I Shot A Man In Reno…
After my Ben was born while I was still in college, I had to reexamine the whole, “I’m gonna be a doctor” dream that I’d been nursing for as long as I could walk and talk (to be fair, however, I should point out that it wasn’t bloody likely that I was going to get into med school anyway.). So I had a choice: teaching or nursing. The only two professions I was likely to make any scratch at upon graduation.
(okay, hindsight being what it is, I should have broadened my horizons somewhat. I hear there’s a huge need for Underwater Basket Weavers these days.)
I settled on nursing, knowing that I *probably* wasn’t going to like it. My family wasn’t entirely supportive of my choice, and to be completely honest, I really didn’t know what nurses did. Besides get HUM-VEE’s as a sign-on bonus at hospitals.
I’ll give you a second to laugh.
..
..
..
..
Okay, done?
But the moment that I walked into my first nursing class, I knew I’d made a mistake. I was NEVER going to like it. I spent the first day (no seriously) learning how to properly wipe a patient’s ass. Important, yes, but did we REALLY need the power points?
I’d already done a year of pre-reqs and I knew that if I brought my sorry butt back to my parents (where Ben and I lived) and begged to change majors, it would be another tick mark in the Becky Sucks A Lot category. Which was already steadily outpacing the Becky Might Not Suck Quite So Much category.
So I sucked it up, thinking that I could do anything for awhile. I’d just go back to school when Ben was older for something I really wanted (I knew then that Medical School was out, but microbiology was in. Kind of like skinny jeans except not). I’d get by. Whatever.
I graduated 2 years later, my BSN neatly in my back pocket and still completely aware that I hated the profession I was about to enter into. So what? Plenty of people went to their 9-5 hating every second of it, right?
About 2 months before my wedding (which, as any bride knows, is when things start to go apeshit), I made the gravest of errors. I’d gone in to interview for an ICU position at a local hospital, and I let the HR person talk me from the ICU position (the only position I swore I would do in a hospital) to a Cardiac Floor.
Floor nurses, I should add, lest anyone think I hate NURSES which I do not, deserve a special place in heaven. Really, they do. Hospitals are run by them and they’re notoriously used an abused by pretty much every single staff member. It’s hard work. And it’s NOT the sort of job one can fake it ’til they make it.
Any job that comes with a Do This The Right Way So You Don’t Get Your Ass Sued Off disclaimer is a job that you need to LOVE. Otherwise, in this litigious-happy society, do you really want to bet your own house that you gave the patient the right meds?
I didn’t last 6 ever-loving weeks on the floor I later learned was a Bad Floor. Bad management trickled down into a bunch of unhappy employees who constantly undercut each other. No wonder HR wanted me there: they had a ton of vacant positions.
After 6 weeks, at the not-so-delicate urging of my soon-to-be husband The Daver, we decided that I was going to stay home with Ben for once. Which I did, nearly at the cost of my own sanity, for a couple of months until we moved back to St. Charles and the prospect of dueling mortgages left me once again looking for work.
And then I found my perfect job…
Part II will air tomorrow. I know, I know, I’m an asshole for the cliffhangers, I’m sorry.
So, The Internet, have you ever had a job that you absolutely hated? I don’t mean “disliked” or even “really disliked” I mean HATED so much it that thinking about having to go into work left you sick to your stomach.
The job I have right now is filed under that category. I shed tears almost every time I leave for work. Working 8pm-8am sucks and I hate that for three days straight I don’t see my kids or my husband because I’m either sleeping or working. I’ve been searching for a new job for months but you know…the job market sucks right now and I can’t afford to be out of work. I SO wish we could afford for me to be a stay at home mom!
You bet your sweet ass! 19 years of doing it. The only reason I ever made it past the first three years was because I got myself knocked up with the boy child and then have been stuck here forever due to having had some great bosses in the past and the benefits are pretty darn good.
Seriously the paycheck and the security are THE ONLY THING that make me get out of bed and come to this hell hole everyday. Because my babies need a roof over their heads and insurance.
I should have married for money instead of what I thought was love. 😉
Oh, yes. After I got fired from the ICU for being sick, I went to the Cardiac floor–sounds a lot like the floor you worked on. Bad management, too many patients, half the nurses were new grads and the other half were travelers…
I lasted exactly one month before I started fantasizing about driving my car into a bridge on the way to work or stealing way too much of my patients’ morphine. Went home, told my husband, wound up admitted to the psych ward. It was that bad.
