Overtime

Used to have to work forced overtime often hated it. Felt like it was detrimental to my patients well being and think it is wrong.

Other nurses I know love overtime. In mental health I do not think anyone should be forced to work overtime.

One thing I really don't like about working three 12 hour shifts is that if you are forced to stay past your shift to document (which happens to me often) you don't make overtime. Even if you have to stay an hour late each day, it doesn't bump you up past 40 hrs. When I leave work at 8:30 pm, I still have to drive home, eat dinner, take a shower, and wake up at 4:30 am to report to work the next day. I usually get 5 hours of sleep between shifts if I'm lucky. Also, if your employer makes a mandatory inservice, you have to work your 3 shifts and come in on your day off and not make any overtime for it. Whenever they call me to come in for a fourth shift for the week I always decline, especially since I wouldn't be making overtime for the whole shift, just 8 hours of it.

OT is not paid till after 40 hours, but the average SCHEDULED work week in a hospital is 36 hours, so you have to work 4 hours on base time to get OT on the 4th shift. It is not worth it to me. I am happy to do it if there is a true emergency, like too many staff sick or unexpected census or some such. But when it is frequent that infers poor planning and I do not want to be the victim of someone elses poor planning.

I love OT!!!

Time-and-a-half over 40 hours per week and double-time over 12 hours per day... Nearly $120/hr for DT... what's not to love?

Thanks for the responses. Does anyone find that they are too exhausted and it affects the level of work that you do? That's one of the key things that my research has said, that OT increases the likelihood for mistakes, especially in reference to med errors.

I can't believe that you don't get paid when you have to stay over. What if there is a patient emergency (code or a new admit when you only have half an hour of your shift left) and that's the reason you have to stay over and chart. Do you get paid then?

I work a ton of OT and have yet to make a med error.

Is my work at hour sixteen as tight as it is at hour 3... no, but neither am I making mistakes.

I can't believe that you don't get paid when you have to stay over. What if there is a patient emergency (code or a new admit when you only have half an hour of your shift left) and that's the reason you have to stay over and chart. Do you get paid then?

No one posted that they didn't get paid. Federal law requires that workers get paid for hours worked. They may end up getting discipline for unauthorized work, but they must be paid.

What people are saying is that if they work 12 hour shifts, they only get paid straight time for hours 36-40 per week.

Getting OT isn't worth it IMO, but I'll snatch up any holiday I can get. We get time and a half on holidays and most people are happy to give me those shifts.

I don't do too much OT these days since to me it's not worth my sanity! Now if I picked up the extra two days each pay period then yes! It all depends on the type of unit that you work as well.