They Think I'm Working Christmas??

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Ok so where I work they apparently don't tell the staff what they're working Christmas because they don't want to hear the moaning...(?). Well that has annoyed me already, but I had calmed down because I'm already working Sunday from 7pm-7am....so thats Christmas YES??

Well I go into work last night and there is the schedule. I'm working Sat and Sun 12 hrs ending Monday am and they have me down for going back for 3-11pm???? WTH??

Now I'm really worked up. Annoyed. Pissed off..you name it.

I ask the staffing coordinator and she says some nonsence about Sunday night not counting and she had to put me on Monday also..maybe I could switch with someone "LMAO".

Now mind you, I've asked all my kids and their families to dinner on Monday. I figured I'd go home, put the turkey in and nap. I'd be fine yea? Well NOT IF I have to go back to work.

I am not cancelling Christmas.

I left a note under the staffing coordinators door stating that because I cannot come back on Monday without any real sleep AND they failed to let us know so we could schedule our LIVES I was not working monday. Thank you very much...

As expected my phone just rang. DON.."Joanne give me a call so we can talk about the schedule." I didn't answer it!!!! I know I'll have to call back..eventually, but shes going to say "Work or be fired."

Thats the way its done there.

To say that if it's one's normally scheduled hours that one should work is ridiculous. So if it should happen to fall that I am supposed to work every Christmas for several years in a row, I should shut up and do it? I think not!! There is a reason why hospitals (the ones run by normal people, anyway) require that each nurse work alternating years on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Both are pretty heavy-duty religious and family holidays, and to I for one would pitch a fit if I was expected to work just because Christmas fell on my regularly scheduled day.

At my job, it is strictly the way you first describe, TazziRN. It stinks.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I'm working 12 hr shifts on saturday and sunday. So I work all thru christmas eve (they don't count it as a holiday) and into christmas am.

It stinks that no facility I know of counts Eve as a holiday, either Christmas or NY. I guess the good part for you is that you can have an early gathering and/or church attendance on Eve and you will have either C Day or C Night free, depending on when you sleep.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
At what point do you become concerned about patient safety? How alert are you after a night shift. I know a girl here who would go from a night in the hospital to a day shift in community health and think nothing of it. I just think thats negligent, because how can you give your patients the proper care and treatment when you are overtired?

I don't understand why nursing is the only occupation where no one seems to acknowledge that we have families and that children need their mom/dad at home sometimes, w/e and evenings are precious and holidays even more so.

Anyone who is overworking themselves like that is NOT doing it for the patient, they are doing it for their bank account.

I guess they have bills to pay. Nursing pay is not that great.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency Room.

have they lost their minds???? i would start looking for a new job after the first of the year. they obviously don't care about their nurses having a life.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I think people whine entirely too much... if its your regularly scheduled hours you work... it'd be another scenario if it was forced overtime or something, call me crazy but without your employer you wouldnt have a home to go to and have family over for christmas... so missing out one year to give back to your employer and even more importantly your patients shouldnt be reason to cry.. and as far a finding out three days in advance we also get our schedules about 5 days before the next schedule is up due ot the fact that in the past people whined so much i think its a good thing... less whining means less of a headache for me

Anything less than a 30 day notice for a holiday schedule is just plain unacceptable to me.

That's quite noble of you to place the needs of your employer so high. It is true that without "an" employer you would not have a home to go to but that's not exclusive to "this" employer.

This business will not in the forseable future experience a downslide that results in the loss of thousands of jobs and the closing of places of business. Your needs in such times, despite how many sacrafices for the "needs" of an employer you have made, are the last thing on your employers mind. I know as I have lived it several times. Never again will I hold the needs of my employer above my own.

Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Trauma ICU, MICU/SICU.
I think people whine entirely too much... if its your regularly scheduled hours you work... it'd be another scenario if it was forced overtime or something, call me crazy but without your employer you wouldnt have a home to go to and have family over for christmas... so missing out one year to give back to your employer and even more importantly your patients shouldnt be reason to cry.. and as far a finding out three days in advance we also get our schedules about 5 days before the next schedule is up due ot the fact that in the past people whined so much i think its a good thing... less whining means less of a headache for me

:roll :roll :roll

I'm laughing because you've GOT to be JOKING! Are you for real???

OP worked 24 hours between Sat. Night and Christmas and then was scheduled to come back less than 8 hours later for 3-11 on Christmas. That isn't even allowed at my hospital.

without your employer you wouldnt have a home to go to and have family over for christmas...

