Midnight Venting...

So unbelievable. 

Work is notorious for calling me off until 11pm and then calling me in. If I am going to work, I would rather be there the whole time, then go in at 11pm when I am tired and ready to go bed. 

Either call me off, or call me in. 

Sitting for 4 hours waiting for a call is pointless and unnecessary.

Here are few examples of how things are run:

First instance of ridiculousness:

Christmas Eve...they called me off until eleven (mind you, were at 19 patients and our maximum is 24). We had 4 nurses there, with 5 patients/nurse and one nurse with 4 patients. The charge nurse had no patients at this point. The charge nurse can take patients and are expected to if it means another nurse can be off the clock. Ten rolls around and the charge nurse calls. She says she really needs me and I asked her how many patients we have and she says 20. That means all the nurses are filled up, but the charge nurse could take patients. 

She claimed that ER was full and that we may get admissions and she didn't want to risk it, so she called me. I got ready, drove up there and took one patient that the charge didn't want to take. Everything was done so there was nothing for me to do except sit, waiting for more patients. 

12 rolls by....1 rolls by....a few hours it is 5 am. At this point, I have asked her every hour if I could go home because there was nothing to do but she was insistent that we were going to get patients and she needed me. 6 am rolls around and at around 630 I get an admission. I take report and wait for the patient to come. At 6:45 the patient comes and it is time for shift change so I didn't even do the admission. My whole point: there was absolutely NO reason for me to be there and out of laziness, she decided to keep me around. First off, thanks for ruining my Christmas eve. Second off, thanks for ruining my Christmas day. Enough said.

Second instance of ridiculousness:

This evening I was called off until 11pm, which at first, seems to be a good thing. 

I recieved a call at around 10 pm from the charge nurse. "Jenna, we really need you to come in." My reply, "Ok. How many patients do we have?" Her answer. "We have 22, but I need you to come in so another nurse can go home. They made an error in calling you off and because she was next in rotation to be called off, she wants to go home." So, I was going to come in so that another nurse could go home because of their own error. I called her back and stated I thought it was unfair that I had to get ready, leave home, drive to work and report for a shift that is being covered by a nurse already there, just because she wanted to go home. This is simply not right. She decided to argue that because of the rotation, I would still need to come in because I was not supposed to be called off. I decided to come in and not argue my point. 

I pulled into the hospital parking lot and after a drive, I had enough time to really think about it. I decided to call the house supervisor (the head nurse of the hospital) and ask her what she thought of the situation. Immediately, she agreed that it was out of line and not my fault the error was made and that it was wrong of the charge nurse to do this. She made the call to my supervisor and I was able to go home. 

A few moments later, the charge nurse had the nerve to call me again and put a guilt trip on me about the other nurse's situation and that she needed me to come and I simply did not return the phone call. 

I am so sick and tired of foolish management and "protocols." 

Everything is so "gray area" and no one really knows where the line is. 

I am so thankful to be leaving this type of environment and I am grateful to work a day shift position in a facility that is non-profit and staffed with people that love kids and want to be there.