What are your views on switching days with people?

Nurses General Nursing

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Do you never switch with others? Do you always say yes, unless you absolutely cannot? What do make of those who will ask people to switch with them, but never to seem reciprocate? Do you question why they don't use their PTO?

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As for me I have switched with people. I rarely ask. I do know coworkers who seem to ask every 2 weeks. I question why they don't change their schedule. What annoys me is if you ask every week and then keep hounding me.

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I'll do it once in a while, if there seems to be a good reason and it doesn't cause me inconvenience.

Like you, I had a coworker who used to ask all the time. I finally realized she was just tweaking her schedule to make it "perfect" at the expense of mine being chaotic.

I've also had a few cases where switches were in limbo and it ended up bad for me. Once I agreed to a switch with someone and management rejected it, so I had to change my schedule back. Then the same coworker asked me to switch again. I told her to get a firm okay FIRST, and then come back to me. She never came back, and I got a call Saturday night asking "Where are you? You're supposed to be at work tonight for Nurse X."

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I have never had a job with PTO so that never factored in. Otherwise, in extended care home health, any infrequent switching has pretty much worked out OK. But when I worked in LTC facilities, I was taken advantage of big time but it was not over an individual asking for a switch. It was because I was promised a certain schedule accommodation in regards to me attending school. I got told off by a new manager who told me not to ask for that again, even though, the DON who hired me had promised to work with me. The new manager gave the nurse who slept six hours out of an eight hour night shift her "preferred" nights off at my expense. That just showed me who mattered around there when management politics changed.

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52 minutes ago, Sour Lemon said:

She never came back, and I got a call Saturday night asking "Where are you? You're supposed to be at work tonight for Nurse X."

Sour indeed. That would of pissed me off.

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It really doesn’t bother me as long as I didn’t have other plans and it’s not a case of a co worker taking advantage of me to make their schedule better at my expense.

I worked in a very small unit where it was frowned upon to even ask. Didn’t matter what was going on in your life. It took me a while to understand I should never ever ask, even the people who were OK with it as there was a core of staff who acted like you were as good as abandoning your job for even asking. Wouldn’t you know it one of the leaders of the Never Ask to Swap crew had a serious family event (child in ICU) she didn’t have the nerve to ask me to cover her On Call, a supervisor asked for her, she was very surprised to hear upon coming back to work that I didn’t expect her to “pay me back”.

In case it’s not clear, this was not a pleasant unit to work on, in fact it was straight up horrible. I transferred to a different unit and life was 100% better.

I’ve never been paid anywhere near enough as a nurse to want to continue working with co-workers who’s personal philosophy was “I will absolutely never swap or cover another nurse”. I mean really, how ugly does a unit have to been that you would believe that no one would volunteer to cover you so you could sit beside the ICU bed of your child!!

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18 minutes ago, kp2016 said:

It really doesn’t bother me as long as I didn’t have other plans and it’s not a case of a co worker taking advantage of me to make their schedule better at my expense.

I worked in a very small unit where it was frowned upon to even ask. Didn’t matter what was going on in your life. It took me a while to understand I should never ever ask, even the people who were OK with it as there was a core of staff who acted like you were as good as abandoning your job for even asking. Wouldn’t you know it one of the leaders of the Never Ask to Swap crew had a serious family event (child in ICU) she didn’t have the nerve to ask me to cover her On Call, a supervisor asked for her, she was very surprised to hear upon coming back to work that I didn’t expect her to “pay me back”.

In case it’s not clear, this was not a pleasant unit to work on, in fact it was straight up horrible. I transferred to a different unit and life was 100% better.

I’ve never been paid anywhere near enough as a nurse to want to continue working with co-workers who’s personal philosophy was “I will absolutely never swap or cover another nurse”. I mean really, how ugly does a unit have to been that you would believe that no one would volunteer to cover you so you could sit beside the ICU bed of your child!!

The nurse with a child in the ICU more than likely thought about her own attitude when she didn’t have the backbone to ask for what she needed. Hope she learned a lesson.

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Specializes in NICU/Mother-Baby/Peds/Mgmt.

I've always asked for swaps, and I tried to do them as much as possible. Worked at one big place where we all carried a little planner in our pockets so in case you were in the break room or coming out of the bathroom (yes, it happened!) and someone needed a swap you could tell them yes or no right away. And to prevent any "where are you?" Saturday night surprises you had to do paperwork signed by each nurse. If you swap with someone and your schedule is screwed up it's only your own fault.

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Specializes in Dialysis.
8 hours ago, Sour Lemon said:

I told her to get a firm okay FIRST, and then come back to me. She never came back, and I got a call Saturday night asking "Where are you? You're supposed to be at work tonight for Nurse X."

That's why I always require the switch in writing, with all signatures, mine included. This way, there is recourse if someone doesn't show.

Prior to becoming a manager, I had gotten to the point that I had always traded with others, but hardly anyone would ever return the favor. I quit trading with all but who would reciprocate. The others then said I was mean. Nope, I just quit being a doormat!

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Specializes in Community Health, Med/Surg, ICU Stepdown.

I do it whenever someone asks if I can, and I've asked a few times as well. There's an easy way to request it in our shift select where each person has to put in the request and both will see if it is approved or denied.

Only problem is when you get no response at all and no response to emails/calls to staffing! If no response by the day before we figure it's not approved. But once a nurse asked me to work for her, it wasn't approved day before. She showed up to work and my name was on the schedule instead of hers. Apparently they approved the switch at 2 am in the computer and we were supposed to have been up staring at our shift select all night LOL

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTACH, LTC, Home Health.

I’m not swapping a darn thing. I hate my schedule and I hate yours, too! But if you call out, I might come in for the overtime...NOT!?

Seriously, though, there was a reason I dropped down to working two spaced-out days a week: work was interfering with my free time. On my last travel assignment, I only had to offer them one day a week. If that day didn’t work for them, oh well..see ya next week.??

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2 hours ago, Hoosier_RN said:

That's why I always require the switch in writing, with all signatures, mine included. This way, there is recourse if someone doesn't show.

That was actually a requirement at my job, as well. I had not signed for the new switch, and could have fought it, but there was some gray area. I had actually agreed to the switch, but told the person to check back with me before I changed my schedule ...and they never did. If I had not come in, my co-workers would have been short staffed because the other girl was not coming.

Lesson learned!

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Specializes in Dialysis.
2 hours ago, Sour Lemon said:

That was actually a requirement at my job, as well. I had not signed for the new switch, and could have fought it, but there was some gray area. I had actually agreed to the switch, but told the person to check back with me before I changed my schedule ...and they never did. If I had not come in, my co-workers would have been short staffed because the other girl was not coming.

Lesson learned!

I think it's required most places that I know of, to avoid issues like this

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