Without nurses my employer wouldn't have a hospital.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

You know, every time someone lets a hospital get away with this, they empower the hospital to do it again and again. I am all for the OP not letting them get away with it. This attitude that we owe our employers something more than an honest day's work for an honest day's pay is nonsense. The honest day that jodyangel will be working ends at 7 am Christmas Day. She doesn't owe this hospital her health or sanity just because they are so kind as to allow her to 32 hours within a 52 hour period, over a holiday weekend no less.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in PICU, surgical post-op.

Jodyangel- are you unionized? If so, DEF take that one to your shop steward. I was a wide-eyed new grad this past summer, ready to drop anything to work extra hours for my hospital. Until we went on strike. And our HN's were inside calling us scumbags. Showed us how much we were actually valued. I'll still work extra hours if it suits me, but I'm not falling all over myself. I just can't believe your employer let their disdain for all of you be as evident as to give 3 days notice for Christmas! Stick to your guns, baby. And as far as the 8 hour thing between shifts goes... doesn't your hospital make you clock out at 7:30? If so, you've then got less than 8 hours between the shifts they seem to think you should be working, and that seems a little less than legal, no?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med/Surg, Geriatrics.
I think people whine entirely too much... if its your regularly scheduled hours you work... it'd be another scenario if it was forced overtime or something, call me crazy but without your employer you wouldnt have a home to go to and have family over for christmas... so missing out one year to give back to your employer and even more importantly your patients shouldnt be reason to cry.. and as far a finding out three days in advance we also get our schedules about 5 days before the next schedule is up due ot the fact that in the past people whined so much i think its a good thing... less whining means less of a headache for me

I admire a good work ethic but you give your employer way too much credit. The relationship between an employer and employee is a business relationship: You give them labor and they pay you in return. You owe them nothing more than that and you certainly do not have to "give back" to them at holiday time. And giving them credit for having a home to go to is just wild. They don't own you and they do not have the right to hold you up until 3 (or 5) days before the schedule comes out while they decide when they can use you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in mostly in the basement.

All I can say is WOW. I am constantly amazed at what some of you all have (?) to put up with out there. My job has it's share of nightmares and stresses(busy inner-city ED with all its attendant problems) but I am just dumbfounded with what goes on in other areas.

We staff between 8 and 12 nurses throughout the 24 hours(I have no idea how many different people that adds up to--not a staffing guru) but it sounds like we may be unique in that No One is working ANY holiday this year(Thanksgiving, xmas Eve or Day, New Years Eve or Day) that did not ask for and request that shift. Some, including me so low on the totem pole, are not working any of the major holidays. A few people even got bumped from their requests because of seniority and so will not be working. We do get Time and a half for all the above mentioned and, yes, including the eve's and night before's for night shift so that certainly helps. Heck, I even get time and a half some sunday night in the middle of Jan. because it's before Martin Luther King day!

I just don't get it. Why the huge disparity from the horror stories I read here? Not to start another dead horse beating but I can only say that having a good contract(yup, that awful Union word) obviously goes a long way to avoid the fiasco's ya'all are putting up with.

Miss Mab

again, not in any way super pro-union but I can tell you I would never do this job in the environments many of you describe and for the $$ I hear about. We are worth more.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in L&D.
Jodyangel- are you unionized? If so, DEF take that one to your shop steward. I was a wide-eyed new grad this past summer, ready to drop anything to work extra hours for my hospital. Until we went on strike. And our HN's were inside calling us scumbags. Showed us how much we were actually valued. I'll still work extra hours if it suits me, but I'm not falling all over myself. I just can't believe your employer let their disdain for all of you be as evident as to give 3 days notice for Christmas! Stick to your guns, baby. And as far as the 8 hour thing between shifts goes... doesn't your hospital make you clock out at 7:30? If so, you've then got less than 8 hours between the shifts they seem to think you should be working, and that seems a little less than legal, no?

Nope no union. And I clock out when I'm done in the am..usually more like 8am lol.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

LOL...I can relate. I am working 6 am - 6 pm tomorrow, 10 pm - 2 pm Sunday, and 6 am - 6 pm Tuesday. My schedule was a little less messed up until today, but they fired a nurse for refusing to come to work during a snowstorm. It wasn't snowing when her shift started, it had stopped snowing by the time she would have been off, and she no call / no showed the following day. I see why they terminated her, but it really bites that it is complicating my holiday even more!

Best of luck to you...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment