editing the question: why do SOME employers act like the only way to earn money is working for them?
I'm writing from Germany but want to hear an American pov. I'm a registered nurse.
What follows has happened to me only in so called Christian hospitals and Christian LTC communities: I'd go to work, see how people there work, point to things that people there do that need improvement or are outright stupid (like telling the manager about a coworker who yells at 11PM for 30 minutes while patients sleep, who does that?), get canned and humiliated with a personal promise not to ever work there again.
With caritas (Germany) something similar happened: I play the guitar quite well and during Christmas the manager heard me singing and playing along. He then approached me to 'suggest' that I play for the seniors in that LTC institution. I told him I need time to practice and proposed a timetable, where Id practice during work hours, because if you want me to perform well, you are paying me and if you believe Im going to practice after my shift on my free time, think again.
canned.
It's not that bad because they taught me to avoid Christians like the plague and life now is easier.
Enough about the context and back to the question: this is nursing. As bad paid as it it there are always open positions everywhere and some niches where you actually don't have to destroy your health for others. I'm now unionized, like 40% of the workers at my hospital and we are now negotiating a new labor agreement. An employee working for Christian hospitals doesn't even have the right to strike: it's either take what they give you or go elsewhere. At my unionized hospital we already went on strike once, we may go again if our employer doesn't give us something to offset current inflation and a path for more future increases.
As you see, job conditions are much better where I am now and there is less stress.
But I still don't have an answer for the question I posted above: why do some employers behave like the only way I have to make money is to work for them, specially with a degree like nursing?
it baffles me