Would you do this so others could get vacation...

[BittyBabyGrower]

We have a large unit, over 80 nurses. Our unit want us to all pick up 8 hours a month so that the very low seniour people can get vacation. My beef is I have worked there for 18 years and why should I work extra so others can get vacation? Last year we did this and we not only worked the extra, but we were taken off of our 12's! Now, if I wanted to work 4 days a week, I would work 4 days a week. What a PITA to find a sitter! I was under the impression that you could not be prescheduled ET unless there is a staffing issue, which there isn't, only people who want more vacationt time. does this sound right to you?

If you were a higher seniour person, would you be pleased to do this or unhappy?

[lady_jezebel]

Thank god I work for a magnet hospital! Nope, there's no way that I would step outside my agreement with the manager about my designated hr/wk. I'm currently a 0.8 -- I would NEVER work above a 0.8 b/cs management or the floor has staffing issues. This just means that they NEED TO HIRE MORE PEOPLE. Period.

:angryfire

[nekhismom]

I also work at a magnet hospital. Our vacations are granted based on seniority. THe vacation policy sucks and staffing is SHORT, SHORT, SHORT!!! We have signs everywhere saying you can't trade shifts with others, you can't get a PRN to cover your shift if you want a day off and don't have PTO, you can't take any unpaid time off, etc. There are about 10 newbies already and about 20 more are expected come may.

Basically, I don't think magnet status is the solution to short staffing that people think it is. We still have very little autonomy and our vacation policy stinks.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

I work at a magnet hospital, and sometimes we have to work extra to help give a coworker a vacation, but not often. As I said before, it's just a nice thing to do for someone, but it definately isn't mandated, you are asked. Luckily here in Florida people are taking vacations at all times of the year, winter and summer. In fact I skip the summer and take a fall and spring vacation.

I'm not so sure seniority is the right way to go, but I don't have a better solution. If there isn't much turnover, or the unit is small the the low person on the totem poll will always be low. My spouse works in administration in a small department, and a couple of people who have been there for empteen years tried to pick a perfect schedule for themselves, and dump a horrible schedule of leftover days on him. A year later he asserted himself and they did a fair and equal schedule rather than one based on seniority as no one was going anywhere. They work out their vacations amongst themselves and work extra when one of them is gone.

But that's off topic as the original poster stated the unit was very large.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

Thanks for the replies...I am hoping to be moving to another unit if a position opens up...at least there I won't have to pick up the time!

[Alnamvet]

:) Having to work extra so that newbies can get their vacations is ridiculous; if the newbies get burnt out so early in the game, than health care is definitely not for them. Now, I do know, that nurses have the ability to set aside their biases/resentments/penchant for turning on each other, as in the following example: a nurse I used to work with in the ED lost her husband, a FF/Paramedic due to the cavalier attitude, and gross negligence of a useless ED doc. Her husband was not only mis-diagnosed in the ED, but by his PMD as well. To make a long story short, this gal just gave birth to her 2nd child, husband dies, and she is beside herself in grief; she also had no vacation or PAL time, in fact, prior to her husband's demise, she was treated rather shabbily by management because of her frequent call outs...all legitimate, but, nevertheless, was threatened with termination. Anyway, over 800 hours of PAL time was donated by hospital nurses, so that she could take off whatever time needed to recoup, and this is one time where I saw nurses at their very best. I wish it wouldn't have to come to this for nurses to come together, but I am proud of those nurses who did the right thing. Without digressing any further, hell no would I work extra so that new guys can go on vacation.