Saying 'NO' to overtime

Lovelymo79 · Aug 14, 2012

It could be hard but remember that you need days to rest. I'm the same as you. I work a lot of OT and I'm about to sign up as an agency nurse prn. I'm also about to start school.

But when I do my OT at my full-time job, my paychecks are sooo nice. But I have to remind myself that I need some time to relax and recuperate. You dont want to burn out so quickly so you can keep those paychecks rolling!

suzbeeRN · Aug 14, 2012

It's not that I can't say no to the hospital, it's that I can't say no to myself! It's hard for me to justify having a day off when I could be earning good money.

Lovelymo79 · Aug 14, 2012

Yeah. I just realized I read it wrong! See my above post!

uRNmyway, ASN, RN · Aug 14, 2012

You will figure it out soon enough. Burn-outs aren't super common in nursing for no reason. We are over-worked. I guess you just have to prioritize for yourself. What is more important? Your physical and mental health, or your bank account? Because unless you have some superhuman powers you did not mention in your post, you WILL eventually crash.

NayRN · Aug 14, 2012

Justify it this way: The hospital where I work proclaimed last week that 1) all overtime is hereby suspended. 2) There is a 12 month suspension on merit raises (all 2.5% of them) and 3) all PTO earned since May 2012 has to be used by April 2013, or it will be lost. No more rollovers. However, scheduling practices will not change, and due to the randomness of each schedule and the timeliness (or lack thereof) in which it is completed, it will remain impossible to hold a second job. For the good of the hospital, you know. During this time, four managers will sit in an office for 3 hours per day figuring out which employee's turn it is to be low censused that day.

So, in other words, in a world of feast or famine, you may want to save for the famine-just don't exhaust yourself and end up burnt out and hating your job(s) by overworking yourself.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Aug 14, 2012

If you want to learn to say no to extra hours, you have to first value your time off more than your paycheck. If you don't right now, that's ok.

Burn out is a state of mind, rather than simply the act of working a lot of hours. Some people are energized by work, and you sound like one of them. When you start to lose energy by working, then you'll start valuing your time off.

ddunnrn · Aug 14, 2012

You may also want to consider the effects the extra earnings will have on your retirement. You can sock away more money in whatever retirement accounts you have. if social security is still around when you retire, having years of higher earnings will increase your benefit.This has been a lifesaver for me since I had to go on SSD for kidney disease. I made $80K+ for most of the last 15 years, partly due to OT, and so I receive close to the max of SSD, which turns out to be about half my old take home pay. That, along with my emergency fund, has helped me keep close to the same standard of living for 2years now. All of the extra time I worked was worth the sacrifice.

Double-Helix, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2012

Just keep in mind that, at some point, the higher earnings due to overtime will bump you into the next tax bracket- which means you'll get a higher percentage taken out of your paycheck. If the tax increase is significant enough, you can actually end up making less (or barely more) by working overtime than by not working.

anotherone, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2012

I feel that way sometimes, so I do bursts of a lot of OT, then get sick of it and just want to stay home. Yesterday, I read a ton of stories about unemployed people so that scared me into signing up for more OT.I have to rmeember to SAVE the money, not just increase spending. That is one thing some people who do constant OT do, spend more, than when OT is over or decreases they are making thousands less than they would have , had they worked a regular schedule.

PennyWise · Aug 15, 2012

I did a lot of OT when I was a new nurse. At first, I did it because I wanted to be the "perfect nurse" and it gave me a sense of belonging to the team. Then I did it save for a house...........pay off school loans early.........get a larger down payment on that car I've been wanting.......buy that larger TV I've had my eye on..........get this/buy that........

I certainly became "burnt out". But not in the sense that I became nasty at work. No one at work would have thought there was a problem........other than when I quit doing OT to help out. Instead, I quit taking care of myself. My personal life got the full brunt of my problems.

I was relying on fast food because I didn't have time to cook/shop for anything better. I gained weight, more than I ever thought I possibly could. I became a caffeine addict, to the point where I had awful headaches on my off days when I didn't drink as much. I picked up smoking again. My apartment was a complete mess, always in that state of cleanliness between picked up and discusting. I kept forgetting to take care of things (bills, appointments) on off days. My family said I was being distant and many friends accused me of ignoring them.

I had let myself slip into a really good funk/depression and really didn't see any way out of it other than to do what I had not been doing all along: Take care of myself and get my personal life in order.

The only way to do this was to stop being a hero, turn down the OT for awhile and put more energy into my personal life.

hiddencatRN, BSN, RN · Aug 15, 2012

You will figure it out soon enough. Burn-outs aren't super common in nursing for no reason. We are over-worked. I guess you just have to prioritize for yourself. What is more important? Your physical and mental health, or your bank account? Because unless you have some superhuman powers you did not mention in your post, you WILL eventually crash.

Yup. I worked a TON of overtime when I first got off orientation. Then one day I realized I was mad at everything and hated everything. I've cut WAY down on OT except for "special occasions" (buying a house and OH NO NEED BIGGER DOWNPAYMENT AT THE LAST MINUTE for example).

The thing to be careful of is getting trapped in to overtime. If you get too used to that money, take on too many new expenses or get too used to having all that cash around, when you decide to cut back or want to work at a place that pays a little less you can wind up really short and unable to drop the OT and still feel comfortable financially.