The skinny on my new career

I have to take a moment to thank all my readers for your thoughts and congratulations! I have the nicest friends. It was nice having some time to breathe this week. I feel like school is finally done and I can switch my lifestyle from student to employee.

My job at SDC (small dialysis company) is as solid as can be without peeing in a cup. We're still waiting on my official license, but they're sending me things I can fill out and work on in the meantime. In case you haven't waded through my recent, vague posts about my job, here's the facts:

• I wanted to specialize and get off a hospital floor asap
• When I had a rotation at this hospital (let's call it BH for big hospital), I loved the building and location but didn't like the work atmosphere. I wished I could work there but not for BH. Well, that's what this job is!
• I will be an acute care dialysis nurse working at BH on our unit with an unbelievable city view, and down in their ICU.
• I will work daytime 12 hour shifts. Three a week.
  
• Once I'm trained, I'll be on call for one night per week and one weekend every month or so.
• They have a thorough 10 week training and orientation.
• The starting pay is about 20% more than the average new grad salary. They already approved my pay increase after I'm done with orientation.
  
• They really truly want me. I didn't have to "prove" myself.
• They're already talking about my growth in the company, saying I would be an excellent charge nurse, that I'm "apheresis material," and eventually could move into managment.
  
• It's a small company. I do well in small companies, where everyone knows everyone.

So what's not to like? Seriously, this job is perfect in so many ways. They were a little nervous that I was just grasping at any job opportunity. Smart of them to watch out for that. I went into nursing thinking there were a lot of jobs. I was told that 90% of regis grads get a job offer during their practicum to work there. In my class 2 out of 54 students got a job at their practicum. I hear that 188 nurses applied to 8 openings for new grads at St. Joe's. It's tough this year. But I wouldn't take a job that I didn't really want to do. I hope I can make a home for myself at SDC.

Oh, one thing I wanted to journal about before I forget this transition period is how grateful I am for the NCLEX studying I did. I might have passed without doing the daily hours of studying, my test scores predicted it. But going over all of what we covered in school coalesced all that knowledge into a useful form. All the bits and pieces gelled. I was able to look at how much I had learned in one year and say to myself "You know this stuff. See? You're a nurse now." It was worth the time just to gain that confidence and sense of accomplishment.