Lots of reasons. The reasons why I originally chose it at age 15 aren’t all the same reasons why I keep doing it now.
At age 15:
-I wanted to get better at social skills, and nursing seemed like good practice for that.
-I wanted a steady guaranteed well-paying job after 4 years of university. Not many things promise that. Nursing does. (My hospital guaranteed me a job, in the unit that I wanted, a year before I even graduated.)
-I read number of books by Tilda Shalof about working as an ICU nurse, and my response to them was a powerful “yes, that, I want to do that.”
Now:
-It’s exciting and varied, and challenges and rewards many different parts of me. On a good day at work, I’m curious. I’m admitting a patient and we don’t quite know what’s going on yet and I stay after the end of my shift to look up their lab results because I fought to get that bloodwork (it’s really hard to do blood draws on someone who’s in severe shock) and I want to know. On a good day at work, I care. I have the same sweet old lady for a week and she’s telling me her life story and keeping me laughing as I coax and cajole her to get up in the chair an extra time, walk an extra lap around the unit, eat one more bite of hospital chicken puree. On a good day, I’m a well-oiled part in a machine much bigger than myself, a necessary and essential member of a great team, and it feels awesome. On a good day, I’m proud: of the IV I put in, the infected central line site that I noticed first, of the antibiotics I reminded the doctor to change, of the help I gave the other nurses. There are some bad days, and lots of meh days, but the work that I’m doing is always important...and in a way that my System 1 can really grasp. No productivity hacks required; I don’t need urging to work my butt off.
-I’m 22 years old and I have $50K in savings. And job security forever. That’s pretty rare.
-I have skills that are unusual within the rationality community. Nursing, like engineering, takes in random first-year undergrads and trains them to have a specified set of skills–and, in the process, to see the world in a particular way. I think like a nurse. It makes me inexplicably good at some things, like running logistics for CFAR workshops. It’s brought me up to average or above average in a lot of areas, like reacting under pressure and most types of social skills. It’s made me generically useful. And I don’t think it’s done making me more useful. I’m not even a particularly good nurse yet; you aren’t expected to be until ~5 years in.
(Perfectionism: useful overall. It might make my learning curve flatter at first, but I think I’ll keep improving for longer.)
I probably won’t do nursing forever. It’s pretty varied, but it’s not infinitely varied. Currently I’m having too much fun at work to want to leave; if I’m bored in five years, and I can find a way to legally work in the US in any capacity other than nursing, there are a bunch of interesting things I could do.
Thanks for the response, that was an interesting read.
As for perfectionism—In retrospect I think it was a huge drag on my own well-being and social relationships but helpful in getting things done. I am much less of a perfectionist nowadays and that has improved my life in many ways at the cost of making me somewhat less effective when it comes to work. Perfectionism for me wasn’t just about my work but also about myself and others—seeing the imperfections and trying to iron them out. A pattern of perception if you will that didn’t see the good things about myself and others and predominantly focused on optimizing the negatives. I feel much better now after changing that pattern of perception, so I was interested in how you thought of it—also outside of work.
Interesting. I don’t have that kind of perfectionist view about other people. At all. I guess I have high expectations for myself (including my work) but I’m also okay with being human and doing things to take care of myself.
Lots of reasons. The reasons why I originally chose it at age 15 aren’t all the same reasons why I keep doing it now.
At age 15: -I wanted to get better at social skills, and nursing seemed like good practice for that. -I wanted a steady guaranteed well-paying job after 4 years of university. Not many things promise that. Nursing does. (My hospital guaranteed me a job, in the unit that I wanted, a year before I even graduated.) -I read number of books by Tilda Shalof about working as an ICU nurse, and my response to them was a powerful “yes, that, I want to do that.”
Now: -It’s exciting and varied, and challenges and rewards many different parts of me. On a good day at work, I’m curious. I’m admitting a patient and we don’t quite know what’s going on yet and I stay after the end of my shift to look up their lab results because I fought to get that bloodwork (it’s really hard to do blood draws on someone who’s in severe shock) and I want to know. On a good day at work, I care. I have the same sweet old lady for a week and she’s telling me her life story and keeping me laughing as I coax and cajole her to get up in the chair an extra time, walk an extra lap around the unit, eat one more bite of hospital chicken puree. On a good day, I’m a well-oiled part in a machine much bigger than myself, a necessary and essential member of a great team, and it feels awesome. On a good day, I’m proud: of the IV I put in, the infected central line site that I noticed first, of the antibiotics I reminded the doctor to change, of the help I gave the other nurses. There are some bad days, and lots of meh days, but the work that I’m doing is always important...and in a way that my System 1 can really grasp. No productivity hacks required; I don’t need urging to work my butt off. -I’m 22 years old and I have $50K in savings. And job security forever. That’s pretty rare. -I have skills that are unusual within the rationality community. Nursing, like engineering, takes in random first-year undergrads and trains them to have a specified set of skills–and, in the process, to see the world in a particular way. I think like a nurse. It makes me inexplicably good at some things, like running logistics for CFAR workshops. It’s brought me up to average or above average in a lot of areas, like reacting under pressure and most types of social skills. It’s made me generically useful. And I don’t think it’s done making me more useful. I’m not even a particularly good nurse yet; you aren’t expected to be until ~5 years in.
(Perfectionism: useful overall. It might make my learning curve flatter at first, but I think I’ll keep improving for longer.)
I probably won’t do nursing forever. It’s pretty varied, but it’s not infinitely varied. Currently I’m having too much fun at work to want to leave; if I’m bored in five years, and I can find a way to legally work in the US in any capacity other than nursing, there are a bunch of interesting things I could do.
Thanks for the response, that was an interesting read.
As for perfectionism—In retrospect I think it was a huge drag on my own well-being and social relationships but helpful in getting things done. I am much less of a perfectionist nowadays and that has improved my life in many ways at the cost of making me somewhat less effective when it comes to work. Perfectionism for me wasn’t just about my work but also about myself and others—seeing the imperfections and trying to iron them out. A pattern of perception if you will that didn’t see the good things about myself and others and predominantly focused on optimizing the negatives. I feel much better now after changing that pattern of perception, so I was interested in how you thought of it—also outside of work.
Interesting. I don’t have that kind of perfectionist view about other people. At all. I guess I have high expectations for myself (including my work) but I’m also okay with being human and doing things to take care of myself.