Would part time work be better?

I worked full-time after nursing school and always said yes to extra days and after 2 years burned myself out. Got preggers - not on purpose. Now I work part-time and I cannot tell you how much it has saved my sanity. I'm not here enough to get involved in all the "drama" between co-workers. I get to stay home with my son most of the time.

I love it. Of course I'd really love it if I could stay home full time. :)

steph

It's always been my dream to work part-time (and I have what most would consider a "dream job" in nursing). I think that is probably true of just about any job in which you are busy and don't have full control over your activities.

Financially, I need full time employment. But someday, I hope to drop my hours and semi-retire.

llg

Thanks Stevielynn, good to know. Do you think you could go full time if you had to- or is nursing just overly stressful?

No, never ever ever again!! :)

Part of it is the shift I work, 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is hard to get to bed early enough to get a decent amount of sleep before the alarm rings at 1:45 a.m.

Part of it is I always stayed home with my older kids prior to getting my degree and I loved it and miss it.

I work in a rural setting and the stress level here is not that high. Although there are days. I don't think I would work full-time in any job.

steph

Thanks llg-What is your "dream job" if I may ask? How long have you been at it? Would you completely retire if you could?

I have been a nurse for 27 years and have a PhD. My current job combines staff development with a little administration. It's great in that I have a lot of autonomy, flexibility with my hours, etc. The essence of it is that I help the VP for nursing investigate and solve problems, develop new programs, teach and mentor less educated/experienced nurses, etc.

Sometimes I feel like I am actually accomplishing something (e.g. establishing a nursing student extern program, establishing an endowed fund for nursing scholarships, etc.). However, it can be frustrating to "work with the system" to try to get it to do what I want it to do. For example, today I find myself once again caught in the crossfire between our hospital attorney and the attorney from a university in another state -- trying to arrange an affiliation agreement for a hospital employee getting a degree in an online program so that she can do her clinicals here. That's not fun.

Then, there are always frustrations when so much of your success/failure depends upon working with/through other people. People just don't always do what you want them to do!

So ... yes ... by Friday, I am very ready for the weekend. 5 straight days of work is tiring, even though it is mental and emotional work as opposed to on-your-feet physical work. I often wish I could afford to work only 2 or 3 days per week so that I could have more days to "refresh my energy cells" more often.

llg