We mostly work with ventilated patients, but we trouble shoot monitors and other medical equipment. We are technicians, and therapists.

Anyways, I get a call at 1 am saying the HFO isn’t working on a 2 year old. Little did I know then that two days before the doctor gave the baby a pneuothorax. I won’t go into all the details,but I was dealing with a very ill baby.

I arrived at the ICU Peds. unit and there was the doctor ambuing the baby,and the nurse saying the vents not working. She said it works fine with the cork that we need to test it with, but not on the baby. I preformed the test on the vent. It works fine. I connected the baby to the vent, and yes, it wasn’t vibrating the child. The doctor said take it off. Goes back to ventilating the baby. I check the vent again, change a few membranes, hook the patient back up, and yes the same thing. By now the young doctor is going crazy and so are the nurses. I ran upstairs to get another HVO to hook the baby up and the same thing. I keep telling the doctor, check the baby, it’s not the ventilator. NO she said the baby is ok, the problem isn’t the the baby. She wouldn’t listen.

In short the baby coded and died. Both vents worked fine. The doctor was fixed on only one vent could help the baby. She never tried to re-intabate the kid. They baby was bradycardia when being ambued.

Now who is in trouble? Me. She told the parents that the ventilator stopped working. Idiot… The case will be brought up now. I feel like leaving, but I won’t .

At this point I want to see the doctor get hers. Not nice, not my style, but that’s how it is. This country is too little to look for another job. I have been really upset since this has happened.

So I know, that title says a lot huh? I’m kinda all over the place with that one. I suppose I should start from the top.

I spent 2 HARD years and 25K obtaining my BSN, and finally graduated in Dec ‘10. Whoopty whoop! The hard work is over I thought, “Girl you have JOB security now” is what people kept saying. All I heard about was the sign on bonuses, the RN shortages, and the millions of job openings for nurses in the USA. I was “guaranteed” a position at a local hospital, interview for 3 positions. The first RN manager didn’t even look at me during the interview, the second sad I wasn’t “bubbly” enough, the third wanted someone excited about being a floor nurse for like ever. Fine, I applied for other jobs.

I applied for a psych job, thinking it was fulltime as it stated when I applied, nope, its PRN, what the heck! I NEED BENEFITS! “Oh, you’ll get at least 30 hrs per week, we need help”. Time went on, by my 3rd month as a PRN psych RN, I had NO HOURS and STUDENT LOANS TO PAY! Even now, it seems that no one is interested in hiring a new RN.

SO on to my PRN job. The nurses backbite, and the techs…honey, I suppose they have management skills because they try to tell ME what to do, well I’m the charge RN on nights when I’m there, so I steer the ship. And when I have to put them in line, they get a severe attitude. The RN’s are super lazy. I’m a new RN, so I’m excited about nursing, and GRATEFUL to have a job, even if it IS PRN. I try to help when needed, I even do the techs job to help them when short a tech. When I tell them it’s time to pick up and get back to doing their jobs when we’re full staffed, I get attitude. How dare I suggest that they do their jobs! The training I received was not enough, they rushed me through orientation because they had to pay me for orientation, and it cost too much.

I’m thinking nursing was a bad choice because we’re in a recession. They lie to us in nursing school, sell us BIG inflated dreams of job security, it isn’t so in this age of continual economic recession. Old nurses coming out of retirement, hospital cutting cost by slashing new grad programs and decreasing the number of new grads they hire. Where is the nurse shortage? Every job I see wants a nurse with at LEAST 1 year of experience. Well I reckon they better get to digging ols Florence Nightingale outta the grave and get her to working along with other RN’s who’ve passed.

All I want is a full time RN position. I work hard, I’m dedicated, I love people, and I’m passionate about being a long term member and asset to some health facility. Why will no one hire me? Why all the lies for nursing school? And why all the attitude from co workers?!

I now work as a Care Manager doing preauthorization work at Anthem Insurance. This is the best job I ever had. I love my job and enjoy everything about it. I love the people I work with, my boss is great and the money and benefits are good.

I would rather kill myself than go back to nursing, that is how badly I hate it. I will never go back.

My daughter is talking about being a nurse and I try to discourage her from it. The other nurses you work with are mean and just as miserable as you are. Patient families are impossible to please and doctors are downright abusive to you.

I would never encourage anyone to become a nurse. Run the other way!

