After this morning’s post went live (I wrote it last night) I was supposed to go to work. I was scheduled to atart my shift at 10 am. I got a text from the charge nurse at 8 am, telling me I was being pushed back to 1 pm. That cuts a 12 hour shift down to only 9 hours, but since I am PRN, that happens all the time during the slow season (summer), so I have just learned to live with it. I’ve been on my way to work and been pushed back, having to turn around and go back home for a couple of hours. Not personal, just business. Still, the ED is a bit slower than planned on those days and they are saving a few dollars by having less people there.
So, having been rescheduled, I got in the middle of a couple of small projects. At 10:30, I got another text saying never mind, they are now swamped and they want me to head in.
No. I will head in when I am ready.
That is a game that I am not playing. There is a rule in nursing that they want you to call out at least two hours prior to your shift’s scheduled start so they can find coverage. As I said in the first paragraph of this post, I’ve been called off while already on the way. It’s just rude, but I live with it.
However, pushing my 10am shift back at 8am, only to change your mind at 10:30 is bullshit. I don’t want this to become a habit.
I was scheduled to come in at 10am. Then you unilaterally changed that schedule to 1pm. Now because you are suddenly busy, you are asking me to come in earlier than my shift.
So I will teach them a lesson about courtesy. I will let them be in the weeds until I am good and ready to come in. Again, paying me for my services doesn’t mean that you own me. Will they fire me? Of course not. They already don’t have enough nurses, and this is more the charge nurse’s fault for calling me off than it is mine.
If they decide to be irrational and fire me anyhow, I have options. I get at least 10 recruiting emails per week. There are half a dozen emergency rooms hiring within a 45 minute drive of my front door. Therre are also plenty of travel gigs. I don’t need to take abuse. Employers think that, because they can eventually hire someone to replace you, they can treat you as a consumable stock item. Next time you go to call me out so you can save a little money, remember this day when you were swamped without enough help.
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