I know I’m not alone when I say I don’t like my job. Hate feels too sharp for it—too final—but “strongly dislike” still doesn’t quite capture it either. It’s more like dread. A heavy, slow thing that starts showing up the day before my shift and settles into everything I try to do on my day off.

Going into work is one of the hardest parts of my week. Even before I clock in, my anxiety is already working overtime. I feel it the night before—restless, unsettled, like I can’t fully land in my own life because I know I have to leave it again soon. Sometimes it gets so bad I cry, not because anything specific happened, but because my body already knows what’s coming.

And then I get there, and it’s not always as terrible as my mind builds it up to be. That’s the frustrating part. It’s never one big breaking point. It’s a thousand small ones. The unpredictability. The constant shifting. The feeling of never quite belonging anywhere for long enough to settle.

I work in a moderately sized hospital—small enough that everyone knows everything, big enough that I still feel like I’m being moved through it instead of placed in it. Five units, an OR, an ED. I’m a float pool CNA, and that’s where a lot of this starts.

I don’t get a home base. No unit that feels like mine. No rhythm I can learn by heart. I show up and wait to find out where I’ll be sent, like my whole shift depends on a roll of the dice I never agreed to. And sometimes I get moved again mid-shift, just when I’ve started adjusting. I spend so much energy just trying to orient myself that I’m already tired before the real work even begins.

I clean up what needs cleaning, take vitals, move fast when I’m told to move fast, disappear when I’m not needed, reappear when I am. It’s honest work, but it’s not light work.

Patients are tired, scared, in pain. Nurses are overwhelmed, sharp around the edges, sometimes kind in ways that don’t fully land because everyone is running on empty. And I’m somewhere in the middle of it, trying to be useful without ever really feeling rooted.

I know part of the reason I don’t like it is simple: I don’t get paid enough for the weight of it. Not just the physical labor, but the emotional friction of being pulled into urgency all day long and then expected to just reset and do it again tomorrow.

But there’s another layer under that. I want to be a nurse, but not in the way I am now. Not floating, not drifting from place to place. I want structure. I want to learn a unit deeply enough that I stop feeling like a visitor in every hallway. I think about the ER sometimes—the chaos with purpose, the clear direction even when everything is loud. Or the OR, where there’s precision, roles, rhythm. Or labor and delivery, where there’s exhaustion but also arrival. Or the NICU, where everything is fragile and deliberate and every small improvement matters in a way that feels sacred.

Instead, most days feel like I’m suspended in between versions of myself—future nurse, current CNA, tired person trying to get through a shift that keeps changing shape without asking me.

And what makes it harder is the anticipation. The anxiety doesn’t wait for work to start. It takes pieces of my life before I even get there. It eats my days off in advance. It turns ordinary rest into countdowns. I find myself thinking not just “I have work tomorrow,” but “I can’t fully be here today because tomorrow is already pulling me forward.”

Some days I wonder if what I really hate isn’t the work itself, but the lack of control around it. The unpredictability. The feeling of being moved around without ever being grounded long enough to grow into something solid.

And still, I show up. Even when I don’t want to. Even when I’ve already spent the energy just getting dressed for it. Even when part of me is already halfway gone before the shift even starts.