Missed a call for an on-call shift

[BabyLady]

It's been awhile since I have posted.

I have always prided myself in being professional and I make myself available to work as much as possible.

I work the night shift and I am one of those people that can go to bed that night after sleeping all day.

I was on call tonight...and they made a really big deal before I left the previous night to fully expect to work tonight at 6:00 because they were on high census.

I slept all day, washed my uniforms, got up, took a shower, fully expecting to work.

It came 6:00 ....no phone call...so I called them, and they decided to "work with the staff that they had" which meant that a couple of nurses probably got higher assignments than normal.

I was disappointed because I needed the money.

So at 10:30...I went to bed.

At 11:00...they called.

Guess what? I have a Blackberry and I got up around 3:00 a.m. and checked my phone for e-mails and discovered that I had 3 missed calls...I ALWAYS hear my phone ring.

So I tried to call from my house phone and discovered that my ringtones were not working.

I called work immediately, offered to come in right then, they ended up calling someone else in for me....and I know darn good and well that several of my coworkers probably got woke up in the middle of the night trying to get someone to cover for me.

I cannot tell you how embarrassed I was....what makes it worse is that this is the SECOND time I have missed a call from work because my Blackberry ringtones suddenly stopped working and required the phone to be rebooted in order to get them to work.

The only reason my work doesn't have my house phone number is that the clericals that work the day shift think NOTHING of calling night shift people at 11:00 am., 1:00 pm...whatever...for non-emergent reasons..even if you are already scheduled that night...calls that can easily wait another 3 to 4 hours.

It's hard enough to sleep during the day...so when I get woke up, I'm up. I can't get back to sleep and have to work that night severely sleep deprived which isn't safe.

I called and offered to come in on the day shift if they needed help...charge nurse wasn't exactly nice about it.

Now I can't get back to sleep because there is nothing that I hate worse than looking like an idiot at work and now I'm worried about getting in trouble on Monday with my manager...which I fully expect to happen because they see this no different than a no-call, no show.

Those of you that have experience on the night shift much longer than me....how does your hospital handle these? Is some sympathy given? Or do they not care that sometimes technology fails.

I would love to go to my cell phone company tomorrow and get a different phone, but I am 8 months from a contract ending and it would cost me over $200 to make the change.

Any advice and encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

[CathyLew]

you have a job where you are on call. Your phone doesn't work. you know it doesn't work. You won't give out your home phone number. the new phone will cost $200. um. don't you make more than $200 at your job? If you get fired, it will be harder to land a job once they find out the reason you got fired was because you dont' show up when you are on call. Suck it up. Get a new phone, or give out your home number.

[cherrybreeze, ADN, RN]

OK, so this has happened more than those two times.......that's WORSE! I can understand why you're being defensive, but if all you came here to get was everyone telling you that you didn't do anything wrong, or that "it'll be ok," I'm sorry, I can't do that.

The only suggestion you "like" is a prepaid phone. Then go get one. That costs money, too, and so does replacing your current phone, so the choice is yours I suppose. It doesn't matter to ME what you do.

If you can't turn off your ringer, and feel the best option is to "train the clerical staff," then by all means, go ahead and try to. I worked nights for a number of years, and no, people don't understand the sleep schedule. That's the way it is. My family and friends would call to, for any reason, when they knew I'd be trying to sleep. It happens. That isn't likely to change, but you can go ahead and try.

I just can't blow smoke and tell you it's no big deal, because IMO, it is a big deal. If this happened where I work, I'd be fired. It wouldn't likely have the opportunity to happen a second time.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

First, you should get a lawyer and go after Blackberry.

Next, on call is on call. you have got to be reachable. No excuses. None. Except the hand of God - like a hurricane, you know? I'm dead serious. No excuses.

You must find some reliable way to get your calls. Period. Good luck.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

For your information, my Blackberry ringer has stopped working on other occasions OTHER than when I am on-call, but I have not been able to AFFFORD to break my contract and get a new phone. Food on the table takes priority.

It just happened to coincide twice when I was on-call....once I signed up for call VOLUNTARILY during a snowstorm, without even being asked to do it....the second time was last night.