Hope your dream job is great! can’t wait to read the rest of the story.
Umm yeah…
Two:
Nursing – because I was not able to accept that any MAN (which was all that I worked with) was smarter than I was and that, furthermore Neurosurgeons all absolutely raving narcissistic pigs.
And everything else I’ve ever done.
Shanna is right – I only do this because my kids need insurance and because I have an asshole ex-husband who got the better of me in a divorce settlement (note: do not agree on anything when you need mood stabilizers).
The first job I got when I went back to work after Gabe was born, well, when he was 15 months old and I moved out and needed a job to do that, I HATED. Hated like burning.
For so many reasons that i can’t even properly articulate.
HATED HATED HATED. I worked in an office with one other person, adn though we had the same position, she was pretty sure she was my supervisor. And I’ve met walls that were more intelligent.
But I needed a job, because welfare isnot all it’s cracked up to be.
I spent the whole time looking for a different job, and as soon as I had one, I bounced. For serious.
Thankfully, not yet… but I might be getting there… 🙂
I’ve been pretty lucky to only partially despise most of my jobs. Not actual vitriolic hatred of any professions. I guess a good measure of how good a job you have is how many times you say “this fucking sucks” a day. 3 times = dipsleasure., 5 = disgust, 7+ = whip out the want ads.
Oh good lord yes!!!!
I too found myself in the situation of needing to make enough money to support my daughter and I, and so I too ended up in nursing. Surprisingly I did enjoy it- until I graduated and ended up stuck working in a clinic as an “LPN-Receptionist”. Got paid barely over HALF I would have gotten paid working in a hospital – crap shifts at the walk-in clinic – you haven’t LIVED until you’ve spent the better part of two hours holding down a screaming kid who needs stitches!! Or fending off stupid druggies looking for a fix – or after patching up some moron, having him spend 20 minutes asking you questions about his wound care- without ever putting his pants back on. (no gown either…)
I can laugh now- but there were many days where I cried at the thought of having to go to work. Ironically, I finally DID get sick enough that one of the docs sent me home- bronchial pnuemonia. Got FIRED because I was away sick for too many days!!! bwahahaahahahahahhahaah
Oh, hell yea. Job I had before my daughter was born. I came home in tears almost EVERY DAY. My husband BEGGED me to quit…But the anti-christ that worked there would have seen that as her victory…so I stuck it out until I gave birth. And then “decided” to stay home with the baby. She was evil, truly, and I’m sure she was put there by the minions of Satan.
hell yess. i was a fucking cart girl at a grocery store for like 4 months while trying to work my way up to cashier. it was torture hell! i hated that job with a passion – nothing like working the lot with a punch of high school boys while you are working on two degrees and a minor in college. it was insulting.
to this day, i STILL take my cart back to the corral, rain, shine, snow or hail.
Firstly, I would like the record to state that floor nurses DO have a special place in heaven and that I have no desire to join them. Never will I ever be a nurse in a hospital. Blech!!!
Secondly, I loooooove me some Microbiology. Love, love, love!!
And lastly, job I hated? Are you KIDDING ME? Honey, too many to count! I had one just last year that murdered my soul every single fucking day and when I was “asked” not to extend my probationary period and offered a sweet severance I took those checks and RAN out the door cheering. Into my boss’s face I smiled because I was relieved from dealing with a psycho every day.
I can’t imagine being a nurse, it is a wonderful calling, but I do believe it is a calling. And I am not called to it. I actually hate sick people:D At least if they are my hubby. ugh.
I worked as a bank teller while pregnant with number 2 and my brain was on maternity leave. I hated it. It made me sick. It made me hate people. Impatient, rude, dishonest people that I had to deal with every day and smile. Like women who took money out and then when their hubby’s were upset they came in and said it wasn’t them, it must have been someone impersonating them who stole their money. And I would have to fill out a police report. And I was responsible. Hated it! When I went on maternity, I came into to show off the baby and my awesome boss basically told me that she knew I wasn’t coming back and it was okay. Phew!
Oh god yes. And I didn’t make it past lunch.
I would love to get the *perfect* job. I just dont think I know what that is.
I’ve never hated a job that much but I did hate my senior English class that much. I used to vomit (almost) every day before that class. I would still like to stab that teacher in the eye.
