Has anyone else experienced this? I just accepted a new position in an acute rehab facility. During the interview I was told that I would be replacing someone who wanted to work a different schedule within the company. I was also told that I would only rarely have to stay past my scheduled shift but that most days I would get out on time. I told the interviewer that I will work my five days each week but do NOT want to be called on my days off, as I am not interested in any overtime and she said she would make a note of it and wrote it down.
I am now a few days into orientation and I have learned from the other nurses in the facility that a.) I am replacing a nurse who got fed up with the working conditions and left the company without a two week notice, b.) I will end up having to stay over the end of my shift pretty much every time I work in order to get everything done, and c.) I received a phone call this morning at 6:30 where I was pressured to come in and work to cover a call off, even though I told the caller that I do not want more than five days a week and I am still on orientation to boot. She was not very happy when we hung up.
I feel duped and scared that I have gotten myself into something that I will regret. I do not appreciate being lied to and I think it was unethical to do so. Part of me wants to run before I get in any deeper and part of me feels like I need to stick it out, except that I'm worried that I will decide to do so only to find that I am constantly pressured into picking up overtime, being forced to stay over, and getting nagged to come in on my days off, in which case I will kick myself for not getting out right away. I am not afraid to say NO to the requests for overtime, but if this is an ongoing thing, it will make my life miserable anyway.
Specializes in NICU, PEDs, Skilled Home Care, Biologics.
Regarding not wanting to be called for overtime, read the contract. I can't imagine any hospital or facility that would put that in the contract and that's what you have to abide by. If that's the case, I want straight days, 8 hours, 3 months vacation and 6 months maternity leave with 1 hour for lunch and 4 30 minute breaks each shift.
Dont pick up the phone. I get called to come in almost everyday that Im not scheduled. I am part time and have another job. I let them know numerous times that I am not available for extra shifts but they pretty much told me they cant take me off the call list. Im currently pregnant and finally begged them not to call me and wake me on my days off. Finally and only bc i somewhat knew the guy who places the calls and he felt bad he stopped calling. Now I have the manager call me directly to ask. I simply ignore the call! They need to respect your off time and shouldnt use it against you.
I think you called it in the very last sentence-Suits & Heels have NO respect for our time-or US.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I agree that it should be this simple, but when you work at a place where the culture is such that the other nurses are willing to work seven days a week and over at the end of their shifts (while griping and beefing about it continuously) and you are not, it's just not that simple. Instead of being the assertive one who has a life and is not willing to be manipulated, you become "the one who won't pick up extra" and leaves your co-workers working short. Not a great way to have great relationships in the workplace, and even though you don't have to be best friends with your co-workers, you need to get along and respect each other when you're together 40 hours a week.
Exactly. This is where nurses are our own worst enemies. Instead of being assertive and setting boundaries we think we're winning some kind of brownie points by being martyrs. Then when someone comes along who doesn't want to play that ridiculous game, we call them "selfish" and "not a team player".
Management eats it up when we pit ourselves against one another instead of standing up to them collectively and as individuals.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
Wow. You're lucky you got hired at all. This is very demanding of a potential employer and it says to me that you are not a team player.
How is it lucky to get hired at a place that's desperate for a warm body? And how can you be a team player if there is no team? A chain gang is not a team, even if it looks like one.
I don't want to work on my days off either. That causes burn out....we NEED our days off. You can be a team player and still not want to work your days off.
Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I have run into this before and have definite ideas. You are right to be upset that they lied to you; the nurse you just replaced offered a clear example of the ideal solution to this sort of misbehavior. It's past time the powers that be stopped with their unethical behavior and if you stay, you only reward it. Better that they learn that it is a waste of time by you baling out as soon as it's advantageous to you.
Hold firm on the attempts to suck you in on your days off. They won't be your days off for long once they learn you're easily manipulated. Just say no. Over and over again. No.
Back when I was working as a weekender, I used to get amused when I'd hear one of my coworkers commenting on how short staffed they'd been Friday even though "they called everyone but nobody could come in". Well, they hadn't called me! Why? Because they'd learned it was a waste of time. Nothing could drag me in during the week... not double pay; not appealing to my sense of guilt.... nothing. Frankly, I had no sense of guilt as they wouldn't have been short staffed if they hadn't run good people off. Maybe it would have been different if the place was worth a damn. It wasn't though.
I felt sorry for my coworkers but they had the same options as I. They could have just said no. If everyone did that, the hospital would just have to hire enough folks and treat them well enough that it no longer was short staffed as a normal state of being.
So my advice is to run. It will only get worse with the unscrupulous management you've unfortunately fallen in with.
