I work nights and my job requires me to attend mandatory meetings twice per month as well as any in-service training. The problem is that they are all scheduled during the day (meetings are at 1400) and I work 7p to 7a. I have worked elsewhere where the nurses meetings were held twice a day, once in the mornings and again in the afternoon. We are required to be there and get written up if we don't show. For the last two months I have had to work the night before and the night the meetings are held. The last time I had a med error (caught fast thankfully) that I honestly think was made simply because I was tired. Management refuses to change the time of the meetings or offer more than one and I am afraid someone will be injured because of this. I read a while back about a nurse that was killed in a car wreck because of a similar situation. I live an hour away from work and that is three plus hours at least that I can't sleep due to meetings and training. Of course day shift sees nothing wrong with the way things are now.
I love this job but don't want to hurt myself or someone else because of lack of sleep.
Should I go above their heads or look for another job?
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
This used to frost my behind when I worked nights. I would tell the manager, how about you make one month, a meeting at 1400, and the next at 0200 and MANDATE DAY SHIFT to come at 0200. I told her my sleep was important to my wellbeing and safe job performance and never went.
Never did get written up. Eventually the meetings were moved to 1930 and 0730. Fair is fair.
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
The whole concept of a mandatory staff meeting gets to me. MOST of what is covered can be done in communication books or minutes that each staff member sign that they read and understood....... FEW of such meetings are that urgent that require people waste 1 or 2 hours of precious time (and money for the company to pay people to attend). Such staff meetings can be accomplished quarterly and we could get away with it, easily. If I ran the world, that is how I would do things
And general commentary from staff would be held until after all the important bullets were covered. I hate nothing much more than 45 minutes or more of people complaining, arguing or going on when the meeting itself could be accomplished in 1 hour or less. Let those who have issues stay and discuss them then. The rest, go home.
That is how SBE would do it if she ruled things anyhow.
The whole concept of a mandatory staff meeting gets to me. MOST of what is covered can be done in communication books or minutes that each staff member sign that they read and understood....... FEW of such meetings are that urgent that require people waste 1 or 2 hours of precious time (and money for the company to pay people to attend). Such staff meetings can be accomplished quarterly and we could get away with it, easily. If I ran the world, that is how I would do things
And general commentary from staff would be held until after all the important bullets were covered. I hate nothing much more than 45 minutes or more of people complaining, arguing or going on when the meeting itself could be accomplished in 1 hour or less. Let those who have issues stay and discuss them then. The rest, go home.
That is how SBE would do it if she ruled things anyhow.
PREACH IT. I am horrible with attendance to staff meetings. I work nights and work per diem, and live a good distance away from my hospital. I personally don't worry about it. If I make it, I make it. If I don't, I don't. Meh. I have a life. I have a family. They come first. If I can fit in a staff meeting of people whining/moaning/complaining about stupid stuff at a hospital where honestly most of these folks have no idea how GOOD they have it (because they've never worked anywhere else), then hey, I'll show. Not gonna kill myself to do it, sorry. I'll read the minutes that will come in an email later. ETA: I check my email from work almost daily, so I always keep up with what's going on and issues that arise. Anything covered in email is covered in meetings and vice/versa. Not missing much.
Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.
I absolutely would not attend a meeting at 1400 when I worked the night before OR the night after. Nope, I wouldn't do it. Discuss it one more time (professionally but with utter seriousness) with your supervisor and if he/she continues to be unmovable or uncooperative, find another job.
Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
I worked nights for 7 years and will be returning to the darkside in the next few weeks - thankfully I have always worked at a facility that was very understanding and accommodating to their night shift staff in regards to meetings and trainings. However if I was repeatedly forced to come in in the middle of my sleep when I worked the night before and the night of, I would have no problems talking to management about it. I could let it slide if it was a one time thing, otherwise it is a pattern and a culture that has no regards to night shift.
