I keep getting cancelled at work. I work 12 hour shifts, and I've been cancelled on average about 1 12-hour shift per week for the past 5 weeks. People keep telling me that cold and flu season is going to kick in and it won't be an issue. But it's getting to the point of where I can't afford to pay my bills.
Has this been a consistent problem for other people? Has anyone had to change jobs because of this? Some of the people I work with have second jobs, which definitely helps. I wouldn't mind getting a second job, I just hate the idea of being scheduled to work 6 nights a week in the hopes of actually working 3-4 of them. What kind of life is that?
Has anyone seen this become a trend where you work? How do you cope?
It appears that the unions protect the nurses except for one example on this thread. Where I work (which is unionized) we do the same as 86toronado; start with seniority and if no one wants to go home no one does.
I keep getting cancelled at work. I work 12 hour shifts, and I've been cancelled on average about 1 12-hour shift per week for the past 5 weeks. People keep telling me that cold and flu season is going to kick in and it won't be an issue. But it's getting to the point of where I can't afford to pay my bills.
Has this been a consistent problem for other people? Has anyone had to change jobs because of this? Some of the people I work with have second jobs, which definitely helps. I wouldn't mind getting a second job, I just hate the idea of being scheduled to work 6 nights a week in the hopes of actually working 3-4 of them. What kind of life is that?
Has anyone seen this become a trend where you work? How do you cope?
obviously, others might have this issue. have you tried to look around your workplace to notice how busy they are? if you walk past several rooms and they are all dark and empty and you can hear a pin drop in your unit, then there is probably a reason why you are being cut. on the other hand, if every room has a patient, it's super noisy, and you overhear other nurses saying things like, 'man, i just pulled a double and my legs hurt', then you might want to be worried that there may be other reasons why they are cutting out your hours. the best answer to your question is to look around your workplace and take better notice of things. we don't work there so it's hard to give you an answer as to why they are doing this. i used to work somewhere years ago, where the supervisor would schedule this one lady for like 30 hours a week and schedule this other person only like 12 or 13. we found out that she was doing it because the lady getting the most hours was her friend.
My hospital is union and it is possible for us to get low-needed due to census. It doesn't happen often on our unit because we are usually busy but if it needs to be done, it goes in this order:
PRN and OT nurses get low needed first
Look for volunteers starting with the highest senior staff
If no one volunteers, low need the lowest senior staff
obviously, others might have this issue. have you tried to look around your workplace to notice how busy they are? if you walk past several rooms and they are all dark and empty and you can hear a pin drop in your unit, then there is probably a reason why you are being cut. on the other hand, if every room has a patient, it's super noisy, and you overhear other nurses saying things like, 'man, i just pulled a double and my legs hurt', then you might want to be worried that there may be other reasons why they are cutting out your hours. the best answer to your question is to look around your workplace and take better notice of things. we don't work there so it's hard to give you an answer as to why they are doing this. i used to work somewhere years ago, where the supervisor would schedule this one lady for like 30 hours a week and schedule this other person only like 12 or 13. we found out that she was doing it because the lady getting the most hours was her friend.
I wasn't so much asking the why; I was wondering more: "how do people cope with this?"
And, is this a problem that is widespread or more a problem among smaller community hospitals, which happens to be where I work.
The cancellations are 100% due to low census. It makes no sense to have 5 or 6 nurses in the ICU for 2 or 3 patients. Rarely have we been full since I've started working there.
Absolutely correct! I transferred from med/surg to the ED about 6 months ago and haven't been on-call or cancelled for a shift since. My PTO balance never looked so good, plus I :redbeathe my new job very much and wouldn't want to stay home anyhow.
YAY for the ED! My goal is to eventually move to the ED. I was a tech in the ED prior to nursing school and I loved it. That would definitely help prevent cancellations and it's a pretty stellar place to be.
YAY for the ED! My goal is to eventually move to the ED. I was a tech in the ED prior to nursing school and I loved it. That would definitely help prevent cancellations and it's a pretty stellar place to be.
tell me more about your job as tech in the ED? what was the pay, hours and job like i'm interested. are you talking about being a paramedic in the ED? what the schooling tough for that?
tell me more about your job as tech in the ED? what was the pay, hours and job like i'm interested. are you talking about being a paramedic in the ED? what the schooling tough for that?