I’ve had two professional jobs in my life. The first one, I would get stress migraines on a weekly basis. In retrospect, it wasn’t a horrible job, if not for the evil people I had to work with. My bosses hated me, but they would not give me a good reference every time I tried to transfer out of the section. Guess they knew who did all the fucking work…
My current job…well, again, if I didn’t have to work with people who are totally composed of EVIL, it would be the best job ever. But the supervisors suck, my coworkers lie all the time, and I’m a little bored. I have also developed a complete prejudice against Baptists (because all the really evil people at work are Baptists), which is unfortunate, because we have the nicest neighbor on earth, and she’s Baptist. Anyway, I will be staying at this job for at least 6 more years, since I want them to pay for my health insurance when I’m retired.
Hell to the yeah! The one I currently have ranks as one of the top 2. I’m currently in a call center listening to people bitch at me most of the day because they have no money on their PREPAID cellphone and are looking for me to give them credits. Hello! It’s called prepaid for a reason people.
The only reason I am still there and still sane (although that is up for debate) is I have cut back to part time hours while Sgt is back in the ‘ghan.
Well, I’ve had my share of funny-story, boss-yelling-at-me-from-the-dock-while-I-tended-bar-on-a-boat jobs. But I’ve had two that I truly hated. One was telemarketing, where I lasted almost a month and never sold a single thing. Fortunately I was deeply apathetic about the whole thing and was only there because the hourly wage was terrific. Then my paycheck bounced. I waited until someone else said theirs had cleared, cashed all my paychecks at once, and walked out. That place sucked.
Then I had the grown-up sucky job. I was there for 7 years and hated it for about 5 of those years. There were more afternoons than I could ever count spent standing in the parking lot, crying. The really horrible thing was that I loved the field (closed captioning) and had picked this job over a much higher-paying one when I graduated from college. But as the company grew, it got more and more messed up. There was at least an entire year where I didn’t know who my boss was; the layers of management were so confusing, no one knew who to answer to.
Finally I had become a supervisor and loved the people I supervised but hated all the HR people. After the bazillionth meeting about what a shitty supervisor I was, I told HR maybe I just wasn’t clear about what they wanted from me. I told them if they could just be very explicit about their expectations, maybe things would improve. They were very receptive and explained, in the most explicit terms they could manage, that their expectation of me was to “think outside the box.” What???
Actually that turned out to be a good turning point. That was when I realized there wasn’t something wrong with me; if that passed for instruction, then I really did need to get out of there. Now I do home day care and instructions are things like “feed them, change them, play with them.” Plus I make the rules. : )
I hated any job I’ve ever had that involved a desk, in an office, where a micro-manager was breathing down my neck and watching me and counting the minutes until I returned from eating Taco Bell in my car and taking a mini-nap. I’m just not cut out for that shit. Thanks 2 Gawd that I had kids and excuse to seek self-employment…the desk involved with teaching in grad school, I didn’t mind that. I loved waiting tables. Seriously. Dillard’s wasn’t so bad, either. So basically, no offices or desks for me. makes my skin crawl.
To quote my brother, the doctor-lawyer who works from home (I know, right?) “do what you dig.”
Hi, I’m new to your blog! I’ve loved reading it over the past few weeks and thought I’d devirginize myself and leave you my very first comment!
When I was 19 I worked at Sears in collections. *gag* I DESPISED going to work every day. But it was the only job in the world where I could make $13 an hour part-time. I was a poor, starving college student, so my options were pretty limited at the time. Anyway, one night I had 3 horrific phone calls in a row. The first one was just some cranky old bag who wouldn’t commit to making a payment. So I ended our call with, “Alright, so you’ll pay $60 on the 1st of the month, ok? Great.” *click* Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was illegal. My second call was apparently so bad, I can’t seem to recall it. I know it’s in the deep recesses of my brain, but it’s probably best left alone. My THIRD phonecall was with the meanest woman I ever spoke to. I ended our phonecall by muttering “bitch” under my breath as she hung up.
To my horror and surprise, my calls that night were being monitered. So instead of being fired, I quit IMMEDIATELY. And I’ve never looked back!
Does anyone else find it funny that there are a better than average number of nurses in this bunch? Either we are one cynical bitchy group or we just like to comment on blogs.
Which one is it Becky???
Oh, and no fair not telling until tomorrow! I have ADD – it physically pains me for YOU to know something that I DON’T know..
