I was talking on the phone Monday with a co-worker who mostly works in Surgery Outpatient (SOP) and Post-Ansthesia Care Unit (PACU). I was considering cutting back some of my hours in the ICU and picking up a per diem in SOP to diversify my experience and try out SOP. We were discussing the latest happenings at the hospital, and we got on the subject of the tolerance for certain poor work ethics at the hospital, the poor leadership, etc. (long story, but probably not uncommon elsewhere)
My friend mentioned, as an example, 'Mike' (not his real name) who works in my unit. My friend works the unit one weekend a month, but mostly in SOP and PACU. Mike called her to see if she could work for him Wednesday (today), and she said she couldn't. So he laughingly said that he felt like he was going to be sick Wednesday, he was feeling it coming on already. My friend questioned him on this, since he obviously was going to plan to be 'sick' on Wednesday. He laughed it off and said "Management will have to deal with it". My friend told him that if they were short, it's his co-workers who would suffer.
Mike never bothered to call me with his request, so I suspect he didn't want to alert too many people to his plans to play hooky if he couldn't find a replacement, or else he didn't want to bother. There was a message on my cellphone this morning that there was a sick call so apparently he carried out his plan.
I love working with Mike, but I'm appalled that he does this. The way the system is set up with sick time at our hospital, it does encourage people to use it up, since low census time comes out of vacation time if you want to be paid for it. There have been other suspicious sudden onsets of nausea by one Med-Surg nurse when it looks like someone is going to get low-census, and insight of the fact that I've already requested it, I've gotten floated to Med/Surg to replace her because she went home sick. This is an established pattern of behavior that is suspicious.
I guess I'm old-fashioned, but I find this deplorable.
After 2 years of no call-ins, no lates, nothing I called in because the girl I switched with had a family emergency at 10 pm the night before and could not cover for me. I received a scathing, how-could-you-be-such-an-irresponsible-nurse phone call from my NM and I got over the guilt of calling in completely. It makes no difference to me who calls in for what. If they are abusing the system their time will come. Sometimes taking a day off to take your kids to a baseball game is as important as taking a day off when you're sick.
In my experience focusing on others and what they do and what they get and how they work will always be a frustrating experience.
Well, unfortunatley what they do affects us. If most of us worked hard and took the occasional mental health day off/or necessary day for important things then it wouldn't affect me. But when I have to float to a unit when someone feigns sickness, or I'm working short yet again because people have the atttitude that "I can call in sick 11 times in a 12 month peirod without getting written up" then I can understand the op's frustrations.
On the other hand, I am 100% totally supportive of mental health days. I've had a few of them myself. Also, if I have an important reason to have the day off and I've tried to get coverage and my plans can't change, then I'm calling in.
I'm not martyr either, but I'm not as abusive as others.
To the op, I've never found that hard work and loyalty hasn't paid off in one way or another, so don't change. But do take a mental health day if you're burned out.
OK, I'm convinced, I'm going to start taking occasional mental health days. My mental health is very important to me and I need to take tender care of it.
It's amazing that a profession such as our own is unable to practise self nurturing, nor do our employers generally practise it. It seems like this starts in nursing school, where we're told that we can't miss clinicals, we're mistreated by some of instructors, and we're supposed to accept it unquestioningly as part of preparation for the lousy treatment that we can expect in the future, so we may as well build 'character' now. Frankly, I think it's rooted in sexism and the fact that nursing was originally a female only profession in an era when women were expected to put up and shut up!!!!!
It's the nature of the beast. Hospitals vacation / sick time policies really suck. I have a good work ethic but those "mental health days" do me a world of good. I only use them when I really need it. We are alway short staffed so it doesn't matter if someone calls in or not. just another day to us. One would think a health care industry would care about the health of their employees.....but that is the farthest thing from their minds and pocket books. The only thing not caring for myself does is make me more bitter, grumpy and will kill me befor I can soak the blood suckers for their retirment money (that is very little by-the-way).:deadhorse
When I worked on med/surg we had a horrible nurse manager (now long gone) anyway, I'd request a day off 4-6 wks ahead of time for a special occasion such as my daughters first birthday. She would tell me that she had no idea how the census would be then and she wouldn't be able to give me an answer until the day before the day I wanted off. Obviously if she denied the request and I called in sick it would be pretty easy to figure out I wasn't sick. Likewise if trying to get someone to work for me and not having any luck and then calling in sick the results would be the same. As a result of this awful method of management I would simply keep my mouth shut about any special occasion and call in sick. No one got upset, I didn't get in trouble. It was much easier that way.
The med/surg current manager is awesome and will give you what you need and makes it her problem to get it covered. As a result more nurses are willing to help her out to cover shifts.
I don't believe in calling in if I'm not sick but there are those managers who force your hand.
Specializes in ICU;CCU;Telemetry;L&D;Hospice;ER/Trauma;.
I have another side I would like to share....
I am guilty of calling in frequently in the years preceeding this current one. I was in a terrible domestic violence situation, that made getting up at 4AM driving 1 1/2 hours to work one way, work a 12 hour shift, drive 1 1/2 hours home, and back into the cycle of violence again....sometimes, after being yelled and screamed at for four or five hours after arriving home, I was too rattled and spent to make it to work....
