Imagine the immortal Chris Farley's 'Matt Foley' character, when he was on Weekend Update doing 'air quote marks' with just about everything he said. Some nurses "hate their jobs" because they have "too much to do in the allotted time", or they're "being screwed on pay", or they have "too many patients", or "not enough help", or "the documentation requirements are insane", or ... truthfully, it could be any reason, but I'll make a guess that for many, it's not so much the actual patient care, but one or more of the above.
Well. If you "don't work" you are going to end up "living in a VAN down by the RIVER!"
I don't hate my job, I love the work I do...What I do hate is the administrative BS and worse than lousy managers (always remember bad nurses make bad managers), impossible workloads, not replacing sick calls, being told no to vacation and then you are going to lose it if you don't take it by the deadline, not enough relief staff, abusive patients and families and never ever a thank you from our boss for a job well done. Amazing what a few positive words of encouragement, support and thanks can do for staff morale but we never see or hear it. And on a last note I absolutely think we are underpaid, under appreciated and totally overworked but I still love helping the clients and families who are appreciative of the care they receive and one thank you from them totally makes me feel I have some worth and they respect what we as nurses do.
I can tell you why- Starts with College/University Professors not being honest with students. Not taking time out and taking the authority hat off and telling it like it is. As a guy that was former military (USMC ) our instructors told the truth - like sometimes help isn't coming and things may/will go BAD ( want to say more but may offend ) . For example , if I was an instructor I would love to explain that depending on where you work , forget most of what we taught you - "Just Survive the shift " and remember ABC's and complain later. Survive ,survive
I agreed with the school having the responsibility, until just now. I literally just changed my mind about it.
Is it really up to an educational program to warn students that they're likely not going to be able to practice good nursing? Isn't the student the one who should be researching their career choice? Caveat emptor?
If I were an instructor I wouldn't compromise my principles because employers may or may not allow for adequate staffing. I would instruct the proper way of everything. I would not instruct subpar or "shortcuts" to accommodate employers' expectations of productivity. That would not be my responsibility.
1. Money isn't everything and doesn't solve all problems.
2. Lack of respect of nurses. I want to be treated fairly and like I am an intelligent person, not a robot.
3. The rules of the job change all the time. Vacations are approved, but then the weekend days are taken away.
4. As a seasoned nurse, I know how to do my job. I don't want to be told what to say to my patients so that they will give me a good satisfaction survey score.
5. Health care is no longer about the patient, it is money driven. Get the patient in and out as fast as possible. Can't solve the problem, pass it along to someone else and make it their problem. The patient is the one that is hurt.
Recently I began to hate my job. Lets start with that I dont hate nursing itself. I love it. But the idea of nursing is not what it once was. Here why. I have been at my job for about 10 years. I feel that Ive hit a plateau at this point. Not to much challenges me at work lately. On top of it all nursing has become all about discharge, admissions, and patient satisfaction. I come in to start my day and an hour into my shift they want to know who is going home that day. Discharges must be before noon. Oh and we start to get calls about admissions for beds that were kept empty overnight ( probably bc they dont have anyone working overrnight to save money) so from the time I am the busiest and expected to check my charts, do my assessments, complete my notes and hand out morning meds they also expect these discharges and admissions to get done. And dont forget about rounding sheets. We have to sign off that we saw the patient at least every hour. If the paper is not signed it didnt happen. We are almost always short staffed. We recieve 6 to 8 patient ratio. We are micromanaged and nothing ever seems good enough. Every morning our meetings are about what we are not doing right. Healthcare itself is up in arms right now. We recently were overtaken by a new facility so you feel as if you cant even keep up with the changes. Administration has changed over the years. My previous 3 managers are not even with us anymore. They have created a fear envirement. And lets not even get started on nothing working properly. How am I suppsed to do my job efficiently when the computers never work? These are my feelings and Ive come to the point that I need a change. I need to see what else is out there and start loving my job again.
Specializes in MICU/CCU, SD, home health, neo, travel.
I'm retired now, and looking back, I can say I didn't hate all my jobs. I hated some of them, but the ones I hated, I left. One I loved the most, I had to leave for family reasons--or I might never have left it at all. That manager was the one I ended up judging every future manager by, and most, I have to say, fell short. The other one I loved, and stayed at the longest, I was essentially screwed out of by a new, abusive division manager (who was eventually fired, went to another similar position at another agency, and was caught destroying records and fired--but not before she got one of my friends fired, a long sad story). After my divorce, when my kids were all grown, I took up travel nursing, and that was the best of all, because if you didn't like a job, you knew you were only there for 13 weeks. In a way, I loved that the most and might have stayed with it, but I met this wonderful gentleman and the rest is history.