Years ago I had an office job and the owner was so difficult to work for. I would go home on my lunch hour and cry every day. I had no choice as I was a single mom with two children.
Plus years before that I cleaned motel rooms…..yuck!
I ended up running for public office, (first woman elected official in my town), was in office for 16 years then accepted another position working with the public.
My point………..don’t give up. You need to go thru this junk to appreciate the good stuff. I never take my job for granted. I love it and am so lucky!
Well… I have such limited job history… but… yeah. Actually, I think I’m going to have blog this one, or I’ll hijack your whole comment things. The end result was my telling our squadron “flight surgeon” that if I could just get a gun, and kill my supervisor, THE LIFESTYLE OF EVERYONE IN THE SQUADRON would *immediately* improve.
He sent me for a psyche eval. WHICH I PASSED. So… there you go. I do hope to find something I truly love and that contributes to the world one of these days, but sheesh.
I’ve had jobs that I disliked and jobs that have bored the bejebuz out of me (which made me do them badly) but nothing I never actually hated. I was able to leave the bad ones before they reached hatred fortunately.
The job I have now, actually, although I don’t currently hate it. It has its bullshit moments like any other job, but mostly I’m happy now. My first few years came straight from Satan’s womb, though. I was 22, it was my first full time symphony gig, I was straight out of grad school and I was principal. It didn’t go over well with the majority of my section, who were 20+ years my senior. One woman was psycho enough that she made up her own bowings, which she passed back to the rest of the section so everyone was playing the same way except the front stand. Nice. The conductor didn’t want to hire me, the committee overrode his vote and so he made my life HELL for my two years of probation. He actually told me I needed to wear makeup, buy new concert shoes, and generally try to appear older. I cried every single day.
Both are gone now and I have more confidence than I did back then. I’m not afraid to tell people off anymore which, oddly, wins me respect.
You’re scaring me about the nursing thing. I have been planning to go back for a special no experience MSN / NP program. I’m sick of musician hours.
Did you grow up in St. Charles? I grew up in DeKalb. I bet we did IMEA at the same time.
Wow! And I thought I was the only one on this Earth that had this “confusion” of careers. I went through college with all kinds of dreams and ambitions all to graduate with a Bachelor in General Studies. Blah. Not much you can do with that. I just had so many things I thought I wanted to do, then switched around enough that after 5 years of college I figured I better just get SOMEthing! I have always worked with children in early childhood until I got a job at a Montessori school. HORRID! This school was like a Nazi camp for kids. Kid you not. Our two children went there, and yes, they did learn some things. But, it was terrible for me. So bad that the Nazi Boss told me I needed to get help and see a shrink. Isn’t that illegal to say? Besides, I think I just became her project because I was sensitive to her words and she told me she always wanted to be a psychologist….she used me as her guinee pig and I went home in tears everyday. I vowed to finish the year there and did, but it SUCKED! Anyway- now I am a WAHM to my two babes. It has been wonderful. I may not make much, but I do get to meet my daughter at the bus everyday when she gets home from school! That is what counts to me. Thanks for the post! Caroline *mommy of two (one with two missing front teeth and a budding social life-aaahhh— and the other ornery one, on the up-swing from suffering from Eczema!) Thank you God and Vidazorb. Whew….at last, we sleep.
Caroline
I have a friend who has dreamt of being a doula for years. She just recently finished nursing school and now works on a head trauma floor of a local hospital. She hates it with a passion. Not so much the patients (even though it’s far removed from what she one day hopes to do) but the staff around her. All the bickering and such that goes on, she says, drains her spirit on the nights – because yep, she’s gone all night – she has to work. I can see her happiness completely gone now that she’s doing this job.
I had a job that drained me completely, too, but thankfully people in need of medical care didn’t count on me, because I was a crying, sick mess most of the time I spent working there toward the end. Hell, it was in nonprofit public relations. It was seemingly no stress, but the people you work for and their way of treating employees really, really goes a long way toward morale. I had none by the time things ended there.
Oh yes. I’ve written about it a few times on my blog, but I had a job teaching 6th graders in the GHETTO once. actually it was rural AL but it felt like the ghetto. I got cussed out by A LOT of students. and their parents. mostly for just existing/being white/trying to do my job. It was hell.
