Working nights, tons of work meetings scheduled during my sleep hours?

Jaimie.RN · Feb 10, 2012

The meetings are mandatory, but we do get paid for them. However, I cannot drive home, sleep for 1 hour, then drive right back, and coming in on my days off makes me REEL with anger lol. I just am so exhausted. I skipped the meeting this morning. I was too tired from the night from he double hockey sticks (full moon) and I will just email her and ask if I can come some other time.

xoemmylouox, ASN, RN · Feb 12, 2012

The last place I worked pulled the same crap. We HAD to attend, yet the meetings were always mid day. It made me nuts. Then I had trainings I had to attend that were middle of the day. Needless to stay I found a way out of that place ASAP.

georgescifo · Feb 24, 2012

This is an alarming situation. You need to get or ask for extra time to sleep as continues days without proper sleep may destabilize you mentally and physically.

prettymica, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN, APRN, NP · Feb 24, 2012

When I worked nights I would skip all midday meetings. 1. I was usually in class an hour and a half away. 2. If they can respect the fact that I worked all night then I can't respect a midday meeting. When I worked for sam's club they would have a day meeting and a night meeting. With nursing I can only remember one night meeting and that was after I switched to weekend Baylor. All the meetings were mandatory and I mandatorly skip then all. If they couldn't rest the fact that I was sleeping or further my education then I couldn't respect those bs meetings. I just read the minutes the next time I had work.

RainMom · Mar 2, 2012

Our staff meetings are held about 30 minutes after each shift & a copy of what is covered is posted to be initialed by those who were unable to attend to show they reviewed the content. Inservices are the same & are sometimes offered on multiple dates so everyone can choose the most convenient time to attend.

nurse2033, MSN, RN · Mar 2, 2012

This is my #1 pet peeve with poor management. Become an advocate for nights. Write your risk management department about thiswith lots of citations about sleep deprivation and nursing errors. Stress that your concern is for the safety of the patients and staff. Include literature on driving while impaired from fatigue. You are SO worried that the hospital could be held liable if a nurse was required to attend a meeting in the middle of their sleep cycle and died in a car crash on the way home. You just want to protect the hospital, your patients, and your coworkers. I solved this problem in the past by simply not going to the meetings, and I didn't get fired. I told my boss I would be happy to attend if the meeting was held at a reasonable time, say 1 hour prior to my shift. But that would require her to stay past her off time. She's not stupid, she took that job so she could be home in time for dinner and sleep all night.

barbyann · Mar 2, 2012

tell them to video the meeting/in-service and post it to youtube so you can watch it from home when you wake up......been done

nkochrn, RN · Mar 2, 2012

Our nurse's meetings are always scheduled at 2:30 pm. Our shifts run from 4-4. When I was working nights, if there was a meeting scheduled before noon, there is no way I'd go.

turnforthenurse, MSN, NP · Mar 7, 2012

My facility schedules staff meetings at 0730 to accommodate for night shift and then again at 1500 and have them over a span of three days. The meetings usually last an hour, which is doable, imo. Sometimes they last longer. That is better than when we still had our old director - it wasn't uncommon to have a staff meeting that lasted FOUR HOURS - imagine going to that after working or if you had to work that night! A lot of night shifters would start trickling out after 90 minutes, but I always felt rude for just walking out so I would stay there :/ And of course those meetings were ALWAYS mandatory.

Now, they're not necessarily mandatory but during your yearly evaluation they see how many staff meetings you have attended.