Please stop calling me in the middle of the day on my days off begging me to come in.....
Its called a schedule for a reason. I am new and already overwhelmed just working my scheduled time. I need my down time. I need to reacquaint myself with the friends and family that I ignored while I was in school.
I get that we are a for profit organization. However, it is not my fault that we have too many LPN and not enough RN so that we can save a few dollars here and there.
You are going to have to hire more RNs and staff up. You run around worrying about patient satisfaction and Press Gainey and yet the company lets accountants control the floor.
You are smart boss, you know what you need to do and you certainly dont need to hear it from a newb like me.
I hate telling you no, but I am going to continue to do so. If I do not, my health will suffer and my patients will be at serious risk secondary to my exhaustion.
I will be there when I am scheduled. It will be a cold day in Hades when I call off. I promise that.
But more than my three 12's which are actually more like 18's when you factor in travel time and charting and meetings......???
I hate getting mandated!! Working PM's and then being forced to stay for the noc shift is awful! Especially, after getting up at 0700 to get the kids off to school, run errands, head to work and at 2100 find out I'm mandated. Still feeling the horror, lol!
Why don't you guys anonymously contact the federal or state wage and hour folks? If you know this to be illegal, call on those who can help. Do NOT tell anyone you are thinking of doing this or that you did it.
Specializes in Medical Surgical & Nursing Manaagement.
I have to qualify that my comments are r/t putting out a schedule that meetings not only the budgeted staffing plan but also the acuity.
Managers can't pull staff out of the woodwork in order to meet staffing needs. Perhaps, like many of you implied, if employees came to work when they are scheduled and didn't call out, you wouldn't be getting calls on your days off asking you to come in. Believe me my conversation is "Hi this is...............we are short today and I was wondering if you would like to work". No badgering, no threatening and absolutely no mandates. I will ask if they want to give back a benefit day or move them from another day when we are up staff, always looking to give them a better schedule, i.e., a longer stretch off.
With that being said, when we work short because of call outs and no one will cover, Managers have to listen to complaints about being short, usually from the same nurses that complain about being called at home. Guys you can't have it both ways!
Shame on the manager that puts a schedule out without adequate staffing every day of the schedule. In that case, extra shifts should be planned and adequate staffing across the schedule 100%.
One more thing............you guys are complaining about being called at home. How about the managers that are inundated with calls requesting time off because "we're up on" a specific day. Most of the time, we not up because someone beat you to the punch and already asked for the day off. Here's another peeve..............I also get called at home from staff asking to have the day off. I'm home, don't have an updated version of the schedule, don't have who got what off when. It works both ways
It happens in Non-for Profit facilities too. Admin never cares or can care if we accept extra shifts, stay beyond our scheduled shift, they know full well we are dedicated to our patients, and manage to take full advantage of that, Kudo's to you for saying no. It took me years to say no....even when a supervisor told me after 7 straight days and 12-16 hour shifts she thought I sounded "******" no kidding, I said if you don't like my attitude then don't call me on my day off!!(she worked 2 days a week) For some ridiculous inate reason alot of us thought the place would fall down if we aren't there to cover, trust me it won't!! Hire extra Nurses? God forbid!! I think it's high time the bean counters and the coorporate execs stay out of Nursing, you're never gonna find a nurse sitting on her a-- in an office getting paid what they do to crunch numbers!! Resentful much? yes probably There'd be plenty of money to staff adequately if there were less paper pushers and bean counters making twice as much as nurses trying to "save" exspenses. I can guarentee unless one of them becomes the patient and wants the undivided attention of a nurse nothing is going to change. So keep working your schedules and keep saying no!!
I pick up when I can. Hate to see the others work short, and the extra money is nice. Balance is the key. We have some that will never, ever pick up, and they work half time or less.
I work part time, and I often pick up when a coworker is scheduled for a day that she requested off or something personal comes up and she asks me directly, but I never pick up a shift when I'm called. Short scheduling or someone calling off at the 11th hour is not my fault, so I don't feel responsible for fixing it. Part time workers don't get overtime for it, we don't earn PTO or sick time for it, nothing.
