work dilemma, 2 12's or 3 8's???

[Piki]

I need some honest input. Anyone that has worked rotating shifts, I'd love to hear from you especially. I work part time - 24 hours per week. Right now I work both days and eves, in a post-surgical unit. And it's not always days in one week, eves the next, more often it can be something like day, off, off, day, eve. So I am somewhat used to changing shifts between daylight and evening.

However... I almost had to get mandated again this week when working a 3-11 p shift b/c 2 night nurses called off. One they were able to find someone from 7p to 7a, but then a 11-7 nurse called off. One of the other nurses working 3-11 agreed to stay. One of us would have HAD to stay 16 hours and work. I find this disturbing but apparently this is not untoward in the nursing field. This has already happened to me before when I've had to stay over 16 hours when I came in to work an evening. And my boss assured me today on the phone that our unit is fully staffed now - and that getting mandated is a lot more common on most of the other med-surg units in our hospital. We have a float pool but it's not staffed well and we don't have agency nurses.

So, I've been off the past few days (have to work sat/sun) -- I spoke with my boss and asked if it was possible to do 2 twelve hour shifts per week instead -- preferably 7 am to 7 p.m. The 12 hour shifts are of course much longer and harder on the body but the upside would be then having 5 days off. She said we could try that but I'd have to agree with doing overnights (7p to 7a) as well - say one week of AMs and one week of PMs. Nobody is allowed to just have straight daylight hours at our hospital. That is why now I have to do both day (7-3) and eve (3-11) shifts.

The benefits would be

1) one less day of driving - that is cutting 46 miles off the commute weekly

2) 5 days off per week

3) I think I get $2 more per hour overnight (right now I get $1 an hour for working eves)

4) not getting mandated for overtime unless extreme circumstances - really extreme, like natural disaster

5) not having to drive home at 12 midnight in bad snowstorms (happened a few times last winter) Usually the roads are fine around 7:30 a.m. or 7:30 p.m.

The drawbacks

1) having to stay up all night. I am not a night owl.

2) would this be hard on my body? Considering the day after working all night would pretty much be a wash

3) 12 hour shifts are a lot longer than 8's! (I did 12 hours when I did my final clinical rotations - except I did 8 12 hour shifts in a week and a half which no normal person would have to do)

4) learning to work with some of the night staff (there is one or two particularly "strong" personalities that work steady nights - however there are a few really nice cool laidback nurses too - and the night aides are actually more helpful than the day aides)

She did say she'd be fine with my trying this for a schedule or two (2 weeks). What do you think? I don't know if it'd be better or not with my family. I have 3 school aged children, and always have alot of activities, school things, etc to attend. Opening up another day of my week might be helpful.

hmmmmm.

[debi49]

If she is willing to trial you on this schedule, I'd see no harm in doing it. I liked 12's. For me, the more days off, the better.

[Batman24]

Their scheduling seems to be a big part of the problem as it appears no one is fully day or fully night shift but required to do a combo of both. I could never do that. That can wreck havoc on your system. I bet a lot of nurses are calling out because they are just too tired to work. Yikes.

I work 3 days a week 12 hour shifts from 7am-7pm. I love it because I have 4 days off.

[Piki]

You can work 3 12's night time steady if you want, or steady nights (either 5 8's, or 2 8's and 2 12's) - but no one can work steady daylight - you either have to rotate if you want 12's day/ night or you are day/eve....

I wish it were just an option to do 2 AM's.

[lpnflorida]

If it were me, I would take the straight night 12 hours shifts if available, Many of the people I work with work 3 night 12 in a row. They enjoy it. I hated rotating shifts, had that for twenty years and would never do it again. It is too hard on the body. What ever it takes to get a straight shift is what I would do.