“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
~Hebrews 6:11-12~

There’s this woman at work who works double shift weekend option. So every Saturday and Sunday she comes in at 6:45AM and works a day shift and then an evening shift. She’s done this for years. The catch is that on her weekends she usually leaves at 10PM. For me that means, that on my weekends, I go over to her wing around 9:45PM and we count the narcs so she can leave. From 10-11PM then I am in charge of both wings.

This really bothered me the first time it happened. No one had told me about having to cover two floors and it wasn’t part of the deal when I agreed to work these shifts. I thought about telling my boss, “I’m sorry, but I’m not comfortable doing this. I said upfront when I trained over there that I really did not feel comfortable with the REACH wing and we had agreed that I would not have to work shifts over there.”

I eventually wanted to be able to work over there but it was too much to start with because the people on that wing are always changing, versus the long-term care wings where the residents do not change (as often) and there is more repetition where you aren’t having to learn new people every time you go in. But then I thought, “Okay, well, maybe I just need to be a big girl and do this.” You can’t be having your way all the time.

There is an element of having to “join the club” so to speak. You have to go in early for people or stay later because someone calls in. Not all the time, but this is part of the job where people are fickle, people get sick, life happens, and there are still these wings that need to be staffed. On summer you’re by yourself (1 nurse) with 26-28 people for most of the evening shift which is why I did not want to work evenings there.

So doing it on Spring for one hour is just part of the job. You just pray like always that nothing too crazy happens then breathe a deep sigh of relief when nothing does. The lady who does this weekend option then turns around and works a full-time clinic job all week. You just wonder how people manage and even like to do it this way. We all have our own lives and ways of doing things and for me this is how it is working for now.