Calling in sick before the holidays

Nurses General Nursing

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all of us had full loads yesterday. i was told to delegate some of mine because i had to drive a ways to teach a family how to inject interferon, so i would limit the overtime. i did. a while later we get a message that one of the lvns called in sick. she was the one i delegated my pts to. great.

boss called her and informed her that by calling in sick the day before a holiday, she will not the holiday pay.

*gasp*

all of a sudden she's feeling better!!!!

*addendum* this post is not about the legitimately ill. when a reminder about the policy suddenly produces a healing, the "illness" is obviously not legit. that's what this is about.

Specializes in pedi, pedi psych,dd, school ,home health.

As a nurse manager for a group of nurses who never Used to have worked holidays; I get a ton of flack about holiday work. I do have one or two employees who get " sick" or "migraines" about an hour before their shift on weekends and holidays :angryfire which bags me to either work or find someone willing to come in (fat chance) I did, this year, tell them that if they called in for the holiday I would need a docs note... since I needed to make sure they were ok to be around the kids the next day!!;)

sounds mean, i know...but I gave them all choices about which holiday they wanted to work... and still ended up assigning them:trout:

Specializes in SICU, MICU, CICU, NeuroICU.

No work, no pay (holiday's only). If you call out sick on the day before a holiday, or the day before you're going on vacation, it looks REALLY REALLY bad on your part.

Specializes in ICU, SDU, OR, RR, Ortho, Hospice RN.
She knew she was going to be sick the next day? Amazing! Ask her to email me next weeks lotto numbers, please.

:lol2::lol2::lol2: I am with you LOL Even though she called in the day before but that sounded so funny.

Hey Tazzi so you got that help after all eh?

Hope your day was not too pushed for you then.

It is amazing that when things like this happen the sick are instantly well and doing their job.

This does make it hard on the legitimately sick eh?

Oh well my dear it is a stwwwange world we live in with a pot load of people having different attitudes and the like.

Just sad your fellow collegue did this but then turned up for work. Does not look that good for her eh?

How have you been doing have not seen you lately?

Specializes in Emergency Room.

Our "holiday pay" is $1.75 an hour. Wahoo. I don't call in unless I'm really sick, but our holiday pay isn't much of an incentive......

Wait........ how is that legal?

Specializes in LTC/SNF, Psychiatric, Pharmaceutical.
I am in retail and to call in the day AFTER Thanksgiving means you probably shouldn't return to work. I was late last year and got docked two days tardy. WHY DO people shop at 4 AM anyway? The sales are no better than the following Saturday on half the stuff they buy. This year I work the night shift so I hope it will be slower than 4AM. I know the place will look LIKE A TORNADO struck.

Used to be Christmas people were not in the hospital unless they were really sick.

Now the acuity is ten times higher. Happy Holidays.

Aha... the day after Thanksgiving is a busy day for us; partly it's simply because we're not only taking in donors that would ordinarily come in for that day, but also those donors who missed donating Thanksgiving. Hence, we get double pay for working that day.:devil:

Specializes in LTC/SNF, Psychiatric, Pharmaceutical.
Our "holiday pay" is $1.75 an hour. Wahoo. I don't call in unless I'm really sick, but our holiday pay isn't much of an incentive......

That is a rip-off. It's bad enough you're sacrificing your personal family time to your profession and be there for your patients, but you barely get any acknowledgement for this either. Where is your administration at on holidays, hmmm?

Specializes in NICU, Telephone Triage.
all of us had full loads yesterday. i was told to delegate some of mine because i had to drive a ways to teach a family how to inject interferon, so i would limit the overtime. i did. a while later we get a message that one of the lvns called in sick. she was the one i delegated my pts to. great.

boss called her and informed her that by calling in sick the day before a holiday, she will not the holiday pay.

*gasp*

all of a sudden she's feeling better!!!!

*addendum* this post is not about the legitimately ill. when a reminder about the policy suddenly produces a healing, the "illness" is obviously not legit. that's what this is about.

i can see where this looks really bad, when she is suddenly able to come in. but to call in sick before or after a holiday and lose the holiday pay is wrong, imo. it was not the holiday. is that in your contract to withhold pay like that?

where i used to work, every holiday was by seniority. for 16 years i worked all major holidays, we would get paid time and a half holiday pay. nobody with seniority (more than about 20 years) wanted to work any holiday, nobody ever left that unit, so it was hard to get a holiday off unless someone worked for you. one year, after being there for 11 years or so, i was still scheduled to work xmas eve and day...well guess what? i called in sick one of those days and was harrassed by co-workers when i came back! it isn't anybody's business when somebody calls in sick, imo. we all have bad days and also need mental health breaks at times...which can be unsafe to work those days as well!

so, where i work now, regular staff gets double time and a half for holidays and there isn't a problem! everyone wants to work holidays. i am now getting holidays off for the first time in 17 years because i left my job to get a more flexible one! and this is only after 1 1/2 years of seniority. well, money talks doesn't it?

this is a sensitive subject for me. all hospitals should rotate holidays and not go strictly by seniority, it's only fair.:angryfire

Specializes in NICU, Telephone Triage.
Work has been calling off and on for a couple of days due to so many people calling in "sick".

I have to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Night and New Year's Eve, no way I am going into work.

I had to find someone to cover for me 3 nights next week, due to having to be in Atlanta for a deposition, my PTO time was not approved till I found coverage.

I hate it they are short staffed, but it happens every year.

Good for you! Don't answer the phone!;)

Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.
all of us had full loads yesterday. i was told to delegate some of mine because i had to drive a ways to teach a family how to inject interferon, so i would limit the overtime. i did. a while later we get a message that one of the lvns called in sick. she was the one i delegated my pts to. great.

boss called her and informed her that by calling in sick the day before a holiday, she will not the holiday pay.

*gasp*

all of a sudden she's feeling better!!!!

*addendum* this post is not about the legitimately ill. when a reminder about the policy suddenly produces a healing, the "illness" is obviously not legit. that's what this is about.

well, if your agency pays lpns as well (cough cough) as i am paid, i can see how losing one's holiday pay might tempt one to come to work sick.

Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

I've worked at several places that had a policy that you had to work your last scheduled day before and your first scheduled day after to qualify for holiday pay. I think it is perfectly fair. If you are really too sick to work than you will be willing to lose the holiday pay and if you aren't, you'll drag your butt into work so one of your poor co-workers doesn't get stuck doing it.

I've also worked at places where you had to work your scheduled day before and after the holiday in order to get holiday pay and those days had to be the actual days before and after. The person doing the scheduling did their best to see that no one was scheduled in this manner so that they could avoid paying holiday pay.

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