Holiday Nursing

Im sorry your feeling taken advantage of! I too am working all the holidays this year. All except Thanksgiving. I am on Christmas Eve, Christmas, NYE & New Years. Some people are working none because they "requested them all off" I am new, so didnt know I had to request them off I was told it was a rotation.From your post, I have to ask, do you work on my floor? lol. I think we prob work at the same place. I was not able to peer swap.

dON'T BLAME YOU!

I have worked in my current unit for over 4 yrs and this will be my 4th Christmas working...I'm also scheduled Christmas night shift as well(which isn't the holiday for fulltimers but is weekend program hours--yet I don't get the 8hr differential.)

I will be going to speak to my boss once the schedule is released as the two newest hires in our unit are NOT scheduled to work any part of Christmas!

Well...someone has to work the holidays. I doubt that many people thought they would have holidays and weekends off when they enrolled in nursing school...if they did, they were misled, in denial, or something!

Every place I have ever worked had required you to work the holiday if it fell on your normal weekend. Some nurses like having holidays on or off in a block. If your family is far away and you have to work either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, that certainly makes it hard to visit family.

My family has always been happy to celebrate holidays when everyone (or almost everyone) can be there. My kids used to love it when Santa Clause came on the 23rd instead of the 24th! How you and your family react to you working the holidays is up to you (and them).

My hospital policy is the same, if it is your holiday on and your weekend, you will be working a stretch. We work every other holiday, so for Thanksgiving, which is both my weekend and my holiday, I will be working a long stretch. Same goes for new years. Luckily, Christmas is both my holiday and my weekend off, so I get a long stretch off there.

Personally, I can't complain. My family is hundreds of miles away, so working long stretches over some holidays and getting long stretches off on others means I can actually go visit my family over the holidays.

Yeah, it stinks. I worked similar schedules for the last couple of years, and this year I am celebrating my freedom. I switched to working casual, so I'm giving myself some much-deserved vacations. Do you have small children? That makes it so hard...my own were so sad to not see Mommy at various holidays.

On our floor the major holidays are counted as Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, and day. We needed to choose which 2 or 3 we would prefer to work and then the mgr took the volunteers first and assigned after that. If Christmas is your weekend, but you worked it last year, you are off this year. Some of the nurses without kids volunteered for Christmas. I told the younger nurses I would gladly do New Years Eve and day so they could be off. Our schedule isn't out yet so not sure of how it is really going to be scheduled.

On my unit, we have a rotation. Included in the rotation are "Thanksgiving Eve", Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, and New Years Day. Every year you work one Eve, one Day, and have one holiday off. So this year, I work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and I have all of New Years off. Next year, I get Thanksgiving off, work Christmas Day and New Years Eve.

Night shift used to self-schedule, same requirement of one Eve and one Day, but this year they went to a rotation. Their rotation puts both the Eve and the Day on the same holiday, then they get the other two holidays off.

Your holiday overrides your weekend, so if you are normally off that weekend, you work your holiday (and, if it is your weekend, but your holiday off, you don't work the holiday, but you might have to work the next day (such as Boxing Day)).

We are also allowed to switch shifts among ourselves.

I like our system. There is no favoritism, and you know in January what holidays you will be working for the rest of the year, so you can plan ahead.

Sorry to all of you who aren't getting fair treatment. Nobody wants to work holidays, so everyone should take an equal turn.

:paw:

I live in a city away from my family. We celebrate the event, not the day, so whenever we are together it is a holiday. Do not focus on the date.

Meanwhile, you need to discuss with your supervisor how you feel to see if there is an alternative solution.

Having worked more holidays than I can remember, I feel that too many nurses make themselves miserable over this. Who says celebrating Christmas or Thanksgiving has to be on that particular day? The only time, in my mind, where it's not movable is if people are coming from out of town and can't adjust their schedule at all. But really, it's an arbitrary day that was picked on our calendar.

yes it's nice to be home when we want to be, but that's the nature of our work. Someone has to work and sometimes it's us.

That doesn't sound fair. Everywhere I have worked Christmas day was the holiday. If you worked Christmas, you were off Christmas Eve. If you were off Christmas, you worked Christmas Eve. Every year it rotated. The holiday rotation would trump the weekend rotation. So even though the 25th and 26th is my weekend off, it is my turn to work Christmas so I have to work it.