5 reasons why nursing isn’t really such a bad job after all

5 reasons why nursing isn’t really such a bad job after all

1. The uniforms have gotten considerably better over the last 100 years.
Seriously…would you rather be wearing a cornette headdress? How about one of those lace-trimmed caps with the ribbons? And don’t get me started on the pinafores and wool capes. (Though, to be honest, the capes were kind of cool.)

2. The hours are great.
No, really. If you have a typical floor job or a job in a clinic, you can leave your work behind you when you head home. Your mileage may vary if you’re in administration, but generally, once you close the door to the hospital, that’s it. Aside from getting your however-many hours of continuing education every year, you can think about other stuff when you’re at home. Contrast that with people with jobs in brokerages, who are tied to their BlackBerries.

3. The pay? Not to be sneezed at.
Again, mileage may vary, but we’re talking about a job that, in most places, pays both weekend and evening/overnight differentials, as well as extra on holidays. We may not make as much as plumbers, true, but we make more than electrical engineers.

4. Hospital food is a guaranteed weight-control mechanism.
Try not bringing your lunch for two weeks and see what happens. My bet is that, when faced with the Green Glop du Jour with a side of Orange Cheezy Ooze, you’ll lose 10 pounds. In normal office jobs, they tie you to your seat with those little donuts out of the vending machine. If you do well, they’ll promote you to brownies. Your butt gets huge.

5. We’re not used-car salesmen.
We may be mistaken at times for handmaidens, helpmeets, walking medical encyclopedias or people-not-smart-enough-to-be-doctors, but almost nobody thinks we’re on the take. Nursing is on the list of most trusted professions year in and year out. It’s kind of nice to be trusted, and to be doing something that everybody has had some encounter with over a lifetime. Nurses are rarely implicated in coup d’état or the violent overthrow of corporations, which gives you an automatic alibi if you decide to depose the leader of some small country. “Who, me? But I’m a nurse!”