Need to vent...being volunteered by someone else to do overtime...WHAT?!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

So for the second weekend in a row, the NM at the HH agency where I work basically volunteers MY services to do the early morning shift on Sundays. This is besides the fact that I already work M-F 8-5. She gets the owner to call me and say that they really need me to go because someone called in sick. That the NM said she would go in from 3-7pm if *I* went in from 7-3. "You don't need to go in, but we REALLY need you to go." I mean, come on. When the owner of the company you work for says that, can you even say no?

Ok, end rant...

Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

My response is always "That's not going to work for me."

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Specializes in Med-Surg.

No, I am not salaried. I have hourly wage. And I questioned the whole 'not getting paid for overtime' thing. They said that they just trade a day I work over the weekend for a day off later that I would get paid for. So basically, they just want to give me time off so I dont end up doing more than 40hours/week somehow.

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What does your contract say? If you have a 2 year contract that says they can change your schedule at will, then I suppose they can. However, if you are in the US on some sort of work visa, I have the feeling that they are hoping you don't know about our labor laws. Or for some, NOT ALL, but SOME, working in the US is so appealling less than ethical places of employment will take full advantage. Or employees will put up with just about anything to keep a US job. Again, SOME not ALL. As a pp pointed out, however, this office work/field work thing is quite a little loophole in the labor laws.

I would look closely at your contract with them. Unfortunetely, they may have a right under the contract to have you work whenever they choose. Seems if they are attempting to be "nice" about it by getting you to seemingly "agree" to these last minute switches, as I am sure that if you got fed up and ended up leaving they would be in a world of a mess. But for anyone who works under a contract, it seems to give the employers the advantage in the language. They are more apt to schedule their full time regular employees for the shift of choice, and fill in with their contractural employees.

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Specializes in Med-Surg.
What does your contract say? If you have a 2 year contract that says they can change your schedule at will, then I suppose they can. However, if you are in the US on some sort of work visa, I have the feeling that they are hoping you don't know about our labor laws. Or for some, NOT ALL, but SOME, working in the US is so appealling less than ethical places of employment will take full advantage. Or employees will put up with just about anything to keep a US job. Again, SOME not ALL. As a pp pointed out, however, this office work/field work thing is quite a little loophole in the labor laws.

I would look closely at your contract with them. Unfortunetely, they may have a right under the contract to have you work whenever they choose. Seems if they are attempting to be "nice" about it by getting you to seemingly "agree" to these last minute switches, as I am sure that if you got fed up and ended up leaving they would be in a world of a mess. But for anyone who works under a contract, it seems to give the employers the advantage in the language. They are more apt to schedule their full time regular employees for the shift of choice, and fill in with their contractural employees.

My contract doesnt say anything about changing my schedule. In fact, the job offer letter I got from them said 90% of my job would be direct patient care, 10% paperwork. Since Ive been there, its been the complete opposite. And I think you may be right, they are hoping that A) I dont know what is legal or illegal, and B) are hoping that I am so desperate for work that I will tolerate it all.

But as it turns out, they dont expect me to do overtime and not pay me overtime wages. If I work a weekend day, they force me to take a day off during the week so they dont have to pay me overtime. But again, the contract doesnt say anything about that. The basic gist of it is that if I stop working for them I cant take any of their clients, and I cant work for a competitor. And get this..I have a 2 years obligation, but either I or they can break the contract with no more than a one day notice. Apparently the new office manager did not read the contract real carefully before she tried quoting it for my obligation to them lol.

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