What makes us choose the different careers that we do?Is it the big money that we assumed we would make? Is it the relaxed work hours that allow us to sleep until the late morning or is the ability to work at home all day and create our own cultural atmosphere? Could it even be because you felt like you would be doing something special that you were darn right born to do....
Well, whatever drives you into one career or another.......
SHOULD YOU NOT LIKE WHAT YOU DO?
I worked last weekend with several nurses with whom I had to lose my temper. I really hate to have tense relationships with nurses. It is truly a bad decision to go that way because they can MAKE or BREAK you. Hell, they're really the backbone behind every succesful care given to a patient. Plus I know that being an ER nurse is definately a challenge. It is high-paced, stressful and overwhelming. The pay is great and the hours are long working only 2-3 days a week @ 12hours/day. BUT guess what...you chose to do it, so why are you angry about your job duties?
Is it fair for a patient to wait 1 hour + after they have been written for discharge because you need to take your union break? Or for the 78-year old altered female lying in bed with a blood pressure 200/112 and you have yet to give the blood pressure medication ordered 2 hours ago. But what took me over the egde for the night was the spanish-speaking family who received english-printed discharge papers with no explanation or direction of what to do or expect. And to top it off, this same nurse pulled out the IV catheter on this patient and dropped it on the floor next to the patient. WTH?
When your job becomes something that iritates and aggravates you to a point where your performance suffers...It's JUST Not for YOU!
Do you wake up in the morning thinking of excuses of how to call out of work? Are you dreading every minute yet to come on the long drive (that's really only a few minutes) to work? It's JUST Not for YOU!
I remember way back when I was an Electrical Engineer working for General Motors (yes I had a life and a job before becoming a doctor) and I hated my job. It was that piercing kind-of-gut feeling that lets you know, "I gotta' get outta here". And I had that feeling every weekday morning upon waking. I couldn't wait for a day off whether I had to create it or not. (Of course that meant I was usually calling in sick if it wasn't a holiday.)
But you know, I was really sick...I was SICK and tired of that doggone job. It was psychologically killing me which in turn seemed to be manifesting physical weakness such as anger, impatience, and real "tiredness". I probably had more "out of work" days than I had productive days.
But why had I chosen this career? Why do you choose careers that are JUST Not for YOU?
Well for me, I enjoyed my challenging college classes of the EE world. I even made it into the Eta Kappa Nu honor society of electrical engineering. BUT I would have to say...it was more my Uncle, my Uncle Marvin who influenced my decision to be an engineer. Sure, I loved math and science...but quite frankly I saw a successful black man with a graduate degree in engineering LIVING LARGE..... He had a convertible mercedes, a convertible porsche, a house in the Colorado mountains as well as a summer home on the Virginia beach. He had everything that was equivalent to SUCCESS and I wanted it.
But what I realized the hard way and what most people fail to realize is that doing a job for success & money is the first step to failure. It is the next step downward toward unhappiness and contentment.
It is soo important that we choose careers that we ENJOY. Something you can wake up and be at least a little excited about heading out to do. It's even better if you can see yourself doing it for a long time...
So if your.... looking for excuses....feeling sick...treating folx' at work with a short & curt attitude...Take a look at your job...and maybe IT's JUST Not for YOU !
