Re: Contract question/need info!! Originally Posted by Natkat 
Yes, you were not buried. If they hadn't moved your post THEN you wold have been buried because those interested in travel might never have found it. Those of us who visit this section of the boards benefit from having your post moved here so we would be more likely to see it.
It just figures that travel nursing is going downhill just about the time I decide to give it a try. The same thing happened when I was a transcriptionist. I heard about great pay and working at home, but then when I decided to work at home, they switched from paying hourly to paying production. They also sent most jobs overseas and I wound up making less and less money every year.
*sigh* I'm always on the backside of the wave.
Don't feel that traveling is necessarily "going downhill". It may feel that way if you were hearing all the "fantasy stories" about incredibly high payrates that have always made the rounds.
The reality (from a perspective of traveling continuously for the last 12 years) is that the jobs are out there, the payrates are keeping pace with inflation (at least for me) and the benefits really haven't changed that much. (Some are better - almost none of the companies now have shared housing - which was pretty common when I started).
As for the fee for missed shifts - the amount nomad quoted was exorbitant, but I can understand the company charging the actual cost of housing prorated by the hours missed if not made up. They are paying for said housing whether we work our shifts or not and don't get paid by the hospital if we don't work. Again, I have found my company to be very reasonable when extraordinary circumstances occurred - no charge for housing when I had to take off from an assignment for my father's death or when I left an assignment early with good cause after trying to negotiate the issues. In both cases they could have been justified within the letter of the contract to take that money, but did not do so.
Nursing News