So yeah, I made up this whole scenerio just so I could get some sympathy on allnurses.com.

I am an only child of elderly parents in their 80's....both of which have health problems...if something happened to them I CANNOT be unavailable for hours on end and I cannot shut off the ringer while I'm sleeping during the day because if something happened to either one of my children while they are at school there is no one else that can be called....I had to go pick up my daughter just this past Friday because she had a 103 fever at 10:30 a.m.

I had a coworker that does this...she is a single mother and a police officer showed up at her house because she shut off her phone during the day, her kid got sick at school and she didn't answer the phone...she was told that a second incident would get her a CPS referral by the police officer.

Seems like it would be easier to train clerical staff to think a little before they start calling people and take into consideration the time of day they call...if that were the case, they would have had my home phone number the day it was connected....for some reason, no one is making that argument.

The only good suggestion I have got so far is to get a prepaid phone...no contract required, and use that for on-call so I can leave it off at other times.

What a mess our nation is in. Single, sleep-deprived moms, trying to do their best, being threatened by bully copy. She should go see that cop's boss and make a complaint. Get a lawyer to let that cop know which end is up. She doesn't need threats from a cop just because she is a mortal being. You, trying to be available to your kids, to your parents, to your job, trying to survive. What a screwed up mess. There are no easy answers, I fear. Maybe you can all live under one roof, at least, and take in a housekeeper/nanny/elder care person or 2 to help lighten the load? What happened to villages? To families living near each other? I know - industrialization.

Wish I could help.

have you tried hard to train clerks? SEriously try. Get the DON involved. Get that pre-paid cell for on-call and the kids' school, and your parents only and turn off the house phone or get rid of it altogether.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

First you say..."I work the night shift and I am one of those people that can go to bed that night after sleeping all day."

Then "...so when I get woke up, I'm up."

Which is it?

And, "...I ALWAYS hear my phone ring."

Yet, "what makes it worse is that this is the SECOND time I have missed a call from work because my Blackberry ringtones suddenly stopped working and required the phone to be rebooted in order to get them to work."

I work nights myself, so I do know what it's like getting woke up during the day, so I could see that part if you didn't brag earlier about sleeping all day and then going to bed again that night. Also, if you know that there is a problem with your cell and decline to give the source of your livelihood a home number then you shouldn't be taking call.

Sorry to sound harsh, but I have been one of the ones called in the middle of the night (waking up two little ones) to cover for someone wh0o was on call that didn't hear their cell. Not fun at all.

bragging? I think she was saying that she is exhausted with night work and sleeps all day and then again all night, if she's off. I hear no bragging.

[cherrybreeze, ADN, RN]

First, you should get a lawyer and go after Blackberry.

Next, on call is on call. you have got to be reachable. No excuses. None. Except the hand of God - like a hurricane, you know? I'm dead serious. No excuses.

You must find some reliable way to get your calls. Period. Good luck.

You can't be serious. Since no cell phone company guarantees that their phones won't have glitches or problems, what on earth could you sue them for? Devices sometimes don't work. That's LIFE. You can't sue someone for every little problem you have, good grief. While sueing Blackberry, you also think she should sue the cop for showing up at her door. Maybe she can get a two-for-one deal.

When we have people that don't show up for work and don't answer the phone, or a doctor, for example, that doesn't return pages, we've sent the cops out before. It's to make sure they're OKAY. One gal that didn't show up for work one night not only lives alone, but walks to work (she lives pretty close). When she didn't arrive and also didn't answer repeated phone calls, yes, we had the cops go check on her. It was because we all were WORRIED. Not everything is sinister...or worthy of litigation. It's called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

[fungez]

cherrybreeze, I'd kudo you twice if allnurses would let me.

I worked at a clinic that once had a no call, no show from a very dependable employee. Another employee called the worker's dad (they knew each other socially) to check on her. And he found her, raped and murdered. It does happen, and her poor father has that memory for a lifetime.

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

you have a job where you are on call. Your phone doesn't work. you know it doesn't work. You won't give out your home phone number. the new phone will cost $200. um. don't you make more than $200 at your job? If you get fired, it will be harder to land a job once they find out the reason you got fired was because you dont' show up when you are on call. Suck it up. Get a new phone, or give out your home number.