The training was a lame 1960s video, which had nothing relating to the job. Basically, I was put on the floor the first day. I was an accessories sales associate. My job consisted of stocking shelves and helping customers.

It just happens that my bosses were uneducated and worked at Fry’s for a very long time. I truly believe they also hated their job, but they made good money now because they are managers and supervisors.

The thing I hated about Fry’s was schematics basically tearing the Aisle down and placing the products like how corporate wants it. In addition, I didn’t get paid to translate my own language. They made me do it. If not, the customer would get frustrated and pissed off.

I was on my feet the entire shift and I would knock out in my car before and after work. My feet would ache because I would have to wear dress shoes. This is by far the worst job and most terrible job I ever had at a physical level.

If I was doing well I would possibly get promoted to sales, which paid on commission. But if the product was on sale, there would be zero commission. As salesmen you have to sell insurance or you make no money. Some salesmen made six figures and some made enough to get by. Around 10 to 15 an hour. This job totally sucked and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to do it.

Plus most of the employees knew nothing about the products they were selling. Plus, everyone at the retail floor was rude and unprofessional. Cursing in front of customers, but I don’t blame them because the job is very stressful. In addition, the pay is crap.

I was hired as a manager assistant and told I would work there for a half-year.

I quit a job I’d hated so I could accept this job. Approximately four days after hire, I was told that they had lied and that the job would only last for a few weeks and would never be eligible for benefits, and could not be eligible for unemployment, since the time period was watched carefully. And that the pay agreed upon earlier would not be my actual hourly rate after all, either.

I wanted to quit right then and there, but couldn’t. I was trapped. I’d quit one job to take this one and didn’t have any other pending offers. And couldn’t interview for other jobs because the elections office kept changing my work schedule on a daily basis.

The job I was told I’d have was actually no more than a laborer position. Other men I worked with were people who regularly took painkillers, drank on the job, drove company vehicles over the speed limit, made pit stops at other stores and restaurants regularly, cursed like drunken sailors, and even carried knives with them to and from work; and I had a supervisor who spoke about his love of drinking almost constantly. Of all the people setting up election locations and carrying voting machines and directing traffic stops and so forth (maybe 25 total), there was not one woman hired in this department.

No woman would have been able to tolerate the work environment; no female supervisors, no female staff in warehouse or in any other section, and no women doing any of the labor or planning.

There were two twenty-something workers on staff and everyone else (about 24 other workers) all in their seventies or older. All we did was physical labor, carrying election boxes, setting up stop signs, setting up stanchions and traffic stops, putting up tents and taking them down. I was the only man not drinking, chasing girls, horsing around, speeding like crazy, or doing something else they weren’t supposed to do.

I know that no one is supposed to criticize this employer, but it was one of the worst working experiences of my life and I should have the right to speak the truth as to what happened without censorship. I literally went to work every day feeling like a piece of human garbage; working around people who cursed and drank and smoked and argued with each other, showed up for work late regularly, didn’t do what they said they would do, where employment conditions and agreements changed, schedules varied daily, and no one listened to anyone else. It was one of the most depressing and dehumanizing work experiences ever.

Being at the top means having to put up with lots of whining, constant asking for more money, time off, re hiring for those that do quit, and personal problems of employees just to name a few issues that come up from employees. None of this has anything to do with generating money to keep a business in business or making sure expenses are kept down so the business stays in business.

I run a small business of around 50-100 employees and most employees are like the rest of the posters. Here’s a little tip from a business owners stand point. I notice those that don’t wine, I appreciate and I promote those that don’t ask, I Smile at those employees that drive me nuts because I can’t tell them how I really feel and how over my dinner with my family I think about how I can replace employees like that.

If your not happy at a job, then quit. Employees like most on here are a disease in any company and a disease in America. You have three choices, one: work for a small company, two: work for a large company or three: work for yourself and own your own business. Any of the three choices can create lots of resentment. Rest assured, your employer probably doesn’t appreciate you anymore than you appreciate them.

Owning a business would be fun if I didn’t have to manage a bunch of resentful ungrateful employees.

I don’t know if nurses in the 60’s really cared about the sick. When I was in High School I was taken under the wings of older nurses who showed me the way when I was just a teenager doing a work-study project. I never heard them (nurses) complain as I hear nurses today. I am sure there were many issues but I never heard them.