Another thing is that I have found many people have never worked nights and truly don't understand the whole sleeping-during-the-day thing. To help with this, I found education was the best thing especially when I used a relatable example. I would tell people "Imagine working 7am-7pm on Monday, waking up to come in for a meeting at 2am on Tuesday morning, and then having to be back into work at 7am that Tuesday." I think this helps put things into perspective for those people who can't think in terms of night shift.
Oh lawd - I would not make those meetings if I worked the night before and the night of. Or either of those. Nope. Management can get over that very quickly, or I would present them with evidence of how dangerous that is for night shift nurses.
The first night time nursing job I had was also big on mandatory inservices/meetings. There was no accommodation or even thought to the noc nurse's plight of conflicting schedules concerning the meetings and inservices that I could sense. I did try making it to the events: after a few months, I just stopped going.
At first nothing was said. Than you have your unique fellow employees that thought it was unfair that I wasn't showing up. I told my manager that it was dangerous. I worked there for another few months and a day charge position came open. I got it (problem solved). I never got in any trouble for not attending the meetings, etc... It was so long ago, I think they knew I would go for the day position since the day charge had let it be known for a couple months that she was moving.
Than my long time manager/DON, up and quit (I had followed her from the previous facility I worked at). The new DON was Idi-Amin incarnate: she especially didn't like me. I ended up going to another job. I left on good terms. If the new DON wouldn't have been so violent, I would probably still be working there to this day...funny how life work out.
So: to risk going to inservices and meetings during the day when you're suppose to be sleeping is ludicrous. You are putting yourself and others at risk.
Current job, overnight check cashing, 2130 to 0800, and they want their meetings at 1430 and 1830 and whatever other time is most convenient to the Branch Manager. I've had very understand managers who brought the day staff together and held separate, short meetings for overnighters, and I've seen some coworkers get fired for not attending what is considered a scheduled shift.
The actual Army didn't work this way. Pulled an overnight assignment? Have a day off. Extra duty for morning chow? Make sure you attend final formation, otherwise stay out of trouble. Why do substantially less important things have to be so much more difficult?
The whole concept of a mandatory staff meeting gets to me. MOST of what is covered can be done in communication books or minutes that each staff member sign that they read and understood....... FEW of such meetings are that urgent that require people waste 1 or 2 hours of precious time (and money for the company to pay people to attend). Such staff meetings can be accomplished quarterly and we could get away with it, easily. If I ran the world, that is how I would do things
And general commentary from staff would be held until after all the important bullets were covered. I hate nothing much more than 45 minutes or more of people complaining, arguing or going on when the meeting itself could be accomplished in 1 hour or less. Let those who have issues stay and discuss them then. The rest, go home.
That is how SBE would do it if she ruled things anyhow.
Where I work we have 2 meetings, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, we have shifts that stagger throughout the day. For a while though we had a problem with a bunch of people on day shift going to the morning meeting that was intended for night/mid/evening shift because, they didn't want to stay over in the afternoons to attend their own meeting. This left night shift to work over till the meeting was done and then we were expected to show up for the afternoon meeting instead. When it happened to me I just wrote: will not be attending​ today's meeting due to working over 1.5 hours and cannot attend afternoon meeting due to it conflicting with sleep that is needed to be able to work my shift tonight. Once it was realized what was going on day shift for scolded and we can also attend another House's (I work at a group home) meeting if we miss our own.
When I worked LTC night shifts meetings were at 10pm, that was nice.
I work 8 hours shifts and the monthly staff meeting is always scheduled at 13:00, everyone is expected to show up - but if the nurses from the previous night shift don't - no one says anything. They read the minutes printout that get sent along with their salary slip.
ETA: I check my email from work almost daily, so I always keep up with what's going on and issues that arise. Anything covered in email is covered in meetings and vice/versa. Not missing much.
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts
This used to frost my behind when I worked nights. I would tell the manager, how about you make one month, a meeting at 1400, and the next at 0200 and MANDATE DAY SHIFT to come at 0200. I told her my sleep was important to my wellbeing and safe job performance and never went.
Never did get written up. Eventually the meetings were moved to 1930 and 0730. Fair is fair.