ED techs where I work are basically nursing assistants in the ED, not a paramedic. No schooling other than maybe CNA cert or a couple of semesters of nursing school. The rest of the training is on the job, including EKGs, blood draws, obtaining specimen samples, helping patients to the bathroom. They get paid on the same scale as nursing assistants in other areas of the hospital, which of course is dependent on the area you live in.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i work in critical care and i should also clarify that i'm relatively new - i have less than a year of experience as a new nurse. i was hired in to work full time. really like where i work and i don't want to leave - i also want to give them at least a year or two of my time since they have spent so much time and money training me with orientation and acls, etc.
i thought it was cyclical as well, but this has been going on throughout the summer and into the fall, and forget about the holidays. i know they hired a lot of people this year because they are trying to get away from using agency nurses, but i really think that they probably hired too many people.
as far as i know, it works like this: they cancel the people first who are coming in for ot. next they go down the list and cancel the person who's turn it is to be cancelled. they also ask people if they want to volunteer to be cancelled. it's also not just me that is having this issue - a lot of my coworkers are struggling with this, but for some reason (i think it's the luck of the draw) i seem to get cancelled a little bit more than others - i'm probably scheduled to work on days when we are *really* overstaffed. i also don't think they are looking at the total number of hours that people are cancelled - they are looking at the last time someone was cancelled - so someone could get cancelled for 4 hours and it's still considered a "cancellation" whereas i could get cancelled for 12 and it's supposed to be equivalent.
it's frustrating because i am starting to feel like a part-timer instead of a full-timer - i am working about 24 hours a week instead of 36. i'm not sure what to do with that - i feel stuck because i do want to continue to work there but if i do get a second job it's going to feel like i'm always working. i'm so tired of struggling just to get by - i feel like i'm back to living the student lifestyle.
it sounds like they're at least attempting to be fair about who they cancel. you haven't been there long enough to have racked up enough pto to use that when you get cancelled and that's a bummer. it does tend to be cyclical, but it sounds as if it's a darned long cycle! i've seen this happen when a hospital was having financial trouble and about to close or get sucked up by a larger hospital. if you're harboring fears in that direction, get ahead of the rush and start looking around now. but you're right about staying two years and i commend you for your solid work ethic.
Closely scrutinize your hospital's policy on cancellation for full-time status employees. A little known detail of cancellation policy in my hospital system states that if a full-time employee does not want to be canceled they can insist on working; but it will be at the hospital's discretion where. This would mean someone like myself from a very specialized unit (NICU) could be asked to work somewhere like med-surg, ER, regular ICU. It would depend on one's immediate supervisor (and the size of one's, well, you know) what duties one would accept. I knew someone that refused canceling and went from NICU to a variety of units including ortho-neuro & regular ICU. They were initially given nurse aide duties and only assumed full care of an ICU patient after gaining familiarity with the unit. All the other nurses I work with stated they would never consider doing such a thing, i.e., they would rather go broke than be floated to such unfamiliar and diverse units.
One tactic that helped protect me during a dry spell with our census a couple of years ago was that I prefer to schedule myself for weekend shifts that most people do not want to work. Less people were signed up for those shifts, more people were willing to be canceled on the weekend therefore I was canceled only once during a several month period when most others were getting canceled once a week.
Oh and one more thing, no unions in my hospital. I would welcome them, but I don't see that happening in my lifetime.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I am in Texas, which is an at-will employment state. There are no unionized hospitals in the metro area where I live (Dallas/Fort Worth).
Generally, the southeastern states and Texas are vehemently anti-union and seem to have an unreasonable dislike of unionization. The employment laws in the South tend to favor the corporation, not the worker.
@ The Commuter,
Personally, I don't know how "full time" staff can ever be canceled. We're unionized (New York), and that means guaranteed a full weeks work for full timers, regardless whether the hospital is busting at the seams or everyone is sitting around swatting flies. While our employer encourages as many staff as possible to use up a vacation day or holiday time, it is actually illegal for them to prevent you from coming to work simply because their volume is low; that would constitute as a "lock out" and would call all sorts fo labor law statutes into question. For less than busy hands, they either float internally or find something for people to do.
Frankly, I never knew that hospitals could do this to people and find it rather shocking; what state or region are you folks in? Are you folks union or not?
Not in my unit, because there is only one nurse at any time in my unit, lol, but on med-surg yes, nurses get canceled every shift there from Nov-April. Winter census is very low. Not unusual to have 8 people in the whole hospital in the month of December. They don't put nurses on call either, just call them off and then they can't admit anyone. It is a total PITA. I think they just go by seniority, or take turns, I don't know. The FT staff complain all winter long about only getting 16-24 hours a week.
AprilRNurse
186 Posts
We are union too... but our contract allows them to put us on call for 2 days per pay period... up to 15 per year.
Most of our nurses meet their max by early summer. I work CCU night shift so I rarely meet mine.