If you think working while sleep deprived is no big deal, then consider this:

I left work one morning, one of those days where the clerical had called me at 1:00 pm and I couldn't get back to sleep....after school there was dinner that had to be fixed and myself to get ready before starting my 12-hour shift...I was tired before I got there.

When I left work, I got on the elevator, got off, started down the hallway when I realized I had no idea of where I was (I work in a BIG hospital)...it took me 20 minutes to find an exit...because I had got so twisted I could no longer find the elevator and when I found an exit....I had to walk half-way around the entire hospital to get to my car.

Oh...and I had just taken care of two vent-kids for the previous 12 hours.

[BabyLady, BSN, RN]

The only suggestion you "like" is a prepaid phone. Then go get one. That costs money, too, and so does replacing your current phone, so the choice is yours I suppose. It doesn't matter to ME what you do.

The only suggestion I "like" is a prepaid phone?

Ok...to break my contract to get a new phone will cost $200, plus the cost of new phone and start up fees for a new contract and activation fees....which by the time it's over with...can cost me over $300...that is a lot of money for two on-call shifts every 6 weeks.

A prepaid phone, from what I have been able to research on the internet, will cost me about $30..and I found a plan this morning that charges 30 cents a minute, but once you purchase the initial start-up of 50 minutes, which is around $20....you don't pay anything per month or per day...you just get dinged with the minutes when you use them.

So yeah, that is why I said the only "good" suggestion I got is getting a prepaid phone that I can freely shut off unless I am on-call for a minimal investment...because it was also the only other suggestion that solved the problem as well as being affordable.

I am a very, very responsible employee that refuses my employer NOTHING if it's within my power to give it to them. I volunteer to take assignments that have difficult family members when no one else wants them...I have come in every single time that they have ever asked me to if it was humanly possible to do so. I have volunteered for educational seminars for parents, etc.

However, not everyone has tons of extended family that can help....I moved to a new city to take this job so I don't have the support system that I had in my hometown...but my hometown also had no nursing jobs....so in order to secure a living, I had to move.

If I didn't give a rat's behind about missing that phone call, I wouldn't have bothered to call during the night and offered to come in right then for as long as they needed help.

An irresponsible employee wouldn't have bothered to call at all.

[imenid37]

I agree an honest mistake. :) I worked nights for 16 years. I was once told that an on call shift I signed up for was a mistake because they had not realized there really was enough staff scheduled. So when the day of the shift came, thinking I was not needed and my name had been erased, I took my youngest daughter on an overnight trip to an amusement park three hours away! Guess who called me to come into work at 10 p.m. Yikes. My name had not been erased (I should have seen to that personally) and there was a sick call. They survived and I am still there. How about call forwarding for you? Like at night if you are on call, you could forward calls to the Blackberry to go to your home number. When you don't want calls forwarded, then turn that feature off. Does the home number wake up others in the house? That would be the only issue.

[CathyLew]

If you think working while sleep deprived is no big deal, then consider this:

I left work one morning, one of those days where the clerical had called me at 1:00 pm and I couldn't get back to sleep....after school there was dinner that had to be fixed and myself to get ready before starting my 12-hour shift...I was tired before I got there.

When I left work, I got on the elevator, got off, started down the hallway when I realized I had no idea of where I was (I work in a BIG hospital)...it took me 20 minutes to find an exit...because I had got so twisted I could no longer find the elevator and when I found an exit....I had to walk half-way around the entire hospital to get to my car.

Oh...and I had just taken care of two vent-kids for the previous 12 hours.

yea..... Im pretty sure I didn't say anything about working sleep deprived..... Not sure why you quoted my post...... I think I said suck it up and get a new phone.

[caliotter3]

Once they went past the cutoff time, you had no responsibility to remain awake. When they didn't call by six, I too, would have gone to bed. I would let them know that you are having trouble with your phone. In that case the thing for you to do is to call in yourself by the cutoff time and insure they don't want you to come in. Then, you can rest assured after that time. That is the only accommodation you have to make. I would not give them the landline number.