The agency REALLY cheesed me off today

[bulletproofbarb]

I'm pretty mad at the agency I work for at the moment. Last week, the care home I was working at asked me if I could work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week and I said yes. So, they rang the agency and booked me. Anyway, today, being Monday, I woke up and felt really tired. I was doing things around the house making stupid mistakes, like I took things out of the cupboard, 1 minute later, I am looking for them in the cupboard. I tried to put the margarine lid on the microwave egg poacher. This is how tired I was, my brain wasn't functioning!

So, I rang the agency about 6 hours before the shift and told them I really didn't think I could make it ect and they convinced stupid me to go. However, 2 hours later I rang back and explained that I just could not get in my car and drive 40 minutes, my mind wasn't thinking straight. They did the big "ugh" over the phone.

Anyway, I also had a job interview this morning for a job at a local hospital. 10 minutes away from home. I was pretty tired but think it was okey, however, on the way home I went straight though a stop sign and missed another car by centimetres. I shouldn't have been on the road.

Then an hour later, when I got home from the interview, they rang me back to beg me to go and said "can't you have a sleep now" and I told them the problem was that I was so overtired, I couldn't sleep. They kept saying how they had no one to fill the shift ect.

The thing is, as the RN in the care home I do the medications. If I had forced myself to drive down, it's 45 minutes drive, and by the luck of god made it alive, I probably would have made some horrible drug error.

Do the agencies realise that safety is an issue? Although I did say I would do the shifts on Friday last week and the manager at the care home changed someones roster as I could only do the late (due to the job interview) I didn't know back then I would be so tired. They made me feel really really bad and I have a shift at this care home Tuesday and Wednesday and feel awful about today

Of course, when the agency cancels, it's a different story. A quick 2 second phone call and that's it.

I so hope I get this job. I'm seriously fed up with agency now.

[BadBird, BSN, RN]

Unplug your phone so it doesn't wake you. When I worked Agency I started to book the day I wanted because you never know what comes up and you can't work. Good luck with your job hunt.

[pediatriclpn]

I always figured the joy of agency work was they were able to cancel me at the drop of a hat, so I was able to drop them if something happened to me or my family. And if they didn't like it, like they wanted to write me up for it after calling off twice in 4 years, they could take a flying leap and I would go work for another agency or find another job somewhere else. I live part way between Allentown, PA, and Philadelphia PA. There is ALWAYS some nursing job in this neck of the woods! I worked for 6 different agencies at one point in time, because I needed to have work because I was a single mom. This way if one agency canceled me I could always call another one and they could usually find me work, and I was an angel to them, because I was able to fill a shift at the last minute.

[bulletproofbarb]

Well they continue to successfully irriate me. They rang last week wanting to know what I was available for this week. I told them I wasn't sure yet and would get back to them. I have just joined the gym to get some lard off me and have 4 sessions with a personal trainer to get me started and teach me the machines ect. I figured I would plan around those, have the day off after the session because I am damn unfit and I can imagine I'll be in alot of pain.

Well, I rang them yesterday now that I have some set dates with the personal trainer. They had already booked me in for 3 shifts and I hadn't even given them my availability!! How rude. :angryfire When I told the agency I hadn't told them what days I could work yet they just said, "oh thats okey, we are just confirming them" HELLO!!!!!!!! Do they not understand that I hadn't told them what days I could work yet?!

and to top it off....

it's been 2 weeks since my interview now and I have rung the agency 3 times for a statement of service which the new employer requires and they STILL haven't sent it. The agency is 20 minutes drive away. If it's not in Tuesday mornings post, I'll be up at the agency demanding it. They are holding up my job, even though they have given the reference. It just so happens the place I am applying at uses the agency I am with, they have a contract to supply but generally are unable to fill it. It's a group of private hospitals.

If they don't want people to apply for permanet jobs, they shouldn't send them to excellent hospitals. That was how I found out what the place was like

[Ashera, LPN]

EARPLUGS! My son in the Airforce sent me a case of 'em! The soft, squishy yellow foam ones. Earplugs....and having the bedside phone turned OFF - and the phone with the answering machine in the kitchen. My agency uses everything from flattery, promises, a little extra $$ - and humor - to try and seduce me for "oh, we really NEED you for this...they ASKED FOR YOU SPECIFICALLY...it will only be this ONE TIME they need someone for a 16hr..." all after I'd just done 36+ or weird shifts.

and I liked what an ealier poster said about GREED vs SLOTH. The ever present emotional battle I'm having with my 'selves'.