My manager's attitude also keeps me from wanting to "help" her. When I got diagnosed and needed time off for treatment (I am FMLA eligible), she verbally lumped my request in with another coworker who complains about her schedule for every schedule that's published. "X is on me about changing around her schedule, and now we'll be short with you out."
I don't need nor want her sympathy, but you better believe I spit out, "Nothing I can do about it; I never wanted to be diagnosed with X. I'm certified for X weeks off from this date to this date. More treatment to come, and I'll let you know when I know. Have a nice day." And I walked out of her office without another word.
One consistent thing here...Management doesn't care. The won't hire to fill the holes. I hate the term "benchmarks say that x number of nurses are all the is necessary to do the job." But in actuality, there are never enough bodies to do the work. I feel so sorry for all the new grads on this site. They sound so eager and want a job, but can't find one. Those of us on the floor, at the bedside, or in the speciality units would love more help. But management won't over hire or even hire to fill the holes.
And for the new grads "hovering" around age 50. You may want to rethink your goals. 25 year olds are having a hard time doing 16 hr shifts, you think you can? Most of the time saying "no" to mandate is not an option. You will miss family get togethers, birthdays, sporting events, holidays, etc.etc. Not to mention the lifting, sore back, sore legs; and time off for taking care of your aging parents is not a valid excuse.
My department used to be very good at coming in extra. But not any more, no body will offer to come in. So mandating is the only way to cover the shifts. We are working with bare minimum staff. From what I am hearing, this is the same everywhere. Don't go into nursing because you love being around patients, and want to help people. You will spend over 1/2 your shift with charting either with the paper chart or computer entry. Meds take up another huge portion, mandatory meetings, dealing with crazy family members and baby-sitting the doctors/residents/interns take up the rest. Spending actual time with the patient is very limited.
I know the feeling. I just started as a new grad last month in LTC, and they call me to ask if I can work every weekend. I can safely say I don't enjoy my job enough to sacrifice one or both of my two days off. They could hire a PRN nurse or two, I have friends who wanted a PRN job at the facility, but were refused because the facility no longer hires PRN. I just say 'no thank you' and leave it at that. If I'm going to survive my first year as a nurse, I really need my days off.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
I work part-time (70%). I don't pick up extra hours... my 29-year-old severely-handicapped son lives at home and his needs have dibs on my free time. I refuse to apologise for that.
My unit is chronically short-staffed. On any given shift we may have 2 to 6 (!) people on OT, either due to gaps in the schedule or to imbalances in staff mix. Those rare shifts when we don't have any OT and have enough staff without it are cause for celebration. Our PRN staff has dwindled away to just a small pool of people who have jobs elsewhere within the system who want to keep their hand in and know they have guaranteed hours; they most often pick up on weekends (shift premiums!) or statutory holidays (double-time-and-a-half, because our system doesn't discriminate on where hours are worked).The PRN pool was decimated a couple of years ago when an administrative decision was made that ALL shifts would be 12 hours - apparently it's better to be short for the whole 12 hours than it is to have someone come in at 11 or go home at 3. Also most of them only want days, so they are picky. Our schedule has been completely overhauled twice in the past 3 years, and is undergoing yet another overhaul. Despite the fact that we couldn't staff the beds we had, last winter the PTB opened 4 new beds and are planning to open 2 more in a few weeks. (This may sound insignificant but my unit is a quaternary CV-PICU where the nurse-to-patient ratio is 1:1 or 2:1.) So my view is that the staffing issues aren't my fault and also not mine to fix. It would be really interesting if we all just didn't pick up for a week or so. The message to the administration would be huge!
Why don't you guys anonymously contact the federal or state wage and hour folks? If you know this to be illegal, call on those who can help. Do NOT tell anyone you are thinking of doing this or that you did it.
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chevyv, BSN, RN
1,679 Posts
I hate getting mandated!! Working PM's and then being forced to stay for the noc shift is awful! Especially, after getting up at 0700 to get the kids off to school, run errands, head to work and at 2100 find out I'm mandated. Still feeling the horror, lol!