Jennifer Smith, RN, has worked at St. Joe’s Medical Center for the past 5 years as an operating room nurse.

She enjoys her work and the interaction it provides with patients, physicians, and especially her coworkers. In fact, she has developed strong friendships with many of her coworkers. They eat lunch together almost every day, they have monthly dinner parties at one another’s homes, and they frequently go on vacations together.

Helen Jones, the director of surgical services, has remarked about the cohesiveness of the group and how well they work together, creating a well-functioning team. However, during the past year, Jennifer has made frequent remarks to her coworkers that she feels that her nursing career is at a stalemate and she is getting bored with doing the same thing every day. She has been questioning why she went back to school to earn her MSN degree when Helen has never given her an opportunity to apply what she learned. Jennifer has started to think about looking for a new position at a different hospital that would give her opportunities to grow professionally. Jennifer’s coworkers empathize with her, and when a vacancy was posted on the hospital’s job bulletin board for an assistant clinical manager position in her department, they encouraged her to apply.

After reviewing the job description, Jennifer agreed that with her clinical experience and graduate degree, she was the perfect candidate for the job. She submitted her application, fully confident that Helen would offer her the position. Jennifer was very excited and looked forward to the challenges she would face when promoted.

However, when Helen informed Jennifer that another staff member with more management experience had been offered the position, Jennifer could not disguise her disappointment. She wondered what she should do now. Should she quit and seek a new position at a different hospital? But what about her friends at St. Joe’s?

Jennifer’s coworkers knew how upset she was and made special efforts to ease her disappointment by scheduling more outings together. They told her that other opportunities would come and that, with a little more experience, she would be promoted. Being with her coworkers was like group therapy for Jennifer.

After a few weeks, Jennifer returned to the level of enjoyment she had obtained from her work before this episode. In addition, Helen approached Jennifer to discuss her enrolling in a mentorship program that the hospital had recently established. The mentorship program, similar to an internship, would provide clinical staff members with hands-on management experience. Jennifer did not hesitate;

she enrolled in the program the following week. Jennifer was confident that she would be ready when the next opportunity presented itself.

Discuss how Jennifer displayed the frustration–regression principle of Alderfer’s ERG Theory.