extra shifts

No, I do not feel obligated. I'll go in when I want to and am not ruled by guilt

I am going through the same experience now. I work 3 days a week on a very busy Med Surg floor and that is plenty for me . My husband makes very good money and I really don't have to work if I don't want to but I wanted to be a nurse an help people , but family life and free time is more important. I work very hard and hardly ever take a break or get out on time and give my all to my patientss and other patients on the floor that need help and I feel that is enough. I am harrassed every day to come in because our floor is short on my shift. They never staff adequately and have been working like this for years and wonder why they have such a high turnover rate on my shift. Morale is low and people are tired of covering hours. I work with some people who really need to make the extra money and always pick up extras , but I don't want or need anymore than 3 days a week. Sorry , but i don't need the guilt trip for not picking up. So if management wants to harass me constantly about being short maybe they should learn how to staff correctly so people are happy about working there and don't leave in droves. Just a thought.

Nope, no DEEP guilt, but I do feel bad for my co-workers as you mentioned. I'm also one of those pesky Part Time nurses that have the gall to choose NOT to work full-time and am very rarely able to work extra because of child care issues.

I have to occasionally remind a snarky or resentful co-worker that I also get the part-time benefits (none) to go with that title including signing up for our schedule after the full-time folks, having to work the SAME number of weekends and holidays as full-time, and missing out on all the little quirks and perks of full-time employees...that's an easy thing to forget! I find the concept that just b/c I work less hours a week I'm supposed to feel more obligated to come in when the floor is short hilarious. I could be full-time and work OT to boot and the floor would STILL be short- that's poor management, not poor planning on my part!

No.

When I worked in the ER there was an extra shift book, where you could sign up for extra shifts in blocks of 4 hours- you could take as little as 4 or the whole 12. Occasionally whoever was charge would send out a mass text asking if someone wanted to work extra, and if I felt like it, I would but chances were if I'd wanted to, I would have already signed up.

I have not ever picked up an extra shift on my current unit and don't feel guilty. The 3 days a week that I'm there are enough, and I have no desire to work 12 extra hours. If they would consider breaking it up into 4 hour slots, I might consider it. It's not my problem though- there is a scheduling committe, a critical care pool, and the managers and educators for the unit are nurses and can staff as well.

No. Not anymore. Read my thread here "No burn out....enough is enough." Lol, I posted about this nonsense yesterday. Start saying no to extra shifts.

I will take an extra shift or partial shift if I feel like it. Simple as that.

None. Zero Zilch. Plus once you work an extra day and the new tax bracket takes effect, you get next to nothing for working an extra day. So what is the point?

When I was a new grad (within first year), I was left as the only RN on an acute neuro floor with 14 patients (low census). They did give me a great CNA who was a nursing student- and she helped a LOT... but that night, I had a guy on heparin start oozing blood from everywhere- Foley, mouth, eyes, etc- and I couldn't get the doc to call back- or the supervisor (who should have sent someone else to help before the shift started)...THEN, a lady whose BP had been borderline high, but not anything dreadful decides to skyrocket into the 200s/110s (or that neighborhood). No supervisor (paged overhead, via the operator, and via the pager.... nada). No doc called back for the heparin guy, so I took the liberty () of turning off his heparin. (doc thanked me later- but I was too mad to care). BP lady finally got some orders, and she chilled out. During that time, the other 12 patients had the CNA running her butt off, putting out fires, and grabbing me if something was too wacky for primetime.

I was livid that the nursing office knew about this, and did nothing. SO, I wrote THEM up (yeah, made a LOT of friends - lol). I was taking care of a baby during the day (I was young and had energy), so I went home to get him so his mom could get to work, brought him back in the stroller, and wrote like crazy. (and finished nursing notes).

I was a young nurse. I didn't have the 'en masse' critical thinking skills for that- fortunately I'm not too dense, and everything worked out- but it wasn't fair to the patients, or me.

This leaves two dilemnas.... do I go in when I'm asked to not put someone else in this position, or ignore the phone and hope the guy who later develops caller ID gets a Nobel Prize..... when I was young, I went in (needed the money anyway)... when I got older, I only bought phones with caller ID AND volume control/off switches- :)

:crying2::uhoh21:

Two weeks ago I got caller ID. When I see work come up, I'm not answering anymore. Honestly, many of these workplaces are harassing their employees.

When I was young I worked at the ticket counter for a major airline. This was in the pre-caller ID days. You learned really fast not to answer the phone on your days off. If they talked to you, you had 1 hour to report or your were fired. As long as they didn't talk to you, you were not responsible to get a message. Manditory OT stinks!!!

I hope you don't tell your boss or coworkers that your husband makes good money and that you don't need to work. Your circumstances could change and people will gloat over your reversal of fortune. Better to let people at work think you work a 2nd job elsewhere and have the same money struggles they do so they're not jealous of you.

I worked a peds job, where the census dropped a LOT in the summer- so we had to rotate days off (it was a fair schedule for all, but I ended up losing an entire month of hours- even had my nurse manager talk to a med-surg floor about picking up hours there, and she NEVER returned my messages)....the other nurses had husbands and didn't understand why I was so upset about losing that much time.... did not endear them to me :)