beepers40

I just want to put in an opinion that part of the resentment around holiday scheduling comes from abusive work policies. When I started working as a nurse two years ago, I thought I understood what working on weekends and holidays would entail. I have three kids and a hubby with a very demanding job. I talked to my manager and the charge nurse about what might happen if I needed to trade for the occasional shift, as things do come up more often when you are juggling scheduling needs for five people vs just one or two. All assured me that trading was no problem, it was easy to get the time off when you needed it, etc. It was one of the reasons why I accepted the position there, as opposed to the other places I was considering. It didn't occur to me, of course, to ask if this were the case with the noc shift, too. Also, it wasn't until after I was hired that I was told about "policies" that weren't necessarily in the union contract, they were just unit policies. Such as, not only do you have to work every other weekend (Fri night and Sat night), you also have to work every other Sunday night too. So you never get a true weekend off, since you're always working either Sat. night or Sunday night every week. Well guess what. In two years I worked nine out of ten holidays the first year, and eight out of ten the second. I had New Years Day off on the first year, and New Years Day and MLK day the second. I also worked all ten of the nights after (I worked noc shift) so that meant that I worked both Christmas Eve beginning at eleven pm and Christmas Day at eleven. And though I didn't have to go to work on New Year's Eve, I did have to go in at eleven on New Year's day, since that was not a holiday. The union contract dictated that Christmas Day and New Years Day were signed up for on the basis of seniority. I would not have been able to spend Christmas with my children for the rest of the years they lived at home under this policy, as in two years the hospital hired only one new staffer who was a transfer from another unit, so I remained at the bottom of the seniority ladder. We used travellers to fill in the holes. Thanksgiving was not included so again it was seniority for requests for vacation time/time off. There went Thanksgiving for the rest of my kids' growing up years too. (My kids are school age, not small). Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, etc. etc. Also worked both Halloweens (not a holiday, but when you have kids...) I don't think I'm entitled to special treatment because I have kids. I don't think ANYONE should be expected to work EVERY holiday just because "you knew you would have to work holidays when you took this on." There are some very abusive work enviroments out there. My husband finally told me I had to pick between my job and him. I quit and took a per diem position. I'm working Thanksgiving Day this year, taking the rest of the holiday weekend off, and taking the entire Christmas vacation off. No regrets. I'm lucky I'm able to do this. My poor co-workers at my old hospital will continue to have to work insane holiday schedules because they continue to be short staffed because of crazy policies like this.

Hi all, I just accepted a position with a teaching hospital run by a well-known university in my area. My current job is at a community hospital in a high-risk L&D unit where we do about 700 deliveries a month. My new boss at the university hospital says her nurses tend to do less independent management of patients than most of us who've worked at my current hospital are used to, and that that sometimes poses some problems--for example, we are used to doing SVEs, placing scalp leads, etc whereas at the university hospital the residents do these things since they need to learn them and so the university nurses are less skilled . I'm just wondering, for those who have worked in both kinds of environments, whether they found this to be a generally true state of affairs and what they did to keep up their competencies if so. I know nurses who have left and then come back because they feel like their skills were not being maintained at the other hospital. I really don't want this to happen to me, and I really want to stay with the university hospital for other reasons. Thanks!