When I set out to go to nursing school this is when the reality set in that unfair choices were made between persons of color and Caucasians to be accepted as a student in nursing. If a person was very fair skinned she would be most considered before one of a darker skin tone if non other Caucasian qualified. I was so naive to all of the prejudices of this world I never thought my skin color would be a factor of taking care of the sick.

Being a Vietnam-Era Veteran there was some bullying but I advocated for all races for we all Americans and should not have allowed personal issues occupy our minds during this perilous time. I recall a time when I was assigned as a nurses aid to a Caucasian woman. She screamed so loud that she did not want me to touch her and to get her a white nurse. I could have been affected by this but I went to my charge nurse to let her know of the patient’s request. The nurse had gone in to speak with the patient and I resumed care of this patient.

I have often reminded myself that each of us are the product of what we have been taught (childhood especially) and that each of us can sometimes undo those lessons (of hatred toward each other and not necessarily skin color). There are many issues that arose while on this journey – not with patients and their families, but with peers and doctors. We tend to turn on ourselves but not quite sure why because the opportunities are available whether it is school, promotions or change in departments or facilities.

As many nurses have mentioned in this article, nursing is not for them, and only that person can recognize and identify the disconnect and make the change. It is not wise to be-little such a benevolent occupation that has not been given its proper monetary worth, for we all at one time in our lives will become the patient.

I believe what my mother was trying to convey to me by not accepting the money is that there is no amount of money that can be given for true service. Og Mandino wrote in his book entitled, University of Success, “that all infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by Fear. While I stand in simple relations to my fellowman, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meet water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpretation of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is no good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.”

If the scriptures are correct, we reap what we sow, then the prudent nurse works with the expectancy of reaping a harvest of good returns. One who is frustrated and corrupt in their thoughts is like a herd of cattle seen running with no sense of direction just running toward the shadows of movement. I love my job and have advanced in education. I have kept up with the newest technologies. I pride myself in educating and empowering patients and their family members on the disease process and the plan of care for their visit into the Emergency Room.

You see, in spite of Administration, peers, doctors or media my plan is to do the will of all of our prayers and that is to save ourselves from the damaging thoughts of ourselves which corrupts our bodies through drugs (OTC, prescribed, and herbal), tobacco use, alcohol consumption and all of the tainted lies we have told ourselves or agreed with other about our self. So with this huge assignment I don’t waste time in what people think or if they want to pay me the correct wages for I will reap all that I have sown. For the nurses who forgot their purpose I say to you be encourage and get up and start again with this message, for their will always be a place for you amongst the sick to care for even when you are sick but all will be well with you in the end.

This was until college started. A semester into school now and THANKFULLY I have only finished with some prerequisites. I work in a hospital on the med/surg (nursing) floors. I see first hand what nurses encounter. Let me just say, that was an eye opening experience in itself. I am only a few days over a month into a job that I absolutely hate. I have talked to a staff member at the hospital about my feelings and thankfully they offered some advice.

I am grateful enough that I saw BEFORE I went through nursing school that this isn’t for me. I’ve learned the job duties of the nurses and aids on the floor. I have mixed emotions about quite a few things and will choose not to go into detail about all of what I dislike, but stumbling across a post on this site from way back in 2001…that says pretty much a lot of it.

I am stuck. My passion is children, (newborns!); however; I don’t wish to complete nursing school for midwife, obstetrician, pediatric nurse, any of that. I have looked heavily into lactation consulting because it interests me, but it has been hard to find willing mentors in my area. A career with infants and children doesn’t even have to be medical-that’s my problem. Everyone suggests something along those lines. I suppose I am freaking out right about now, young-one semester of college down…and no path to take. I don’t know what to do about next semester. My thoughts are running rapid, and my emotions are just as flustered.

Thank you to all who took the time to read this post. Have a great day, and god bless (:

At first, it was not bad, I do the occasional packing of things. Our store IS actually a fairly hygienic and decent bakery. I have no horror stories to tell you about the actual goods we sell. The staff are generally nice people… but there is nothing nice about their work. It is horribly boring and in my opinion unrewarding. We are considered the blemish on the store, outcast from the rest of the stores social networks.

In terms of accomplishment, it is possible that I have one of the least rewarding jobs ever created because the majority of my work is Cleaning. I will clean the place, come back the next day and find the bakery looking like an absolute mess again. I work alone most of the time as well, but that can be seen as a good thing.

