To stay within the profession or not...

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Sophie Millar — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 12:01:45 GMT

Hi there! I am a recruitment consultant myself and I place veterinary nurses all over and I can tell you now, NONE of the nurses I have worked with have even been offered minimum wage. It sounds like he is complacent and confident you aren't going anywhere. Registered and Qualified locum nurses I work with earn between 13 and 15 pounds an hour and permanent nurses vary depending on salary but at LEAST 10 pounds an hour. He is so so wrong and I am not surprised you are feeling under valued :(

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Feezy — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 16:15:07 GMT

I didn't mean spar particularly. Just a job out with the profession that allows you to start at the bottom and work your way up. And I think the zero hours contract thing is complex. Aren't locum nurses on zero hours contracts? I worked a zero hours contract job and it suited me down to the ground.

Anon. The main thing to remember is that no decision is final. Don't burn any bridges, but if you need to leave this job or you're gonna be unhappy then leave.

Xxx

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Sal the 1st — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 09:05:46 GMT

[quote user="VetNurse Anon a/c"]

I am now trying to figure out what are my best options but like I said above I live in a very rural area and jobs are very few and far between. I do not want to move as I am in the middle of planning to build a house with my S.O. This is where I want to be and I dont think any job would be worth moving for again.

So basicly I am no further on....

[/quote]

well it sounds like you are a bit further on - in that you know your employers are not going to budge and that you have decided 'This is where I want to be and I don't think any job would be worth moving for again'. my experience is that its very rare to find a job that gives you exactly what you want - you either get a job with good job satisfaction and poor pay, and its the job satisfaction that keeps you with that practice OR a job with poor job satisfaction but good enough pay to keep you working there.

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Sal the 1st — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:52:14 GMT

[quote user="Feezy"]

If that's all your getting paid my dear and getting zero job satisfaction you'd be better off getting a job in the local spar!

[/quote]

can see you have never worked for Spar - I have, its one of the places that takes zero job satisfaction down to a whole new level - along with zero hours contracts

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Feezy — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 08:06:15 GMT

If that's all your getting paid my dear and getting zero job satisfaction you'd be better off getting a job in the local spar! Most vet nurses I know have considered or are considering a career change. Most vets too! I'm lucky in that the job I have is comparitavely well paid and the hours are pretty good. But this ties my hands cos any job change would involve a pay cut or hours increase. You don't have that, maybe that's a positive! I would definitely consider a stint of locumming as it can really reinvigorate your love for vet nursing. However. If its not for u get out! Life's too short. Get a job to pay the bills and have a lovely life.

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

VetNurse Anon a/c — Sat, 13 Jun 2015 12:47:31 GMT

Thank you so much for all your replies. I have since went to the managing partner for a pay rise. To be fair to him he said he would think about it and contact other practices where he knew people from in our area and ask them what they pay their nurses..... this was not a good idea.

So he came back to me yesterday and he said that he majority of people that he talked to paid their nurses... wait for it... MINIMUM WAGE...(what RVN would work for min wage..that is another discussion all on its own). I told him that i felt that my pay did not reflect the amount of work that I do as I am basicly a head nurse.. his response.. sure we all feel that.......... I was fit to be tied... so I walked away and bit my tongue. I think he as made my decision for me. Why would anyone work anywhere, not just in the veterinary sector, where they feel undervalued.

So basicly I am no further on....

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

gemima — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 16:02:52 GMT

Hello,

I have also felt like this at times, sometimes the daily pressures can accumulate and weigh you down. If I have felt like this I have done what other posts have suggested and made a list as sometimes when you are used to a practice and how it works things that are good about it get a little lost. My current role allows me to continue my studies and support me In a senior role but the down side is the commute, so on those cold January evenings when I am trudging home I think of the practices I have worked at in the past and why I left to be where I am now. Although sometimes when a client is shouting about there bill or any other list of things we get abuse for I would give anything to work in a close to home stress free job, I know deep down I would last about an hour in an office based job! The thing that gets me down about this job is the way clients feel they can talk to you in any manner they see fit and be as demanding and unreasonable as humanely possible, even though we all strive to do our absolute best! I still struggle to deal with this aspect and shutting it out at the end of the day even with a 1kg bar of dairy milk although that does soften the blow! Maybe book a few days off work pamper yourself destress and reassess the situ xx

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Thorn — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 19:48:23 GMT

This seems to be a common story... we start out as people who wholeheartedly want to make a difference and love animals, then have to fight tooth and nail to get a student position and take that first step into the career we feel sure is fulfilling and worthwhile. Having fought for a position (sometimes relocating, sometimes giving up better paid jobs, sometimes having to rely on the generosity of friends and family, sometimes racking up debts) it is years of hard work and training while living on pittance. It is difficult but we slog on because while we do not always love the job, we love our patients and still want to make a difference. Then we qualify and feel like the little pay rise will make all the difference and that all the bits we struggled with will improve but sooner or later find that that is not the case. Increasingly, life moves on and friends move on but having had that glorious little step up on qualifying, we find that actually there seems to be very few more stairs to aim for and while people on other career staircases seem to be striding ahead, we seem to be doing a little jig on the same step and going nowhere. Our pay seems to stay the same, our workload seems to only increase, our hours become no more sociable and frustration starts competing with our initial good willed intention for our attention People on the steps below us look up and wonder why, at the top of the staircase, we are not more happy but increasingly jogging on the spot saps our energy and motivation and we start to wonder if, maybe, it wouldn’t be a better idea to leave this staircase and join another, even at the bottom, just to feel like we are going somewhere.

