Working the Holiday

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Specializes in ER.

Where I work, we are required to work the Eve and the Day of either Christmas or new years holiday....anyone else have that same policy?

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My place requires us to work either CD or CE and the same with NYE and Day. Can't have both days off together. Therefore a lot of our folks who have out of town families can't make a trip to see them. In addition, no vacation days may be taken during this holiday period.

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Where I work, we are required to work the Eve and the Day of either Christmas or new years holiday....anyone else have that same policy?

We are required to work the holiday or the day before and the day after... this means whoever gets Christmas Day off works Christmas Eve and the day after. We rotate holidays so whoever works Christmas Day will be off on New Years Day. This year I got screwed into working 12 hours on Christmas Day and the day after because some people weren't made to follow the scheduling guidelines... I new so I am the one who got crapped on. I had a 30 minute Christmas with my family at 9:00 at night!

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical.

That sucks, sorry. It makes me angry...follow my logic. If the day we were discussing were some random Friday, would HALF the staff HAVE to work? No, right? It seems some floors follow this religiously, some do not, and the suckers who do work get floated to other floors. So not only did you get screwed, you got screwed. I hate working holidays.

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Specializes in LTC.

Nope. Here nurses and aides give there number 1 and number 2 choices of what they want off of Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day. I chose Christmas Day as number 1 and Thanksgiving as number 2. I got Thanksgiving off, Christmas Eve off, and I had to work 4 hours on Christmas Day.

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Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

You know, I am not sure what we do. I think that if your are off Christmas one year then the next year you get it off. My husband and I do not have children so we work all holidays to get extra money.

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Specializes in Stepdown progressive care.

We work either the holiday or the eve. I worked Christmas Day and had the eve off. I work New Year's eve but get New Years Day off. I also had to work the day after Christmas. My night at work was so horrible though, that I took on call.

Also, if we call in the scheduled day before our holiday or after, we don't get holiday pay. You really can't go anywhere around the Christmas holidays.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
My place requires us to work either CD or CE and the same with NYE and Day. Can't have both days off together. Therefore a lot of our folks who have out of town families can't make a trip to see them. In addition, no vacation days may be taken during this holiday period.

What's the difference to the institution if people choose which holiday they want to sacrifice - Christmas or New Year's and then let people have off two days in a row? Is your unit allowed to make your own staffing decisions, and if not, why not? A little autonomy goes a long way in giving people job satisfaction. You need to find out what your unit would like to do re: holidays (maybe not all of them agree with you). And after you gather the data, present it to leadership and put make them defend their policy. After 25 years of working every Christmas Eve and Christmas day to get off the New Year set of days, I'd be ballistic if someone made me change now. Do not have kids - glad to let those with kids have Christmas Eve and Day off.

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Specializes in Emergency, ICU.

We have a similar policy. You have to work one of the 2 - either xmas or new year's - and you have to work the 2 days in a row. I think this is great, because then you can have 2 or even 4 days off in a row around the holiday you don't work if you schedule it correctly. We also do self scheduling, which totally rocks.

I worked xmas eve and day this year and loved it. It was super quiet, we had good food, good moods, and now I'm off for a while until after the new year. I would rather work xmas anytime. Can't take the droves of intox pts. on the new yr... Luckily, many people want xmas off.

BTW, I work nights, so I was still home for the actual holiday :):cookies:

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Specializes in onc, M/S, hospice, nursing informatics.

With previous managers, we always had to work either holiday eve or holiday day, and alternated each year. This year we have a new (and improved) manager, and we got to choose which days we wanted off. Unfortunately, now there is nobody scheduled to work night shift on New Years' Eve. Hmmm... I wonder how that is going to work out!

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

We always had to work Christmas Eve and New Year's Day or Christmas and New Year's Eve. That's the way the staff voted, as most of them had their families close by. Good for them. For me, with no family closer than a 5 hour drive, and some as much as 10 hours away, it meant no family holidays with cousins for my kids. If I had to do it again...I wouldn't. I wish I had found another job.

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Specializes in ED, Flight.

We are required to work one of three: Tgiving, Xmas, or New Year's. Nights or days.

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