Aibu to want to leave nursing because people are so fucking rude!!!

[Rabs6]

Iv been nursing for 11 years, worked hard for my nursing degree and am currently studying for my masters. Bare minimum I do about 2hours a week of continuing learning just to keep up to date with what's going on in my field.
Im good at my job and have lots of knowledge.

The problem I have with my job isn't the pay or the hours it's the fact that about 70% of the patients I see or their families are fucking horrible!! At least every day I get spoken to like shit from at least one person I'm trying to help and I'm so sick of it!!
In what other job would you work so hard to have such little respect? And why do so many people feel its OK to use their nurse as an emotional punch bag!!!

@Enderman, yes, but horrible ones are very much the minority. And especially since lock down there has been only one parent allowed, it's been bliss!

I so agree with you. I was horrified at the abuse I watched a few years ago when I had to take my elderly mum to A&E when she became very unwell. There was a huge waiting list for beds (we had to wait 9 hours) but it wasn't the fault of the nursing staff. There were a few other people there who had also been waiting who became abusive towards the nursing staff and one became threatening.

When my mum was finally found a bed at 4am and I left her to go home I went back to A&E to try and fine some of the staff. I found one nurse who I had watched being abused horribly and I thanked her on behalf of my mum and myself for her help. I told her that 99% of us appreciate everything thing that she did and to try and ignore the 1% of low life's she had to come into contact with each day. She did thank me but in reality I know it wouldn't have helped her much but I was so appalled by what I saw that night.

@Mosseywossey

"You have to deal with patients and there family’s daily, sometimes multiple time’s a day."

Are you truly a teacher?

Oh god I feel exactly the same this week. Very nearly lost my temper with a patient the other night when I'd bent over backwards giving her 1:1 care (she didn't need it but was my only patient) only to be told I'm not doing my job properly, I'm rough, all nurses are after the glory, and her just generally screeching at me and ordering me about all night. Telling her to 'clean your own shit up and then fuck off' was certainly on the tip of my tongue but I stayed professional.

Previously I've just let people treat me like shit out of fear of accusations of being unprofessional, but I've no tolerance for it now and have started pulling patients, relatives, and staff up on their behaviour. Often I get an apology by the end of the shift. You wouldn't accept that treatment in the street so why accept it at work?

@Popc0rn ex scrub nurse, surgeons in the middle of an op are worse than 99.9% of rude patients!

I'm now a district nurse OOH, odd rude person but it is very rare, most patients are greatful to be able to have us turn up at 3am or whenever.

The problem is the 2/3 people that are nasty negate the 200 odd people that are lovely.

A family member used to work in telephone ordering when it was first introduced. They were all horrified at how ghastly/impolite the customers were. The firm got them to make a note after every call (they dealt with 100-200 a day each). It was never more than 3% and usually hovering around 1% - but those calls were the ones that stayed with people because they had the greatest emotional impact.

A lot of nurses in the NHS are rude and not very nice to patients. Of course they aren't all like that but nurses need to start seeing if from a patients perspective. They or a member of their family is ill. Quite often they have been messed about and/of received poor treatment. And then they come across a bossy, rude, impatient, dismisive (take your pick) nurse. Not good.

Any role involving working with the public can be horrible. People can be so nasty and rude.

I worked in a library which people generally think is a lovely calming place to work. Not so. I lost count of the times I was told to fuck off, or called a cunt. In a library of all places!

You have my sympathy and I don't blame you for having had enough.

Try working in a call centre.

When you remove the barrier of having to be eyeball to eyeball with someone the incidence of rude and abusive behaviour increased tenfold IME.

Yeah tell me about it OP, I was a nurse for 25 years, now have another job. Normally I just let it wash over my head because I dont care what people think of me but the endless personal comments are excruciating.
I can ignore them all except for one person a disgruntled man hating woman I call the poisoned dwarf because he is short and nasty and every single time there is a horrible, personal and hurtful comment, "how come someone like you has a boyfriend", "You're not exactly twiggy are you", "Why are you so slow, everyone else does it faster". Etc ad nauseam. It makes my blood boil.
People forget we are only human, I can cope with really sick people being scared and angry but not deliberate attempts to crush my self esteem which is abuse in my mind.

Try working in a call centre.

No thanks, I cannot imagine how awful and soul crushing that must be.

My patients are babies, they dont answer back but omg 80% of the parents are rude arrogant assholes who think the world owes them a favour and theirs is the only baby in the hospital.
I love the job and work with a great team and sadly to say we actually celebrate when we get nice parents!

I’ve worked in retail with the public, some are just plain fucking horrible and nasty. I’ve worked in insurance with public, again, some are just plain fucking horrible and nasty. I worked in job centre plus, again, some members of public are just plain horrible , nasty and rude. I don’t think it matters where you work. If it’s not your ‘customer’ that’s horrible them it’s the people you work beside!

If you think 80% of the people you deal with are horrible it’s probably you: a mismatch in expectations, failure to communicate or you’re not understanding something about the situation that makes them come across that way.
The fact is in any situation where you work with the public a proportion of them are going to be arseholes, but I refuse to believe 80% of the people you deal with are like that all the time.

