As A Nurse Our Whole Lives Revolve Round Our Schedule

[madwife2002]

It is time off!

We love our time off! We want our days off to be in a row of at least 2 and we want to have every other weekend off.

We don't want to work every holiday, every weekend and every Friday night week in and week out!

Nursing used to be one of the few professions which worked 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, now that has changed with stores opening 24/7, opening 365 days a year they have joined our ranks of serving our customers all the time.

So in order to get this time off we make requests, but in some places requests are limited to 1 a week. Some places are more generous.

Requests are not always granted, but we hope they get approved.

When I was a student nurse (yep back when Florence Nightingale was walking around with a lamp) our tutor on our very first clinical, took us to the ward and introduced us to a book! This was the scheduling book and it told us when, where and what time we would be working for the next 8 weeks.

The tutor also told us that it was the most read book on any ward in any hospital in the world.

We thought she was crazy because at that time the reality had not set in!

Little did we know our whole lives would revolve around the schedule!

Not only does it tell us which day we are working but it tells us who we are working with! We know by just looking at the schedule what sort of day we are going to have, and we are able to predict if it is going to be a great, good, bad or really bad shift before we even step foot in the building-just by checking the schedule!

I know I have checked to see who is working with me on more than one occasion! I have also checked to see who I am following because I know with certainty which RN's leave me with chaos to sort out!

I have also checked the schedule to see who is following me to know if I can do a quick report or if I will be late off because they will be late in or want to know a blow by blow account of each pt's day.

Self scheduling is practiced in some hospital and health care facilities, this can work really well until every single member of staff puts themselves down to work the Thursday but nobody and I mean nobody wants to work the Friday.

This year where I work when requesting holidays off we put 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

Everybody and I mean everybody bar an odd one wants Christmas off, so scheduling around these vacations is a nightmare.

Some of the staff believe they should get what they want off because they have worked there the longest. Some of the staff believe that they should get it off because they have children. Some staff believe they miss out on Christmas every year because they don't have children.

So how should it be worked out fairly? I found when scheduling this year that the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd request worked well.

A graph was made to show how the holidays were equally divided. Staff like it and feel they got what they wanted and they could see quickly how fairly it worked.

In previous years we have scheduled people to how they worked the previous year, so if they worked Christmas in 2010 then they were off Christmas 2011.

This is a fair way but still caused friction, by doing the new way, linking in Thanksgiving and giving the staff their schedule early has made them happy and to be honest this is the first time in years I have made them happy with their holiday schedule.

Oh yeah and we blew up the schedule in a huge poster so everybody could see how it worked very clearly

Now I have to work out how on earth I make everybody happy for HALLOWEEN and that is only next week!!!

[monkeybug]

This is the way it went for us in the hospital where I will be an employee for just 20 more days!: If Thanksgiving, New Years, New Years Eve, Labor Day, and Easter fall on your normally scheduled pattern, you work it, unless you can find someone to swap. Kind of stinks to work Thanksgiving for 7 straight years, but then you have it off for 7 straight years! Everyone worked either Christmas or Christmas Eve, and it rotated year to year. I worked Christmas Day last year, so this year would have been my year for Christmas Eve. You work you normal shift (nights, days, evenings) and you only work 8 hours. No 12s on these two days. Names were drawn out of a hat to see if who got to be low censused if they needed to call someone off. If you got low census one year, your name was left out of the drawing the next year.

I liked it. It was predictable and fair.

[monkeybug]

merlee said:

As a Jewish nurse, I volunteered for nearly every Christmas eve and Christmas Day for many, many years. While my family was off from school and work, I was at work, or on-call. But I had to beg for my own holidays off, using my paid time off to cover them when I could even get them off. I cannot recall one single time that anyone ever volunteered to work those days for me, even refusing to switch a weekday off, like a Wednesday for a Thursday.

One year I was forced to work on Yom Kippur (our holiest day) because no one would switch.

Unfortunately for all of us in 24/7 occupations, holidays are part and parcel of what is expected. I only ever wanted New Year's eve off when I was single!

There are ways that seem more fair than others for scheduling, but those who are at work need to make the best of it, no matter what.

I'm so sad to hear that. I would have volunteered for you if I'd been one of your coworkers!

[GundeRN]

This is one of the reasons I am planning to leave hospital nursing. I want a normal schedule.

[flashpoint]

Where I work, we have several people who have other jobs. Many of them somehow think that if they work Thanksgiving at their other job, they should have Christmas off at this one...otherwise, they would end up working every holiday. Personally, I don't mind working holidays. My family is more than willing and able to celebrate Thanksgiving on the Monday or Tuesday before and we can always celebrate Christmas on the 27th. I like the holiday pay and the low census and the free meal from the kitchen. I do not like the sense of entitlement because someone has a second job or is a single mom or doesn't have transportation because their roommate (who drives them everywhere) is going out of town.

[Mulan]

flashpoint said:

Where I work, we have several people who have other jobs. Many of them somehow think that if they work Thanksgiving at their other job, they should have Christmas off at this one...otherwise, they would end up working every holiday.

WHAT????!!!!!