Exactly. It would be a lot harder for managers to be unscrupulous if nurses weren't such enablers. I used to coach and encourage my coworkers until I was blue in the face, but they'd still work off the clock, come in on days off to do some "mandatory" education modules and work chronically short-staffed without filling out the short-staffing form.
We are "pleasers"; we have a heightened sense of responsibility (and guilt) and managers take shameless advantage.
The nursing profession would benefit so much if everyone stood their ground about what they will and will not do. We would be more respected and they would stop trying to manipulate us, belittle us and guilt trip us when they find out that it doesn't work. I won't go in on my day off and my job doesn't even bother calling me anymore. On the off chance that they do call and I do answer the phone I tell them very nicely that I can't come in but it doesn't hurt to ask. I know they have to ask. I don't hold it against them. And I can maintain my boundary at the same time.
As as for doing the right thing? Pfffffftttt! I did that once and it damaged my career with one of the big two. Things had gotten really bad for us nurses. Management was asking us to do things that were harmful and frankly illegal, and five nurses walked out in one day. I gave my notice and stayed until the very last day because I felt it was the right thing to do. But they had a surprise in store for me. They put me on call the last day there. I told them that they shouldn't do that because after midnight I don't work for them anymore. They said they would change the schedule.
They didn't. The next morning I had 23 missed calls and they put in my record that I refused my assignment and I'm not available for rehire. So now I am very limited as to where I can work, and travel is out of the question because most assignments are with one of the big two, and since my name kicks out as not available for rehire, I'm not eligible for the assignment.
If if I had any idea they would were going to do this to me, I would have walked out the same day as the other nurses.
If I was only at a place for a few weeks, I wouldn't even bother putting it on my resume, it serves no purpose. If asked, I would keep it short and say 'It wasn't what I expected."
I wouldn't say all that myself. Keep it short simple. like
"It wasn't what i was expecting, and there was no point in wasting everybody's time and money on something that wasn't going to work " I was taught not to say anything negative about a previous employer at an interview, it's just a real turn off. Just let them read between the lines.
I am meeting with the dialysis manager next week...yippee!! So now...how do I walk into that interview and feel confident, as opposed to feeling like a loser for quitting my rehab job while still in orientation? She is aware of this, I didn't try to hide anything because I had to explain why I couldn't meet with her a couple of weeks ago when she first contacted me and before I knew what the rehab job would really be like.
It will be hard to hide it if I am feeling like a big job quittin' loser, so how do I overcome this and walk in there like I am a great dialysis nurse (I was when I did it before, or at least a competent one) who would be an asset to her and her facility? What if she asks me about leaving the rehab job? My thoughts are that I will just explain that I care about my license, I am an experienced enough nurse to know when things just aren't right/unsafe, and that I chose to walk rather than stay and accept the culture there. Does that sound okay, or like I'm a whiner who just wants an excuse to bad mouth the place?
That stinks. I'm sure the nurses that walked off without notice fared just as poorly. I wonder what can be done about something like this.
The nursing profession would benefit so much if everyone stood their ground about what they will and will not do. We would be more respected and they would stop trying to manipulate us, belittle us and guilt trip us when they find out that it doesn't work. I won't go in on my day off and my job doesn't even bother calling me anymore. On the off chance that they do call and I do answer the phone I tell them very nicely that I can't come in but it doesn't hurt to ask. I know they have to ask. I don't hold it against them. And I can maintain my boundary at the same time.
As as for doing the right thing? Pfffffftttt! I did that once and it damaged my career with one of the big two. Things had gotten really bad for us nurses. Management was asking us to do things that were harmful and frankly illegal, and five nurses walked out in one day. I gave my notice and stayed until the very last day because I felt it was the right thing to do. But they had a surprise in store for me. They put me on call the last day there. I told them that they shouldn't do that because after midnight I don't work for them anymore. They said they would change the schedule.
They didn't. The next morning I had 23 missed calls and they put in my record that I refused my assignment and I'm not available for rehire. So now I am very limited as to where I can work, and travel is out of the question because most assignments are with one of the big two, and since my name kicks out as not available for rehire, I'm not eligible for the assignment.
If if I had any idea they would were going to do this to me, I would have walked out the same day as the other nurses.
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ruthrowe
10 Posts
Regarding not wanting to be called for overtime, read the contract. I can't imagine any hospital or facility that would put that in the contract and that's what you have to abide by. If that's the case, I want straight days, 8 hours, 3 months vacation and 6 months maternity leave with 1 hour for lunch and 4 30 minute breaks each shift.