I have worked agency for about 4 months and am not sure how to best handle this situation.
When I first started with my agency, I was offered more hours than I could handle every week. They knew I preferred to keep one weekend day open to spend time with my husband and always respected that. They offered me shifts that were reasonable (not all over the place timewise) and I took most of them. I always had 36-40 hours a week.
Two weeks ago, on a Sunday, I got a call from a fairly new scheduler asking me to go to work in Telemetry. My first response was no, I have no experience at all in Telemetry and would like to keep my license. I also stated firmly that I had worked the previous day and had plans in place for that day and really did not want to change them. He persisted and offered me another two dollars an hour if "that would make it worth my time". I again said no, and let him know that my decision was not based on what the shift would pay, but on the fact that I had things to do that were my first priority. He sounded pretty ticked when he finally hung up.
Since then, I have been cancelled for about half my pre-scheduled shifts. I have let them know that I cannot afford to work 16 hours a week and need to replace these cancelled hours. They have called me at 4:15 am asking if I wanted to go to work right then, I was offered shifts starting at 0600 the day after I had worked 3-11, and at 0800 this morning I was woken by this same guy calling to ask me to work a 12-hour day shift today. I said that was fine but as I live 50 minutes away from the hospital and had not had a shower yet I could be there in 1 1/2 hours. He said he would check with the hospital to see if this was OK and call me back. He never did. I have also gone on record as a "no show, no call" for a shift I had no idea I was scheduled for. That shift, incidentally, was scheduled by this same guy. Fortunately the facility believed that it was an agency error and I am still welcome there.
I have since completed the paperwork with Starmed and plan to work with them as well. It was my plan to be registered with two agencies, Starmed being my backup. I haven't yet said anything to my first agency about this.
It seems a bit too coincidental to me that right when I irritate this one guy by turning down a shift he was apparently desperate to fill, I suddenly have a hard time getting hours. And when I do get offered hours, they are offers I do not feel I can accept. I won't go work Telemetry with no training, I won't work on Surgical with 7 patients when I've had less than 5 hours of sleep, and they know I live a ways outside of town and how long it takes me to get there. These were never issues before now.
I am not sure how to address this, or even if I should. I know that if I suggest that this guy is cutting my hours as a way to retaliate against me not taking that Sunday shift, they will say, "But we called you for this and this and you turned them down." I also know that when I work is my choice, not theirs, and that preserving my license and my ability to make favorable impressions when I go work is my responsibility. If another option exists, I usually choose to be non-confrontational and I have thought of just quietly moving over to Starmed and working primarily through them. Although with the hours I'm being offered now, that isn't even totally my choice to make.
I do not have any relevant experiece to guide me on this, and any input would be very much appreciated.