Whether or not I would do it over again is another story. I was initially a linguistics major, but when I got into my junior year, I hit a point where I didn't know what I was going to do with it, because I sure didn't want to teach! Now, perspective and hindsight being what they are, I have many ideas, but then I just dropped out, stupid kid that I was. What made up my mind to go into nursing was that I had 3 kids and I realized (family issues again!) that there was a chance I might have to support them myself. I looked at the various offerings of our local community college and found that the nursing program was very well-regarded. I knew nursing paid well (at the time) and that opportunities were extremely good in the area. Weighing all the pros and cons made me go in that direction and I graduated magna cum laude 4 years later, having gone part time to finish my prereqs; not at the top of my class, but well in the top third. I really wanted to be a CNM, but at the time, the nearest CNM program was at a HBCU 250 miles away, which would have meant spending the week there and being home only on weekends, and family issues again...my husband, who had paid all my tuition for nursing school, put his foot down and flatly refused to pay one cent of tuition or any expenses. I ended up never getting my BSN at all, which in hindsight I very much regret, but that's another story. I did work in neonatal for a year and there I ended up with a kind of jaundiced view of OBs, but I think that was due to the ones in that town. So, would I do it now? The way nursing is these days, I very likely would not. And that makes me kind of sad. I miss it, but when I ran up against the ageism in the area where I now live--the first time I had *ever* run into it, BTW--I started thinking the way a lot of you are thinking. Talks I had with nurses during the year I was in and out of hospital were very revealing. All of that made me realize it was time to retire. And that's my story.
Having been a nurse for 16 years now and having "hated" my job a time or two I will speak to what I have experienced.
As a new grad (LPN) I worked with a lot of older more experienced nurses, they taught me a lot. They also complained a lot about the unit we worked on, the facility we worked in, and the leadership of the facility. They had seen a lot changes over the years; some good and some not so good. I think over time this behavior became a part of my behavior. I started noticing that I was saying some of the same things about my job that they were saying, once I became an RN. I quickly decided that unless I changed jobs, I would actually start believing what I was saying, so I did. I love being a nurse, I love caring for patients, but I didn't love hearing how much other people hated their jobs..EVERY DAY!
Here is what they really hated..being taken away from patient care by more and more paperwork. Almost every week there was some new initiative started, some new document created, some new life saving paperwork that needed to be done on every patient, every shift, every day that was created by people that don't take care of patients. They have no input from those of us at the bedside taking care of patients and so the frustration builds up. Patient care ratios increase because nurses leave and paperwork doesn't decrease. Frustration increases. It's a vicious cycle unfortunately. I try believe that nurses, young and old, do LOVE what we do for the patients, it's just the politics that we hate.
Specializes in MICU/CCU, SD, home health, neo, travel.
to NurseNeLz: Sounds like it might be time for you to move on. Have you looked into what's available nearby? Or maybe within an hour's drive? With 10 years "in grade" you've got something to go on.
In my early 40's I chose to become a nurse because of money and job security.
In my early fifties I have two stable jobs that pay me very well.
Since my goals are being achieved, I am happy with my jobs... despite there being many things about them that I don't care for. So long as I keep being paid well, I'll keep being happy.
I don't like how healthcare is being rated on how fast we bring someone their ginger ale and crackers when we are dealing with a patient who is actively having an MI or getting a blood transfusion. So many of the patients complain about the nurses not tending to them quickly to pick up their remote that fell or fluff their pillows and upper management gets mad at us for that. I went to school to become a nurse to be treated with respect, not like a maid and the only thing I'm good for is getting the same patients snacks and blankets. I wish some patients didn't treat hospitals like hotels and I wish upper management didn't either. Half the time the patient satisfaction rating aren't even based off of the excellent medical care they receive! Don't get me wrong, I don't mind grabbing snacks or fluffing pillows but when I have a very sick patient who I am with and a rude patient thinks they're the only one on the earth and complains to management about it I get frustrated.
The commuter nailed it! How many times can a person be talked to like a dog before they snap? I cry every night after work because I am mentally and physically broke down. I am a go getter and I love to see a job performed perfectly, well in nursing I never feel like I did a good job. I feel rushed, overworked, tired, my work cant be perfect its gotta be thrown together to get it done, families are demanding and downright mean, how much physical and mental exhaustion and verbal abuse and overtime and now adding extra work (new care plans we have to make) while asking you to do the work of the CNA as well can a person take...i just said yesterday I might could have time to make a care plan each day for each patient (including the patients of the lpn i have to make care plans for too) if i didnt have to get up from my computer every 5 minutes to change someone, take them to the bathroom, turn someone, take them ice... i dont have enough hrs in a day to do my job (and i work 13hrs a day) Ok ok rant is over haha! ps.. im day shift on med/surg/peds
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Farawyn
12,646 Posts
Well. If you "don't work" you are going to end up "living in a VAN down by the RIVER!"