[bulletproofbarb]

Oh, they pushed it too far. I told them I would let them know when I was available and they rang three times in 2 days wanting to know. In the end I said "look, just take me off the books, I start a new job shortly and want some time off"

So, that's that done then. :chuckle

Now I gotta survive 3 weeks with no pay

[JustOne]

No offense BPBarb, but you sound like you work for a poorly run agency. It isn't good practice to burn your nurses out sometimes even the best workers need time off. And when they cancel you, they should be busting their but to find you somewhere else to work. If they aren't you might look for work elsewhere.

[rnprincess]

No offense BPBarb, but you sound like you work for a poorly run agency. It isn't good practice to burn your nurses out sometimes even the best workers need time off. And when they cancel you, they should be busting their but to find you somewhere else to work. If they aren't you might look for work elsewhere.

I agree with you 100%! I have worked agency and used several different agencies. It makes a big difference to job satisfaction to be working for an agency that is on top of things.

I also believe that agency has no right to demand any more commitment from a nurse then they are willing to offer. If they are able to cancel with no remorse, then so is the nurse. That is one of the perks of agency. Yes, if you do it all the time they will not make such an effort to get you work. But if they cancel me left and right you can bet I will find somewhere else to work as well. This is all a two way street and we need to remember that and not allow ourselves to be bullied or manipulated. That includes by other nurses who say it is a pain to have someone cancel on you(earlier in this thread) Well, sorry, I am sure it doesn't bother her when her facility cancels the agency nurse when they don't need them, I bet she never thinks twice about how that nurse will pay her electric bill. Why is it people are so one sided???

I loved working agency when I was working for a great company. Right now, I just started at a new agency in a new state and I am already looking for somewhere new. If I had never worked anywhere else and thought this is what agency was all about I would never do it again. I firmly believe the company has issues though. I hope it is just not the whole state!

Anyway, you should not have to explain yourself when you self cancel. That is the bottom line. I think it was nice of you not to tell them where to go weeks ago. Congratulations on your new job. I hope the reduced stress helps you get feeling better!

[KJS]

I know the feeling. There was a time I was doing private duty in a home and I woke up during the middle of the night and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground. Immediately I called the agency to tell them there was no way I could report for duty that morning. I had a 2-wheel drive vehicle and my assignment was about 6 miles down a dirt road on the side of a mountain. Most of the time there was not room for 2 cars to meet on this road. They gave me the sob story about how I was VITAL to the very life of this patient and how he might die if I was not there. Luckily, I had worked for the hospital that this patient had been discharged from and knew that his family had been well trained on how to take care of him at home and had been taking care of him alone, without nurses, until the previous week. To make a long story short, this agency was more interested in their Medicare reimbursement than they were in my safety driving on snow up a dangerous mountainside.

[CseMgr1, ASN, RN]

I worked for an agency once, doing private duty on the night shift on a terminally ill patient with metastatic ca. As luck would have it, I developed a rather nasty staph infection and cellulitis in my right foot and leg from an open blister during my first shift. I was too busy to notice how badly swollen my foot and leg were, until I reported off to the day nurse and the patient's wife looked at my foot and said, shocked: "Your foot is literally coming out of your shoe!" By that night, I had spiked a fever of 102 degrees, with red streaks up and down my leg and enlarged lymph nodes in my groin the size of golf balls. I didn't want to call out, for I knew that the agency would not be able to replace me, but my husband raised hell and told me: "If you don't call out, I will!" The on-call supervisor was upset and begged me to come in, but I told her I was genuinely sick and unable to bear weight on my leg, and if she didn't believe me, to call that patients' wife. I went to the Dr. the next day, who gave me a loading dose of antibiotics and ordered me off my feet for a week. The Agency was so hateful to me, even after I provided a doctor's excuse. I didn't work for them again. :angryfire