Night shift employees expected to attend things during day??

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in med-surg, teaching, cardiac, priv. duty.

My husband and I are both RN's. A real irritation for my husband at present (and for me in the past when I used to work at the same hospital as him) was when there were mandatory inservices or meetings AND the only time offerings were during day time hours. What about night shift employees??? Shouldn't there at least be a handful of night time options?? It only seems fair. How would day shift like it if they had to come in at 12 midnight or 2am for a meeting or inservice??

This is the ironic thing: When we lived in another state, we worked at a small 100 bed hospital. When there were mandatory meetings or inservices, this little hospital ALWAYS had some on night shift times! Now we have worked at a large 800 plus bed teaching hospital AND they only offer day shift options. This huge hospital has way more night shift employees, so you'd think they would offer more options for nights...but no, they offer none at all!

How is it at your hospital??? I guess this is particularly an irritation for us because we are "serious" night people. We are natural night owls. We have worked either nights or evenings for close to 20 years by choice. It is a way of life for us. Having to get up in the morning to go to a meeting or inservice is a major inconvenience and disrupts our normal sleep....Like a day shifter having to come in at midnight or 2 am...

Thanks for listening to my vent. More for my husband than me! :wink2: I left the hospital setting almost 4 years ago...not going back!

Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

They don't even have the cafeteria open at our hospital for the night shift. They used to but the manager of food service cut it out because they were tightening the budget. Lame.

My husband and I are both RN's. A real irritation for my husband at present (and for me in the past when I used to work at the same hospital as him) was when there were mandatory inservices or meetings AND the only time offerings were during day time hours. What about night shift employees??? Shouldn't there at least be a handful of night time options?? It only seems fair. How would day shift like it if they had to come in at 12 midnight or 2am for a meeting or inservice??

i know what you mean... i just don't get it why? last monday i had mandatory thing to attened i worked the prvious night the thing was from 0800-1400.. and i'm supposed to work that same night. i just didn't go...no one said anything to me up to now but if they do i'll quit!

Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

Where I work they try to minimize having to come in during the middle of the day for stuff for night shift workers. However, I still hate working a hard 12 hr overnight, getting off at 7:30 am, and then being expected to stay until 9-9:30 for the floor's monthly meeting. I want to go home, eat breakfast, and go to bed.

Specializes in L&D, M/B.

It has not gotten any better in the 25 years I have been on nights. I don't see it getting any better either. A day shifter will just tell you to "take a nap" and come on in!

I would so love to call some people at 1 or 2 am and see how they like being woken up from their nights sleep. But that's another thread......

Specializes in Cardiac, ER.

I feel your pain. I've worked 12hr nocs for almost 12yrs. Same old argument everywhere I've ever worked. You're correct,.day shift would have a cow if you told them they needed to show up at 11p for a 3hr long mandatory class. It's never gonna happen. I will say though,.the hospital where I work (ER) is really good about having our staff meetings either at night or right at shift change.

Classes like TNCC,PALS,ACLS, etc will never be offered at night. We also have all the hospital required re credentialing that is always during the day time. Again my hospital is good about offering many of these classes on line and we do get paid for them. I usually try to group as many classes together as I can and take a week off to take classes.

It sucks, and really isn't fair,.but I've given up the fight for more important issues, like staffing (which we are wining BTW!).

I could fill a coffee cup with all of the appreciation the night shift has been shown over the years and still have less than a full cup. LOL!

Save the fight for the big battles.

Specializes in ED, ICU, PSYCH, PP, CEN.

I have to work 7p-7a and then stay for education day which starts at 630am-3pm. I rely on my buddies to poke me in the ribs each time I start snoring. My husband picks me up because it is not safe to drive home after a 20 hour or more shift.

Just another one of the glamorous aspects of being a "nurse".

Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

I can understand the logistical difficulties of offering the "big stuff" like PALS and ACLS on night shift.

But there is no excuse for failing to provide routine unit-based staff meetings and education on off shifts.

Next time, call your manager at home at 3:00 am and ask for a briefing.

Specializes in Ortho, Neuro, Detox, Tele.

I will say that my manager is pretty good about not having meetings too early. usually they are at 4PM...so even if I'm working, I'm usually set up to get there without too much trouble. She is also ok with posting weekly bulletins up on a back bulletin board so we don't have to have meetings every week.

However, often some decisions are made without staff input, which drives us crazy! Also, she isn't really good about sticking to days off when we request them.

We have recently been "venting" (ahem, that's the nice term) about this lately. Even day shifters are kind of getting on board - it's not the staff preventing it from happening, it is the managers/educators. Basically, no one cares enough to make changes. I too have just NOT GONE to some things - and I don't think that's completely wrong. I can not possibly go to a 5 hour meeting before a 12 hour night shift and be as safe as if I had slept instead.

Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

I worked night shift for 13 years and feel your pain. Nothing worse than working a 12 hour shift and staying over for an inservice, or worse sleeping a couple of hours and coming back. At our facility most mandatory things have a 7AM option so people from nights can stay over.

When we first went to computer charting about ten years ago there were mandatory classes. I offered to teach the class from 11:00 to 3AM so night workers used to being up at night can come in if they choose. Over the course of about 3 weeks of daily night shift offerings 2 people choose the night shift option and 99% of the night shift attended day shift classes. Go figure. Night workers don't want to come in at night on their days off.

We used to have a floor educator that could come in at 3:00 to try to catch the night shfit for quick education updates. That was very nice.

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