Sorry, rambling staircase metaphor aside...

To the Original Poster, I understand where you are coming from. I think it was and is a good idea to raise the subject of a raise with your boss-generally if you don’t ask, you won’t get. Maybe arrange a proper meeting. Are you due an appraisal any time soon? Go through what you would like and why you feel you earn it. Maybe your boss will agree to a raise or a contract alteration, which might help you feel more positive, or maybe instead you will get a formal discussion on things to aim for (eg maybe he/she will say no to a raise right now but will outline conditions to achieve a raise in the next year).

On the other hand, you might not get what you want at all from such a meeting. Still, if you have clearly and logically made a request or suggestion and have been officially turned down, then at least you know for sure where you stand. At that point you can consider whether or not this particular practice is the practice for you. It might be that because this practice has trained you up, they may always see you as the little student you were to start with and struggle to see you for the qualified and experienced nurse you are now. If that is the case, well, everyone has to leave home sooner or later and you might find that your Forever Home is not going to be the one you ‘grew up’ in.

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Sal the 1st — Tue, 12 May 2015 12:19:08 GMT

can you pm me if you think it will help there are some exercises you can work through that may help you

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Alison Clare Hickman — Mon, 11 May 2015 22:09:51 GMT

Hello there,

You do sound down in the dumps, bless you. When we're down we tend to create and then only receive negative feedback, so seeing a way around the barriers can become difficult to impossible. I do feel for you. So, here's my suggestion to hopefully give you some ideas how to take control of it all and get our of your career/life exactly what you would like!

What I've done in the past is make a list of 'Wants and Needs and Pro's and Con's (I believe our lovely Sal 1st is an advocate for this method too, Sal?) and from this make a decision for my way forwards.

The Needs highlights things such as the bottom line for pay/benefits to fulfil life essentials (each to their own) and the Wants indicates things we could do without but would rather ideally not. The Pro's list is anything you like about, or get benefit from, working where you are and the Con's the things you cannot / no longer tolerate or receive benefit from.

Within these lists you will find some work-related issues, such as those you've mentioned in your post. Cleaning up after people as one example... it's a 'Con' for you. However, will you find reward if someone were to thank you for being their organiser? If the answer is, Yes I would feel valued and happy, then consider in what form you would like to be thanked. When you know how this is achieved,you have a solution to one 'Con' issue you can put forwards to your bosses and turn it into a 'Pro'.

I've found that offering a solution about a problem to a boss (so they don't have to think one up themselves) is far better than even a justified whinge about being unhappy without a ready answer to the problem. Plus it means you get what YOU want (or at least something similar...). If the boss cannot be bothered to listen, act on your suggestion and/or is unreceptive then, for me, the answers written on the wall. I would put plans in place to leave.

This leads me to another aspect of the list making. It may well be your list making indicates the right thing for you to do is leave. But to do what? I've made a list (yes, another one!), of all my strengths and likes. Even things I could do/liked outside of work but were skllls/likes I had acquired/got benefit from at home/elsewhere. This list led to an analysis of various different jobs,some wildly different to anything else I had experienced previously and eventually landed me the job I am in now. (I'm a former bank manager, travel agent and have also worked for the Inland Revenue).

So, in summary. Work hard to analyse your current circumstances, know what it is you require to be fulfilled and then create your own 'yellow brick road' to Oz. You can find happiness, it just takes a bit of foundation work to start off with to get there.

Good luck. Get your motor running. Go grab life by the shorts!!

Hope this helps.

Ali h

RE: To stay within the profession or not...

Steph Worsley — Mon, 11 May 2015 22:00:31 GMT

Unfortunately, none of us is going to have the right answer for you as it is a very personal question.

Personally I am a firm believer in...if you aint happy look around and move on. I have worked in a variety of practices and also tried my hand at repping (this def was not for me..I left a pretty decent practice to do it and unfortunately couldn't get back in there when I decided I wanted to nurse again) For the first 8 years I was in practice I worked in 5 different practices and the rep job...these were a mix of roles: SVN, QVN, HVN and a mix of different practices: corporate, multiple branch mixed practice, small 2 vet mainly smallies . I then decided to bite the bullet and started locumming to try a few different places and get different experiences, I ended up as a locum at my current place and found a role that suits me down to the ground...not to say that I don't have doubts at times but can't see myself going back to full time 1st opinion (have even been offered different jobs but ended up turning them down).

So why not try locumming ...bit more freedom to say when you will work or not (bank hols off) yes prob still not 9-5, but you can charge more per hour than you are getting currently. Or what about repping...yes it didn't suit me but I know loads of people who it is perfect for.