I was working night shift (12 hr) as an agency nursing half way through my 4-week contract. Around 4:45am in the morning, I told the other nurse I was working with that I was going on break. After that I walked into the chapel in the hospital and rested my head with my eyes closed. I had my phone alarm set from exactly 20 min. After 10 minutes after I got to the chapel, the nursing supervisor told me that they have a no sleeping policy and after my shift I would not be welcomed back. I then preceded to tell her I was on lunch break and she informed that it did not matter.
Is this legal? Could I have said I was praying or meditating? I was in the in between state of relaxing and de-stressing, although it would have appeared to an outsider of sleeping!
If you were in the chapel, who told the Supervisor you were sleeping? Is it a common hang-out spot for the staff?
Maxthecat has probably hit it on the mark; their argument is likely to be that you would not be "alert" enough to attend to an emergency situation. If your lunch breaks are paid, they can call the shots. If, however, they are not paid, they should have informed you that naps, even on your own time, are against company policy and a firing offense. Check through your documentation and see if there's anything mentioned there. If not, you might be within your rights to claim unfair dismissal.
I agree, it is not fair, and I hope it does not jeopardize your chances of further employment.
There might be a clause somewhere that you may be terminated for whatever reason. Perhaps for yelling at a patient *WHat the **** are you doing?* when he pulled out a feeding tube that you just spent a 3 hour road trip putting in. (srsly)
It's legal to drink alcohol. Should he be able to do that on a non paid break?
I'm being a bit facetious, but you've made a blanket statement which just doesn't hold true. Employees must follow policies of their hospital. Just because something is legal does not mean employees have carte blanche.
Horseshoe you have a point I hadn't thought about alcohol. I think that it is a given that you don't drink alcohol before work or on breaks.
I think it's also a given at most places that you do not sleep while on the job (even on break time).
There is a difference between" breaks", which are paid time and "lunches" or "dinners" which aren't paid. Where I work you can sleep at "lunch" or "dinners" or what ever you call that 30 minutes of unpaid time on night shift. You can leave the building. My work even encourages people to go out and walk around the campus during day light hours on lunch breaks.
I am not one who ever sleeps at work during my unpaid time but am glad I work for a company who wouldn't fire me for doing so.
At my facility, you are allowed to take naps on your break (unpaid), but not in any public places (conference room only)... the chapel is a public place, and it would look really bad if someone walked in to pray and saw an employee sound asleep in there. We just had a CNA fired for falling asleep in the nurse's station. (but it wasn't her first time)
I also agree with the power nap thing... some people swear by it, but I can't do it and never have, no matter how tired I might be.
I think it's also a given at most places that you do not sleep while on the job (even on break time).
I think unless you have worked at 'most places' this statement is a bit far-fetched.
At my place of employement, (5 hospitals same company, I work float pool at all locations), it is not a given. We are deducted a 30 min lunch and two 15 min breaks each 12 hr shift from our paychecks. We are not allowed to leave the facility unless we have approved coverage and clock out but otherwise may sleep, watch tv, play video games, whip out your ipad, pray, listed to your ipod or whatever you please in the designated employee break areas.
When you take a lunch it must be approved by the charge nurse and she will cover it. If my pt chokes and needs CPR they are not going to go find me to perform CPR.............she will do it herself as the licensed and competent indivudual I left caring for my patients as I take my unpaid lunch.
We are not inmates.........geez
Having said that, read through your employee handbook or call HR and ask. It was not the same case at other places (states) I have worked at.
Live and learn. I have worked at many places during my career of almost 45 years. You have to really be careful of what you do when you are new in an environment. As you gain time and experience there you will learn what is tolerated and not. You also have to realize that some other employees may develop resentments against you and complain when they see you doing something that may be construed as against the rules. I have known several people who were photographed sleeping in the area they were working. One got away with it; the other was fired.
I believe you may have upset somebody because you were fired so quickly. This is unfortunate. It may be a time for you to examine how you get along with other people on the job. That is life.
My husband takes naps on his breaks at his (non-healthcare) job. I couldn't do it on a regular basis. But there have been a couple times that a short nap with my alarm set to wake me and a trusted coworker willing to make sure that I wake up and get back to work, well, it's been quite helpful to me.
I really feel like if the hospital wants to control me, then they need to pay me. So if they want to say what I can and can't do on my break, then they need to quit deducting the time from my paycheck. If I'm scheduled 6:30am to 7:30pm, and only getting paid for 12 or 12.5 hours of that, then there's an hour in there that they don't get to tell me what to do.
Although, I'd advise against sleeping in a public area. That never looks good, even if you're off the clock. :)
Since you are new, and since policies do vary, I would have thought they might have cut you some slack. On the other hand, since you are new and since policies do vary, you might have confirmed that resting/sleeping is OK on your breaks before going ahead.
The facilities where I've worked that held sleeping on any part of your shift as grounds for immediate termination took the view that a break is a chance to get away from direct patient contact for a bit, but that you are still "on duty" as it were. If a patient suddenly took a turn for the worse, you had to be alert and ready to jump in, even if you were still technically on break. They felt that even a few minutes of sleep could jeopardize your ability to be at your best as quickly as necessary. This probably varies with individuals and could be argued, but this is likely the reasoning behind their policy.
I can see their point here, but what if you were off the floor or out of the hospital? I wonder what they would have said to that.
Evidenced Based Practice dictates that we re-learn what has been driven into our skulls by prior headmistresses, house supervisors, lead nurses and managers.....not to mention what is preached by Human Resources the world over.
Even though napping during breaks or meal periods is often prohibited, both laboratory and field studies suggest that naps (15 minutes to 3 hours) are quite effective in increasing alertness during extended work periods or at night.134-139 Since few operational settings allow for long naps (e.g., 3 hours), most naps studied in operational settings are short. For example, 20-minute single naps during the first night shift improved the speed of responses on a vigilance task at the end of the shift,134 and 26-minute in-seat naps have been shown to increase physiological alertness and psychomotor performance of airline pilots.140 When pilots were allowed a nap during night flights, their performance improved by 34 percent, and physiologic alertness improved 54 percent compared to the no-nap condition.140
The alerting effects of naps are varied, with most studies suggesting that improvements in subjective alertness and performance are sustained for up to an hour or more postnap.138, 139, 141 Longer naps tend to produce longer periods of alertness and improved performance.142 Although some studies report sleep inertia, or a period of decreased alertness and performance immediately following a nap,138, 139, 141 this effect was not seen in Driskell's meta-analysis.142
Horseshoe, BSN, RN
5,879 Posts
I don't know if I'd be able to think that quickly in my sleep fog, but that's a good one.