“I Just Don’t Care Anymore” — Burnt out Nurse Says She’s Stopped Acting Professional at Work

A nurse who goes by Les (@caldo.de.les) on TikTok said she isn't concerned with "being professional in the workplace anymore." In a viral clip that's accrued over 613,000 views on the popular social media application, she asked if others felt the same and then delineated why she isn't all that jazzed with the prospect of forcing a faux white-collar persona for the sake of her work environment.

For starters, it appears her ennui is rooted in a recent initiative from management at her job, which attempted to implement a "mandatory overtime" rule for nurses. She says that her job asked nurses to take on 15-hour shifts instead of 12-hour ones due to staffing issues during a meeting.

Les immediately let management know that she wasn't a fan of this proposition, stating that in front of everyone at work, she told her employers she wasn't interested in this new shift layout.

Furthermore, she told her boss that she should let her know if she needed to "log into Indeed when [she] got back to [her] desk." It seems that Les's decision to speak up inspired others in the room to also advocate for their own schedules, as one of her co-workers also stated that they, too, weren't interested in these hours.

This seemingly prompted her manager to start "backtracking and stuttering" in response to employees voicing displeasure over the new proposed work schedule.

"Everyone was looking at me in the meeting was looking at me like I was insane," she says into the camera. Following this, she shared a story involving a situation at another one of the jobs she works. While working in the lab room at this other place of employment, Les said that one of the co-workers there, who disliked her from the get-go, started giving her a hard time.

"I'm spinning the blood that I just had drawn, and I'm labeling the urine drug screen cups. And she's standing there at the door, like literally just talking s--t. 'Oh, I could never do that job, that's so disgusting, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to do what you're doing,'" Les says, changing the inflection of her voice to reflect the manner in which the older co-worker was speaking to her regarding her job duties.

After hearing enough of this woman criticize the type of work she was doing, Les decided that she finally had enough. "I turn around and I'm like first of all you don't have a nursing license so you couldn't do this job even if you wanted to. And number two, I heard you asking the manager for overtime because you were struggling financially last week, so you actually would do it probably for even just $10 an hour," she said.

Afterward, Les said that she "used [her] foot to slam the door in her [coworker's] face," further intoning just how done she is with being nice to people while at work. "I just don't care anymore, and I don't know what it is because I remember when I was 18, like fresh out of high school and working at hospitals and all of these like, really professional places I was scared of doing anything wrong to get fired," she told viewers.

However, upon being in the workforce for several years, her trepidation at the thought of losing her job has ultimately subsided, and she's no longer allowing this fear of losing her job to influence how she behaves towards others. Moreover, she doesn't seem interested at all in entertaining other people's personalities if they clash with her own desires while on the job, either.

Additionally, due to her decade of experience in the medical field, she isn't worried about securing gainful employment somewhere else should the position arise. "I'm at the point where I'm ten years in and I don't care because I know that you need me more than I need you. And if you fire me, I will find another job very easily," she said.

Compounding her lack of care for other people's feelings at work, she says, is the number of hours that she's been working in her vocation. "I just don't care, and I'm not putting up with it. I don't know if this is anyone else, but I'm just burnt out," she relayed.

Upon saying this, she added that she indeed takes her job seriously when it comes to patient care. "I will ride hard for my patients, and I just don't like the politics that goes into nursing and all of management and being told what to do. When you don't even know how to do my job."

The nurse continued that her gripes are primarily directed towards the way that the healthcare facilities she works in are managed. Not necessarily the patients that she's serving. "It's just infuriating, but I do want to make it clear that I will do anything for my patients. I will advocate for them, stick up for them, try to find resources for them. This is not aimed towards them," she clarified.

Moreover, she added, "I feel burnt out in the sense of like management and corporate vibes and all of that. The patients themselves I absolutely love and adore them. I love taking care of people. And that's the only reason I still do this job is for the patients. So just wanted to throw that in there real quick," she says.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing writes that there is indeed a nursing shortage that's only worsening in 2025, and that the outlook for the profession is looking particularly grim moving forward. In a May 2024 fact sheet, the organization indicates that this need "is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care grows."

Also, the same fact sheet pens that "Compounding the problem is the fact that nursing schools across the country are struggling to expand capacity to meet the rising demand for care."

Davis & Elkins College corroborated this worrying news, writing that "the nursing shortage in 2025 has reached alarming levels, with a projected deficit of over 500,000 registered nurses in the United States."

So Les's lack of worry in securing a job isn't unfounded. Davis & Elkins went on to pen that the 3 million registered nurses in the United States "is simply not sufficient to meet these growing needs."

This means that nurses with experience may find it easier to argue for higher pay in their positions. Or, if you're looking for a healthcare field with job security, you may want to consider nursing.