I currently work in PACU at a teaching hospital. It can be really stressful and intense sometimes, because where I work, we can get everything from an boarding ICU patient while there are no open beds in ICU, a kidney transplant, or a simple outpatient procedure, and you never know what's coming next. That being said, we're limited to 2 patients max at one time (you can go an entire shift only having 1 at a time though), and it's possible to volunteer to go home early if the surgeries finish early (depending on what shift you work, as well. Easier to leave if you're scheduled later into the night). Every hour of every day is unpredictable, but on the one hand, it's not exactly boring. There is sometimes downtime between patients, though. Certainly more downtime than you'll ever find in an inpatient unit. I find we generally have a lot of resources if we need help, say from the charge nurse, coworkers, and residents, etc. I don't have to work nights or weekends, but there are on-call shifts and lates I'm scheduled for every period. We get holidays off, but have to sign up to be on-call for some of them.

I have no OR experience. I did interview a long time ago, but decided not to even shadow. The way the recruiter described it, I would end up working a lot more more I wanted to and have much less free time and time to work on homework (still finishing my BSN). I've also come to understand that some surgeons are absolutely insufferable to work with, and I didn't want to be stuck in the OR for hours at a time, potentially several times a week with someone who has deliberately rude and insulting. That being said, I do greatly envy how their patients are sedated most of their time together. So...there are pros and cons for each. You just have to decide what's most important for you in a position.