Luckily, I had/have a very understanding and patient and loving manager and crew to work with....some were aware of my circumstances....I know that ALL of them worried daily that I would end up dead or maimed for life, until I could muster the courage and strength to extricate myself out of the terrible jaws I found myself in.
Looking back, I made some people have to work overtime, or short...and yes, it did make it stressful and hard on the patients....
It happened maybe 6 times in three years....I do feel guilty about it....because I know other people paid for my call ins...
But without adequate rest and a chance to re=group, I may just as well have thrown in the towel.....in fact, at one low point, I pondered for just a short time of taking my own life, because I couldn't see any way out of the trap I was in.
Since that time, I have done all I can to "make up" my time....I work overtime, when needed, volunteer to take another's shift so they can have a day off, or will conversely volunteer to take call, so others can retain their income when the census drops....
I know some people abuse the sick time.....but for me, it was the only way I could gain enough strength to get out of hell....
I thank God everyday for giving me a good profession and great people to work with...
I am sorry some of you have been "pooped" on....Maybe those folks will eventually grow up, or maybe they are like me....fighting some home battle they can't share....
I call in rarely, but I have called in. The unit I work on has been understaffed a LOT lately, and up until the past 2 weeks, we haven't been getting the support we have needed from the nursing office as far as giving us a float nurse to take up the slack. I work on a stepdown unit, and our usual unit is 3 or 4 (usually 4) to 1. We had been working at 5:1 for weeks, and one night a nurse called off, I had to go to 6:1. That night I ended up rapid responsing a patient, which is a whole 'nother story. (At least after that fiasco, we started getting float nurses on occasion and our ratios have been much more manageable.)
My point is, when you work under the conditions we work under (and I know that my situation is not the worst out there by any stretch of the imagination) sometimes the stress can get to you. I don't know about the rest of you, but when my mind gets stressed, my body starts to fall apart not long after. So the well chosen "mental health day" can actually keep the stress manageable and keep me from having a physical issue develop.
My mental health is to me, just as important as others' physical health is to them.
When I worked on med/surg we had a horrible nurse manager (now long gone) anyway, I'd request a day off 4-6 wks ahead of time for a special occasion such as my daughters first birthday. She would tell me that she had no idea how the census would be then and she wouldn't be able to give me an answer until the day before the day I wanted off. Obviously if she denied the request and I called in sick it would be pretty easy to figure out I wasn't sick. Likewise if trying to get someone to work for me and not having any luck and then calling in sick the results would be the same. As a result of this awful method of management I would simply keep my mouth shut about any special occasion and call in sick. No one got upset, I didn't get in trouble. It was much easier that way.
The med/surg current manager is awesome and will give you what you need and makes it her problem to get it covered. As a result more nurses are willing to help her out to cover shifts.
I don't believe in calling in if I'm not sick but there are those managers who force your hand.
Sounds like an understandable policy. This thread is really opening my eyes to a taboo subject at work. No one talks about this openly, but I have a feeling it's common to fake illness to get around inane management practises.
So I took my own advice and declared tonight a mental health night. I couldn't sleep at all during the day and was afraid to go into work tonight because I would be too tired to make it though the shift. I was anxious all day with thoughts racing through my head. I took a Xanax, ate dinner with my fiance when he got home, laid down with him for a few hours when he went to bed, and got up at 3 am and feel 100% better! I don't know what my problem was.
I'll see if my unit needs help on Friday night or maybe I can pick up some hours in ICU.
Well, unfortunatley what they do affects us. If most of us worked hard and took the occasional mental health day off/or necessary day for important things then it wouldn't affect me. But when I have to float to a unit when someone feigns sickness, or I'm working short yet again because people have the atttitude that "I can call in sick 11 times in a 12 month peirod without getting written up" then I can understand the op's frustrations.
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If working myself up every time I thought someone was screwing me at work accomplished anything, I'd be all for it. I am a much happier person when I don't do that. If I have to work short because someone called in, then I have to work short. Nothing I can do to change that, might as well do my best and move on is how I see it.
I am guilty of calling in frequently in the years preceeding this current one. I was in a terrible domestic violence situation, that made getting up at 4AM driving 1 1/2 hours to work one way, work a 12 hour shift, drive 1 1/2 hours home, and back into the cycle of violence again....sometimes, after being yelled and screamed at for four or five hours after arriving home, I was too rattled and spent to make it to work....
You were being responsible with your call-ins. Rattled does not make for good nursing and you were responsible enough to realize that. Kudos to you. Mental health is just as important if not more so than physical health in reagards to nursing and being able to do your job. You can't harm a can of green beans scanning it through a check out line but you can kill someone giving meds. Kudos to you.
ItsyBitsySpider, BSN, RN
241 Posts
After 2 years of no call-ins, no lates, nothing I called in because the girl I switched with had a family emergency at 10 pm the night before and could not cover for me. I received a scathing, how-could-you-be-such-an-irresponsible-nurse phone call from my NM and I got over the guilt of calling in completely. It makes no difference to me who calls in for what. If they are abusing the system their time will come. Sometimes taking a day off to take your kids to a baseball game is as important as taking a day off when you're sick.