I was a headhunter at a temp agency. I had to turn in one of my dude’s for robbing a bank to the FBI and fire another lady because she was so heavy, she continually peed in her chair.
Yes, but luckily it was just a temp job. It was literally sitting in a room with a bunch of scary women, physically moving the contents of files from one folder to another. For 10 straight hours. One of those situations where after a few hours, the flourescent lights in the ceiling bear down on you, the walls start closing in, and you end up actually agreeing with the woman missing half her teeth that getting a huge tattoo of a monkey drinking Budweiser on her cleavage was a kickass idea.
At lunch, I called the temp agency and interviewed for another position.
I didn’t go back the second day.
I’ve had two that I can honestly say I hated. I worked in a HUGE daycare for 10 years (yup) and loved working with the kids, but hated my ineffective boss. She’d kiss the parents’ asses, not do anything about discipline problems (one kid kicked me in the stomach when I was pregnant) because she was scared of losing kids, let them come to school sick and not send them home unless their temp. was 102. We constantly were over our ratios in our classrooms, and I could hear my son crying through the wall when he was in a younger classroom. She wouldn’t let me leave early for ob appts even thought i had a high risk pregnancy, and tried to make me catheterize a kid when I didn’t know how. I was constantly made to ‘be flexible’ when I’d worked over 10 hours a day, but someone else didn’t show up for work, and she always backstabbed everyone to her few ‘friends’ that worked there and brownnosed her. I finally took 5 of their daycare kids and started my own daycare in my home–haha! The other one was also in a daycare, but it was run by some people from India that didn’t really speak English, made the kids eat lunch outside on paper plates, rain or shine, and let kids come to school with lice. One day the lady called me, and said that she needed to lay me off for a month, and she actually CALLED ME BACK after a month to say that she ‘needed me to come in today’. I told her that I had found a new job and she was SO PISSED! Like I was just going to hang out for a month, not pay my bills, and wait until I could come back to her shitty ass daycare. Ha!
I worked at Winners (or TJMaxx for you) I HATED it I had to endure two years there until I was old eonough (yes I was too young) to enter into my LPN course. More so than I hate working Rehab, for the very short time I did it..three whole months. I barely lasted those three months there either. Now I’m insane enough to consider taking my BScN??? Quick talk me out of it!!!!
Yes!! I worked at a group home that treated the kids (parolees) really, really bad. It was horrible and depressing and LITERALLY, there was rat shit in the kitchen. Why not just file a complaint you say? Oh, I did. They said “Clean the rat shit up yourself if it bothers you”. Um, yeah.
So I waited until my manager was in the house and then my coworker and I both told them to take their job and shove it where the sun don’t shine. We left the manager to take care of the kids all by himself AND then went to file a formal complaint wiht the state.
Yeah, 7-1/2 years. It wasn’t the job so much as the bosses and they hostile environment they created. I used to refer to it as Aushwitz.
Nope, no jobs I hated that much. I can’t say I love my court reporting job every day, as it can be a complete nightmare, but it can be pretty awesome. I mean, people throwing chairs, what could be better?
I could never, ever, ever be a nurse of any kind!!! It takes a very special person, and I’m just not all that special 😉
One summer I did temp work. I was hired for a firm to file what I swear was 50 stacks of paper and each stack was about a foot tall. They wouldn’t even give me a badge to come in on my own, I had to be buzzed in by my supervisor.
My supervisor was in charge of finding new work I guess, so she spent most of the day on the phone. She’d call everyone in the newspaper who was getting a permit for work. And when she couldn’t find their numbers she’d call information. Now the ladies on information are only supposed to give you 10 numbers and then you have to call back. These ladies obliged her normally and gave her a few extra numbers, and even when they were really nice and did that, when she hung up, she called them names. She was a miserable old hag and I hated even being in the room with her.
While I worked here (3 whole long weeks) she found $100 bill – it only seemed to make her more miserable. And she had a car accident (which somehow put her in a very good mood.
At the end of my stint, I was approached about staying on for a while and I said no, I didn’t particularly like the attitude of the woman I was working with and I would finish the assignment, but I’d prefer to move on. She got called away to a meeting that afternoon, and all of the sudden was sacharin sweet. Also not surprisingly, that temp agency didn’t find anymore work for me.
I was just so glad to get out of there…and you’d think my 6 week stint at a methadone clinic would have been worse.
Food service. Retail department store shoe clerk. Enough said. 😉