The grass isn't greener on my soapbox

This post was inspired by a recent post on the Working Moms Against Guilt blog... it is in my side bar. I like this blog, they are all great writers.. (hmm, that is what they do for a living) and the content is very relevent to me. This post that I can completely sympathize with is titled DO WE WARN OUR DAUGHTERS? You can read the post on the blog (it is in the side bar).
What irritated me was this: It’s the “punch-in, punch-out” aspect that makes me envious at times. and this: When she was home, she wasn’t distracted with work issues. When she left the hospital, her work was done. This was in reference to her mom being a nurse.
I think I can say that I speak for all nurses (and possibly hairdressers too) that we don't leave our work at work. As we may not have our lap tops (and some do) at home at night we have many obligations to our Profession that extend beyond the time clock. Every two years we are required to renew our license, this requires CEU's (Continuing Education Credits) that are completed on your own, with little to no reimbursement from work. In order to get bonuses at work you must complete the Clinical Ladder (you can be I, II, or III). To climb the "Ladders", you have to publish yourself, join hospital committees, belong to a proffessional organization, and the higher your degree, the more points you earn toward your ladder. If you do not acheive the Ladder.. well NO BONUS FOR YOU. This all has to be completed outside of your hours (or as we call it FTE). At my hospital, we don't have 401K match, instead we have something called SOAR. You can only have the SOAR dollars for your retirement if you work a certain amount of hours. I didn't meet these required hours when I went on maternity leave, so no $ for me. In our Leadership meeting someone brought up that some people were not receiving the SOAR dollars because of their part time status or maternity/STD leaves. Our Chief Nursing Officer/VP of Nursing (who is a working mom herself) stated in response "We are not here to encourage people to work part time. If they want to acheive the SOAR dollars, they will have to work more". These are just examples of why we don't leave our work at work, not to mention the baggage we may bring home. We take care of dying people. I have seen a lot of people die, I have seen people who have been abused by family members, people who can not care for themselves but get sent home anyway, suicide gone wrong, and the list goes on. We don't leave that baggage at the time clock. Don't get me wrong, I love being a nurse. I have worked part time since I had kids, and I feel that I have the best of both worlds. I can work weekends, nights, evenings whatever my heart desires, and I have done all the shifts. I have parented on 2 hours of sleep, sometimes none. I have put in a full 8 hour day as a parent, then to go to work for 3pm to midnight to do my job. It ain't easy anywhere. I think that for nurses, hairdressers, and even mom truck drivers and factory workers.... the pressure is there for us too.