FOREWARNING: this is a rant. I understand not all dayshifters do this. I just need to get this off my chest so I dont call back and ream the nurse who woke me up.
Dayshifters,
Please as a common courtesy do not call someone past 0800 unless it is something you absolutely cannot do your job without knowing. If Im being called after 0800 I expect to have made some gross error or to have nearly killed my patient. I only leave my cell phone on as a courtesy to day shift so that they can reach me if they really desperately have to.
Do not call me to ask about something you could have figured out yourself by looking through the chart. Do not call if you are an administrator at my midnight just to chat.
The end result of your insensitive call times is a part of my soul dying a little and most importantly, I end up being so infuriated that I was woken up for something so benign that I cant even fall back asleep.
Nightshifters always take care whenever they place a call to a doctor, administrator, or staff nurse. We dont call unless we darn well have to. We try to exhaust all other options and think autonomously before we wake someone up.
How would you feel if we called you late at night and woke you up after a hard shift?
Thank you for listening. I know most of you dont do this but lately it's been happening a lot at work and I need to get it off my chest and maybe some people will think twice before they call and wake the hibernating bear.
I always turned the ringer off on my phone when I worked nights.
When you have children in school or aged parents...it's not reasonable to do so, because they cannot get ahold of you in case of an emergency.
My solution: Work does not have my land line number, only my cell phone. School and my family has my land line number. So I can shut off my cell phone when I sleep and work can wait.
I was day shift and our unit had a good solution. Phone calls to ANYONE in the middle of the night (or calling night shift in th day) for non-life threatening reasons had to be approved by the charge nurse. Calling for stupid reasons earned you a write-up. Our manager worked NOC for years and knew these calls actually endangered the safety of the pt & nurse (driving to work on little sleep).
It is not only rude, it is UNSAFE.
This was also helpful to new nurses who were unsure what was "call worthy".
Specializes in Trauma Surgery, Nursing Management.
I worked nights for many years. I was flabbergasted that the administrators would think nothing of calling me at home while I was sleeping to ask me something ridiculous like "did I fill out my parking pass". I repeatedly reminded them that I was sleeping and to please wait to call me. They didn't respect that. So I had to instruct them to SEND AN EMAIL instead if they had housekeeping issues such as parking. I learned to turn my phone off after 2 hours of being at home. If a problem happened to arise immediately after I left, I thought that 2 hours was ample time to call me at home before I went to bed.
How would you feel if we called you late at night and woke you up after a hard shift?
When I worked nights, the day shift calling me would happen a lot and it would tick me off--I'd let the machine answer the call and then if I thought it was urgent I'd call back.
But when working day shift, I have had the night shift call me during my sleeping hours (0200!) for the same nonsensical reasons that you rant of. In my experience, off-hour calls is far from being a day-shift-only phenomenon.
Excellent rant, but I'd take your rant and apply to ALL shifts...basically, don't call coworkers at hours--day or night--that they might be sleeping during unless it's critical.
Amen. I rotate day/night every two weeks, and always work nights the last two weeks of the schedule....which means every time the new schedule comes out, the next few mornings I get no less than 5 calls/texts asking me to switch shifts, and it's usually someone wanting me to give up a day shift and pick up their night. There's one nurse who hates working nights and CONSTANTLY wakes me up after a night shift wanting to switch. It ****** me off so much that I always say no. I can't shut my phone off because it's my alarm and I also worry something will happen the one time I shut my phone off. I also get calls from admin about schedule changes in the morning and they're like "oh, did I wake you?" Well you have schedule right in front of you and it says I worked last night, did you think I'd be up partying at 10am? Yes, of course you woke me up, and that means no, I won't do whatever it is you need me to. Get a clue.
Amen. I rotate day/night every two weeks, and always work nights the last two weeks of the schedule....which means every time the new schedule comes out, the next few mornings I get no less than 5 calls/texts asking me to switch shifts, and it's usually someone wanting me to give up a day shift and pick up their night. There's one nurse who hates working nights and CONSTANTLY wakes me up after a night shift wanting to switch. It ****** me off so much that I always say no. I can't shut my phone off because it's my alarm and I also worry something will happen the one time I shut my phone off. I also get calls from admin about schedule changes in the morning and they're like "oh, did I wake you?" Well you have schedule right in front of you and it says I worked last night, did you think I'd be up partying at 10am? Yes, of course you woke me up, and that means no, I won't do whatever it is you need me to. Get a clue.
Are you using your cell phone for an alarm? I do, and the ringer can be turned down to the "alarm" option so that you will still hear the alarm when it goes off but you won't hear anyone calling.
I work 3-11, and used to get calls from my mom and/or sister around 10am. If I mentioned that I was sleeping, they'd give me crap--'it's 10 o'clock, you should be up by now' or 'geez, I wish I could sleep in like you do!' So, one day when my sister called my cell while I was working, I returned her call...after I got home from work. She thought there must be some kind of emergency for me to be calling so late. I said, 'I'm returning your call from this afternoon. This is the time I'm available to make personal calls.' She wasn't happy with me, but she doesn't call during the day anymore!
When you have children in school or aged parents...it's not reasonable to do so, because they cannot get ahold of you in case of an emergency.
My solution: Work does not have my land line number, only my cell phone. School and my family has my land line number. So I can shut off my cell phone when I sleep and work can wait.
It's my experience that people who don't work nights have a really hard time understanding the concept of night shift work. It's not what we're evolved to do, and it's not what we're socialized to expect other people to be doing. So, training the rest of the world is a lost cause - you have to solve the problem yourself.
I think BabyLady has it right. If it isn't safe for you to turn off the phone and be totally unreachable, you're going to have to have separate phone lines - one for the VIPs in your life, and one for everybody else. The cost of the second line is a good investment if it allows you to sleep; that is, sleep without unnecessary calls and sleep without worry for your loved ones.
thanks everyone for understanding and for so many great solutions! I did train my boss. She used to call for every little thing and now I have her emailing me so I just check my email with dread every morning upon waking.
Id really rather not turn off my phone because I dont have a land line and I have family matters necessitating an open line of communication.
I agree that this is an all-shift sort of problem but I also think that in general because night shift is such a deviation from the normal way the rest of the world sleeps we are more apt to having to manipulate our lives and sleeping schedules for others--such as having mandatory meetings at 1300 and unit councils directly after a 12hr shift.
thanks again for the support. Im going to propose having charge nurse verification of phone calls to nurses. They make us do this at night to call docs (read my other threads and you'll see all the woes I have r/t this) so they should be able to do that for nurses to sleep. I agree it's about safety and it's also about respect.
GM2RN
1,850 Posts
Turning phones off only works if you have no kids, elderly parents, or other family members that may need to reach you in an emergency.