because I don't have time to drink anything.  It's extremely stressful and we don't get overtime. We were working over for hours not getting paid at all and after six months they finally decided to at least pay us our regular rate but we had to document in 15 min increments exactly what we were doing and who we were talking to. No one did this at the beginning because we didn't know we had to and of course didn't remember. They acted like we were trying to steal from them or something. So a lot of us weren't paid for the first half of the covid nightmare last fall because we didn't document how we were using our time. We regularly get added more duties and responsibilities for the measly pay we already make. When we complain we're overwhelmed we're told to "hang in there". Our boss does very very little to help us and constantly chances policies or forgets she told us to do something a certain way then gets mad when we do it that way. When we point out that's what she told us she says well we should've known better and went by what she meant, not what she said. We all get a stern lecture and even if we prove her wrong, she never says she's sorry or takes responsibility. We've had nurses who've worked ICU, ER, trauma etc all say this is more stressful than that. We were told don't expect to take any personal days or vacation until further notice. So when I say I'm thinking of returning to acute care it's because at least I'll get paid for every hour I work without having to prove what I'm doing, get paid a lot better, get to use my nursing skills more and at least get more than two days off every week. I've also considered traveling in a year or two and need that experience. I have family that works in the hospital who works with many travelers who love what they do. If I traveled I could work half a year and take the other half off which sounds tempting. Or I can find a career path I don't need a six month break from. I just have no clue what that would be so I have a lot of soul searching. That's where I'm at. I just wanted to clear that up. I do appreciate the insight and agree it's not really good anywhere for nurses right now it seems.