A Conundrum

I know that a lot of people don't like their jobs. A lot of work isn't very likable. But most of the time, it's not the actual work that people don't like, it's the job. The whole package. The manager, the co-workers, the company personality.

I was thinking about that last week and I remembered a job I held for 3 weeks at a hospital many years ago. I liked what I saw at the interview, but by the end of the first day of training I realized that the place was slightly out of kilter. After I'd been there a couple of weeks, one of the nurses on my floor admitted she cried every day for 6 months when she first started, but then she 'got used to it'. "Don't worry," she encouraged me, "You'll get used to it, too."

Ahh, there's the rub. I didn't want to get 'used to it' but I was too old, too tired, and too discouraged to try to change the attitude of an entire hospital so I handed in my resignation. I could have left then, but it was Thanksgiving week and people had plans so I stayed another week. I'm a team player. They were not.

A couple of years later, I met a nurse who had worked at the same hospital. When she worked there, she was being groomed to become a supervisor or director or some mucky-muck job like that. She never made it. Her family started begging her to quit because the place was changing her personality and they didn't like the new Mom. When the light came on, that it 'was them' and 'not her', she quit.

We both agreed we did the right thing. "Getting used to it" wasn't an option.

The moral of the story is: Never tolerate a job that makes you cry, drink, or kick the cat every day. Either change the job or change jobs.