Someone told me something that upset me today.

[oramar]

A person very close to me(but I won't say who) told me in off hand way that their manager swipes them in and out sometimes, not just the person telling me the story but everyone on the unit has been swiped in by the manager. There are a variety of reasons they say this happens and even though this person would not allow anyone else to swipe them in at the time clock they do allow their boss to do. I told them what everyone knows that doing that is cause for instance dismissal in most facility and it says as much in most handbooks. This person blew me off and said that the boss is in very good with higher levels of management and that would never happen. I told this person they are making a big mistake and next time they should tell the boss they would prefer they not do that. They said it would sound as if they were critizing their manager and they would not feel comfortable telling their manager to stop. Am I wrong maybe, is it OK if the manager swipes you in if they need you to go and do something else at the moment which means you have to leave the clockside?

[Vito Andolini]

Health care in the US is very penny ante. I clock in and I don't work the floor.

A lot of it has to do with regulations that protect the worker and facility as regards accidents - Workmen's Compensation - and a lot of it is just treating us like children. Health care is worse than any other industry I've worked for this.

And a lot of it is realizing that some people will try to get away with anything they can get away with, including professionals. It's also realizing that some staff are donating tons of hours, that is, not getting lunch or breaks, not asking for their OT, clocking out and then coming back to chart, stuff like that.

Being a professional does not mean one is above reproach. Look at all the white collar crime we hear so much about. This is done by the likes of Andy Fastow of Enron, Madoff, etc. Aren't these so-called pros? Different line of work than us, sure, but still executives, professionals. Would you trust them any more? How often do we hear of doctors and various Medicare fraud and nutty stuff like writing or tattooing their sleeping, vulnerable patients or removing the wrong extremity? Or lawyers who miss filing deadlines or otherwise commit malpractice, negligence, etc? Look at all the nurse addicts who actually leave their patients in pain and steal their pain Rx.

[Vito Andolini]

We use time sheets, which are filled in by the employee and authorised by the nurse in charge, theoretically each shift but often forgotten about until the end of the pay period. Nobody gets too bent out of shape is people are five minutes late, provided it isn't habitual, and nobody minds staying five minutes late, particularly as (provided the ward's quiet) the morning staff usually leave half an hour early on weekends.

Although other wards are more draconian, provided you stayed back to do work, overtime's granted without a drama, usually in the form of banked hours - you can then leave early on another day or (if you let the hours build up) take an extra day off with pay.

There's almost no abuse of the system, at least on my ward .

It's not fair, though, to get back only straight time instead of OT.

[Vito Andolini]

That's exactly what it's called.

A fingerprint thing ....for places that aren't respecting-you-as-professionals

\

This can be side-stepped, too, though, at least where I used to work. You just had to say, "Oh, I forgot to clock in or out." Or, "Oh, the clock wasn't working." Then you filled out a paper to that effect and your Supervisor always approved it, so some people who were habitually tardy, up to 25 minutes late routinely, started just using the paper all the time, thereby avoiding clocking in at all. Of course, they always filled out the paper as having arrived on time. So they were stealing from the employer. And the amount stolen amount to grand larceny. So I was told, anyway. Don't know if anyone ever ratted on them. I was gone before I had heard this.

[Satori77, ADN]

Nobody where I work clocks on, including the support staff. It doesn't seem very respecting-you-as-professionals (is there a word for that?), but I can see the advantages for admin.

I am surprised at places that don't have you clock in and out. In my experience, people would take advantage of that. Who could stop an employee that is habitually tardy, or leaving early. I have seen many salaried people do this, since they don't have to clock in and out.

Also, we used to have a time clock on the computer in our break room. Several people were using this to get extra time. Say they work 7am to 6pm (with an hour lunch). They would clock out when they got to the break room, and clock back in while in there as well, before they went back to work. Two said people would finish early, about 5pm (we work in a vet hospital, these people work in the ICU and swing shift comes in at 4:30 and does rounds, then swing takes over the shift. Day shift only stays if they aren't caught up). Anyway, in that case, they should be clocking out and leaving. Instead, they would go to the break room, and chat for an hour, then clock out. Several people reported them, so the time clock got taken off that computer.

[Satori77, ADN]

Does that mean you're not entitled to compensation if you're injured on the grounds but before you clock on?

This happened at our work. Someone came to work early, but did not clock in (as we are not allowed to clock in early). She slipped and fell, the floor had just been mopped I think, and broke her wrist. She is fighting for workman's comp, but they are fighting her back. It is getting to the point where are they are trying to get her fired. Sad, sad world we live in.

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

If staff routinely work over their hours - do management come and check why? Or use it to gauge the unit acuity? Have they ever put on extra staff because of excess late clocking out?

Because we don't use a time clock, anyone who starts early (a patient is crashing and they need the oncoming nurse to jump in, for example) or stays late (same example applies, unstable patient with all hands on deck and occupied) donates the time. Those of us who feel we should be paid for our overtime will dutifully fill out an OT slip and submit it, only to find that our manager can come up with 15 "good" reasons why we shouldn't have been doing the OT in the first place... oh, and it wasn't approved by the manager in advance. So we don't get paid. The only time I've ever been paid for this time is when the manager on that shift is up to her elbows helping me with my unstable patient. On our unit there are hundreds of hours of unrecognised OT every month.

Health care in the US is very penny ante. I clock in and I don't work the floor.

A lot of it has to do with regulations that protect the worker and facility as regards accidents - Workmen's Compensation - and a lot of it is just treating us like children. Health care is worse than any other industry I've worked for this.

Does that mean you're not entitled to compensation if you're injured on the grounds but before you clock on?

Here, if you're scheduled to work and are in an accident while on your way, or on the hospital premises, you are covered. But if you leave early and the same happens, the hospital will claw back any insurance paid out. We've (the nurses) been reminded a number of times that we are not to leave early even if we've been standing around with our hands in our pockets for an hour. (The RTs, UCs and NAs often leave early and haven't been warned because they're not under the supervision of nursing management. I often pass them in the tunnel on my way in.) Of course, we have universal health care so the bills will be paid one way or another.

We use a computerised scheduling programme that keeps track of who is supposed to work and when. Any changes to that schedule (unanticipated OT, missed breaks, sick days, pressing-necessity leave, cancelled-due-to-low-census and so on) are manually documented and data-entered by the staffing clerk. We are paid from 0700-1915 or 1900-0715, whether we arrive at 0645 and start working at 0650, then don't leave until 1945 or not. And the chronic late-comers (we only have handful out of over 100 nurses) are paid for time they're not actually present. I'm undecided whether a time clock would be a good thing for us or not; we'd still have the issue of, "You should manage your time better so that you can leave on time", which totally ignores the fact that we're a PICU with extremely complex patients and social situations and do face-to-face bedside reports... after the "general" report the off-going charge nurse gives to the next shift in the staff room before they come onto the unit. But making waves only gets you stranded on a desert island. (See me in my grass skirt?)

[talaxandra]

It's not fair, though, to get back only straight time instead of OT.

We're entitled to straight time for the first two hours, time and a half for the next two, and double time thereafter (nights, which are ten hours shifts, skip straight to time and a half), whether we get paid overtime or hours in lieu. The advantage of time in lieu is you don't get taxed at the higher rate and get extra time off when you like it.

In the almost twenty years I've worked at my hospital I can't recall any habitual tardiness - there's quite strong peer pressure to turn up punctually and to not leave early.