For the most part, an average shift would consist of cleaning the benches, the floors, organising the utensils and apparatus, possibly packing some things away and reducing prices on bread. I have to do temperature checks and sanitise a bunch fo things too.

I think of quitting almost every day. I wanna quit now… but then there’s the problem of finding work that fits so perfectly to my lifestyle. Because as much as I hate it, this truly does fit perfectly into my schedule. I would rather be doing almost anything, but probably not factory work. I one day hope to become a journalist, as I am a media student majoring in politics, or hopefully my music will be more than just the small time gigs that I have now and I will be able to support myself through it.

I digress, however, as I was saying, the staffing is awful; the patients are nasty, families are worse. Surgeons often think they are God’s gift to this planet and God forbid you go against their orders despite the patient’s status. Despite all of that, I can’t think of any other profession that I can think of doing. Is it glamorous? Nope. Is it always fun? Nope. Is it like any show on TV? NOT AT ALL. But for all the literal and figurative poo RNs must sift through, there are moments that are like diamonds in the rough that make all those other times worth pushing through.

First off, I must address administration and staffing. Guess what buttercups? Administration is working within a broken system. If it were just the “evil money makers,” complaints about bad staffing wouldn’t be as widespread. Health care in the US is broken. If you TRULY want better staffing, go to D.C., get politically active, fight for your patients. When you are overworked, that endangers your patients along with testing your last nerve. Yes, you might feel that this is futile, that your voice doesn’t matter. Well if your voice doesn’t matter, stop using it to complain. If it bothers you like it does me DO SOMETHING. As a student I attended a health care rally in D.C. Did I do anything to make everything better? No, but even becoming informed is a step in the right direction. It’s better than complaining, wasting air waiting for a change to happen, without attempting to make it happen.

It is true; RNs tend to receive the brunt of all the frustration in healthcare. Patients, their families, and other health professionals count on you to keep it all together. Guess what? That’s what you signed up for, to take care of the whole patient. Yes, it is frustrating when you have to sit on pharmacy for a med, or explain to dietary you really DO want a tray of clears for a post-op patient to prevent cleaning up half digested cheeseburger chunks later. However, you are the patient’s last line of defense. Take that position with dignity. Vent to your coworkers when things don’t go right, it’s understandable. But you’re in a powerful position. You have to know how everyone else does their job almost as well as they do. That’s some big shoes to fill, fill them with pride.

As for patients and families, they’re SCARED. They have no control over the situation that they’re in for the most part. By being abusive they are trying to regain that control. If you understand that, that screaming match won’t be as awful. Another piece of advice, DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY! There have been multiple times that one day a patient will be telling me how awful I am, and a day later apologize for their behavior. This isn’t the norm, but if you remember to take a moment to put yourself in your patient’s shoes, and take a moment to breathe, its amazing how you find that extra little bit of patience to get through your day.

The rest of the complaints seem to follow the theme of issues with co-workers. At this time one phrase comes to mind. Life is not fair. You aren’t going to love all of your co-workers. Some people are so unhappy that they need to eat their own young. But that’s life. It really is something that is common in all careers no matter what. One day, you will have that boss that treats you like garbage. You’ll work with people who sell you down the river. It may be finding a new place to work that will make it better. Or, maybe there is a lesson to be learned by handling that workplace bully. What’s more important is how you handle issues with coworkers in the workplace. There really is something to be said about handling it in a professional manner, and if it’s all sunshine and rainbows you can’t learn anything.

So I guess the moral of my story is, nursing isn’t for everyone. That being said, by taking out these frustrations on the career in general, it’s a red flag to me. It signals an immature view of the world that wouldn’t be changed by a different career path. It reminds me of a quote from George Carlin, “Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.” Work is just that. Work. It’s not always a place where you will be happy and stress free 95% of the time. But if you choose to be a nurse, know why. For me, I pride myself on fighting for my patients, teaching my patients in my own creative way, and trying to put a smile on a patient’s or family members face, despite the situation. There are days I don’t know how I will go back. But then I get a phone call from a grateful family member, or I make a patient smile who was having an awful day. That recharges my batteries for at least one more shift. If that doesn’t work, then a prescription for a night out with coworkers usually does the trick.