New Traveler, Please Read - "Tentative"

[airos4]

Here's my dilemma. I decided travelling looked good because I need to raise some quick $$ for my wedding in April. I talked with American Mobile and spoke with a rep from Overlook Hospital in NJ. She said that my start date would be 3 DEC. Talked with my recruiter, who said the same thing and sent me the contract with 3 DEC as the start date. On Friday afternoon, when I'm supposed to start Monday morning, when I quit my full time job so that I could take this travelling job ... well, stories differ. The AM recruiter says she got a call around 3PM on Friday stating that Overlook has no educator available on that day and my start date will have to be delayed.. eight days, to the 11th. Of course, they can't offer me any pay or hours to work, so basically I'm unemployed for a week. Overlook says "We told them from the beginning that the third was tentative. It had to be approved by education and we just found out that day that it wasn't. Further, the eleventh is also "tentative."

I have a signed contract, but I haven't received any money or moved into any housing (was going to take the rent stipend instead). Now this contract appears to be worthless and my recruiter is just shrugging her shoulders and saying "Well, I've never seen this before." What do I do? My scenarios are - shut up and eat the week of no pay to start the contract whenever they decide it's good; or tell my recruiter that I'm uncomfortable with all this "tentativeness" and that my bills don't pay themselves, so I'm cancelling this contract. If I do that, will she likely be interested in helping me get another contract? Should I go with Nurses 24/7, another agency in the area who says they have contracts available that can start quickly? I have a couple per diem jobs, so I'm not going broke while I figure this out, but I'm just not sure where to go from here. Thanks for all who read this.

[ERRNTraveler, RN]

If you decide not to work your current assignment, you're most likely going to have to find a new travel company. So what you have to decide is if you want to just wait a week to start your current assignment, or risk not having any job next week to go with another hospital & another company. If you can afford not to work for the week, I'd just wait & start on the 11th. If you try to find a new assignment, you might be stuck with NO assignment at all, until much later than the 11th. Another option is to pick up a few per-diem shifts with a local staffing agency for some extra $$ during your week off.

[Valerie Salva, BSN, RN]

Faststaff is an agency that starts travelers really quickly. American Mobile has a very bad reputation, and is the most disliked company in traveling.

[Michellex1013]

I agree if you need the money just start on the 11th, it's better than no job at all. You also could probably pick up 3 shifts during your 13 weeks to make up for week off. If you want to prove a point you could easily get out of your contract because they have already broken the contract by changing the dates.

Michelle