New Job

I have been working in the Endoscopy unit at St. Elizabeth for a little over and year now and I was feeling like it was time for a change. Endoscopy isn't something I would ever choose but I happened to fall into this position when the NICU started losing business and at the time it was the best decision for our family. It offered fairly stable daytime hours and I had already been helping in the unit so I knew the doctors and the staff. I liked the daytime hours but the hospital went through a crisis period where they stopped accepting one of the main insurances in the state. When they stopped accepting Blue Cross Blue Shield our business plummeted and the morale everywhere did too. They laid people off from our unit that had trained me which I felt terrible about. It overall became a very hard place to work. I had been working on call weekends just once a month and I was on call 1 night a week if I didn't work that weekend. When we laid off staff we still had to cover all of those hours so I was then working on call shifts every other to every 3rd weekend from Friday at 3:30- Monday at 7 am. We also had to work call shifts 1-2 nights a week and we were frequently having to stay until 6 at night and then go in again in the middle of the night and then be expected to be there again at 7 am. It started affecting Robb's job and it just wasn't working for our family. I started looking for other jobs but was disappointed to find that working at an office paid significantly less than a hospital job. I applied at the Gastroenterology office and got called in for an interview. As I already said GI wouldn't be my top choice but this would hopefully be an easy job to get since I had already been working with all these doctors at the hospital. After the interview I got a call that they were offering me the job. Robb and I took the weekend to think about it and decided that I would take it even though it was less money. Family time and weekends off count for something! I accepted the job on a Monday but had to wait until Wednesday to tell St. E's. We had a staff meeting early in the morning to more or less talk about how we were going to handle our "staffing crisis" and then I went into the managers office and told her I was quitting. It was TERRIBLE! I didn't know if I was making the right decision or not and I really liked most of the girls I worked with so it was hard to tell them that I was leaving too. They did offer to let me stay on as supplemental and for now that works out great, mainly because then I am grandfathered into the hospital and wouldn't need to obtain my BSN within 5 years if I decided to go back. Change is always hard and I just hope that this works out better for our family. I guess I thought by 33 I would have my job/career figured out and I feel like that is far from the truth. I think after a while nursing burns you out and I would almost rather do anything but be a nurse, but since pastry chef and barista at Barnes and Noble pay even less than my office job I guess I will give this a shot for now.