I know what you mean, I have this. My pet peeve is blatant sexism, wanting to speak to my boss (I run the place actually) when they don't get the answer they want. It's a non profit, I'm not paid enough to take the crap I get

@Rabs6 I’m sorry you’re subjected to this, it must be awful. I work in “back office” NHS and work with several nurses who have become research nurses or information governance specialists. You have a great qualification but it doesn’t just have to be used in a public facing role. I know I could never deal with the public!

In what other job would you work so hard to have such little respect?

Actually I think it's pretty common in most jobs/professions these days. Far too many chavs out there who are self obsessed, selfish and don't give a stuff about anyone else. They've read something on SM and think they're more of an expert than you and question every little thing. It's exhausting.

I run my own small accountancy practice. Client attitude/behaviour is the worst it's ever been. When I started my career, 35 years ago, professionals were respected, whether they were doctors, nurses, teachers, solicitors, or whatever. Now, it's pretty common for me to get abusive emails/texts for no reason at all, perfectly reasonable fees (pre-agreed with client) are challenged, so many people walk into meetings with internet printouts that are completely irrelevant but client still insist they're right when I point out why they're wrong.

I'm just grateful that being in the business so long, with long standing clients, most clients are aged 50+ so not part of the younger modern social media chav group. I've got to the stage where I'll actively avoid taking on 20/30 something clients as they're often just awful to deal with.

Ironically, the only two serious arguments I've had were both NHS workers who I found had a ridiculously entitled attitude, wanting advice for nothing, challenging every little thing. I soon got rid!

@BunnyTrouble

My patients are babies, they dont answer back but omg 80% of the parents are rude arrogant assholes who think the world owes them a favour and theirs is the only baby in the hospital. I love the job and work with a great team and sadly to say we actually celebrate when we get nice parents!

Thank you for what you do. I had extensive interaction with the NHS when my youngest was a newborn as he was in NICU for the first month and then needed surgery and involvement with other services like SALT afterwards. We could not have got through it without the NHS staff who supported us as a family with kindness. The NICU nurses in particular were amazing.

Over the years I've worked in very different environments but all had a uniform and I think people see the uniform and suddenly you are not an individual person, you become that organisation. People generally can be so rude to a uniformed person but I doubt they'd speak that way to someone they walk passed in a street. If you love nursing please stay, you sound like a good, caring nurse and many other jobs have the same abuse I'm afraid

Probably already said but veterinary nursing isn't much better and am contemplating leaving the profession for a number of reasons, a large one being the rudeness from owners!

@HeyBlaby

I did think about the surgeons after I posted that, think I'd rather take grief off 30 patients and their extended families than one surgeon . Plus I'm very fidgety and a bit clumsy so don't think it would suit me.

I LOVED my district nursing placement when I was a student, learned so much from my mentor, every day was interesting and the patients were lovely.

I do need a change from my current job, not because of rude patients, more because I think I just need to get out of the hospital. Hoping the saying "sometimes a change is as good as a rest" is true!

Sure, leave, at least you have that choice! I spent many years in an out of hospital, each time leaving my rights at the door as I went in to be treated like a piece of meat. I've encountered so many horrid nurses and doctors, one who sneered at me and refused me pain medication after major kidney surgery, ultimately resulting in me developing post-op pneumonia. Most nurses don't give a shit when people are in pain, its all a big inconvenience for them. Every time I've been on a hospital ward I watch them all purposefully ignoring call buttons and patients crying/screaming in pain and when they do eventually deign to attend the patient they roll their eyes and speak to them as if they are badly behaved attention seeking children - especially elderly patients. The woman in the bed next to mine had had several toes amputated and was in agony, they treated her like she was nothing, she cried constantly she was in so much pain and they just fucking ignored her.

Anyone in the 'front line' gets the worst of people.

Police, paramedics, fire fighters, nurses, traffic wardens, social services get the worst of humanity thrown at them.

The people they meet are drunk, drugged, stressed, in pain, helpless, mentally ill or have similar relatives and friends.

I could not do what they do.

@Useruseruserusee aah thats good to know. I work in NICU and love it but so many of the parents and relatives these days are rude and demanding. They dont seem to realise we are trying to keep their babies alive! Its actually been great through lockdown only having parents visiting one at a time

@Bluntness100

I think this is dealing with ghe general public. And the incidents escalate when people are stressed, anxious, Ill etc.

I have on occasion been what I would classify as rude to customer service agents, when I have had to complain, last week for example I was dealing with another missing delivery from the same shite courier company and I said to the woman “this is unbelievable, it’s every single delivery, how can it be this shit. As soon as I saw it was you guys delivering I knew it would be a fuck up” and my daughter said “mum you’re being rude, it’s not her fault”.

And she was right, it wasn’t the agents fault, and she must get it all the time, even though I was seriously annoyed about it, I still should have Just dealt with the issue at hand, the missing delivery and left it there. But the sheer annoyance of their cumulative fuck ups annoyed the hell out of me.

Sorry to derail but I'm guessing that was Hermes....I'm shocked you managed to get through to a real person on the phone.