Figuring stuff out

I hear it from many many people, or the spouses of those people........career confusion. There are those, like me, who just drop out of life as they know it (and in the process, commit themselves to a year in an arctic tundra) in order to open new doors. There are those who take even longer. There are those of us who don't or can't pursue that opportunity at all. There are others that simply won't because of the fear of the unknown.

Even making a change affords no guarantee that the door you open isn't one you would shortly thereafter wish to bolt closed once again (or wall off entirely cask of Amontillado style). We conceptualize and hope that any change will be for the best, but barriers continue to crop up that you cannot anticipate.

My own example was going through nursing school and hating, hating, hating a majority of what I was asked to do while in school on the floors of the hospitals. If I wasn't cleaning up after incontinent patients, I was cleaning out trach tubes, emptying catheters, or bathing the invalid. I could scarcely conceptualize myself in a career doing those things day in and day out for years. It wasn't until near the end of the program that I got a glimmer of hope: interventional radiology. A place where patients flowed in and out and the day rarely involved any of the things that I found so horribly unpleasant. The same could be said for short stay, PACU, and OR jobs. Or in psych units, clinics, infusion, or research. The avenues are limitless and seem only to be confined by my own knowledge (or lack thereof) of opportunities. However, where things only that simple.

What I have learned thus far in my brief nursing career (and other careers pursued) are the following: Some places don't understand training and have a poor idea of the experience (see: lack of) of new nurses, educators, etc. (Here's looking at you Willy Falls). The situation becomes a complete dumpster fire quickly and the only way to escape the conflagration is to drop and roll your way out.

All places promise far more than they deliver, whether it be hours, work conditions, or training schedules. There is always a discrepency between what is said at the interview and what becomes upon hiring and, I should note, it is never a discrepency in your favor.

Managers can't help but meddle. I have not been a manager, so I cannot speak from experience, but it appears more often than not that managers sit idly at fairly reliable intervals (perhaps there is an internal clock of some sort......like a managerial circadian rhythm) and dream up reasons to tweak, twist, or turn things on there head for either their personal amusement or to muck up the works so it appears they are indeed doing something. Rarely, it should be mentioned, are any of these changes well thought out (if thought about at all) and even more rarely do they actually prove to accomplish anything other than flustering the drones such as myself.

Workplaces are, if nothing else, unpredictable. You may well be finding your right career, but may end up around all the wrong people in doing so. Or, nearly as bad, a few bad apples may make the workplace less than it could be.

I am sure there is a point to be found somewhere, but I am not the one to seek it out. To all those who seek out something better, more compelling, or just different.........I have been there, am still there, and will probably be traveling there all my life and I wish you all the luck in the world.