August 17, 2010

Staffing

As of this month, there's no longer any question about it: I'm no longer a new grad in any way, shape or form. I've got one year's experience...I'm very lightly seasoned. The marinating is far from over though.

I've got a permanent position on my unit, though I circulate to other units as needed. I get lots of compliments on my work, most of the other staff like me, and TPTB are working with me on my schedule in the fall when the little sheep starts school.  I've gotten a little resentment from a few people because I ended up with mostly day shifts in my schedule even though I've only been there a year. But in my defense, detox is the unit most other staff DON'T want to go to for whatever reason.  I don't understand why...OK, it's shorter-staffed and a lot busier than the other units, but it's a great place to work IMO. 

Anyhow...

We've had some staff turnover lately (some voluntarily, some not) so there seems to be a lot of staff trying to shift shifts lately.  Several of the night people have gone to evenings or 12s.  A few evening people have tried to go to more days but with less success, since every unit has a pretty much solid day shift staff.   A few staff were willing to cross over to other units for better shifts but found that though they may have had more years' seniority working in the place, that seniority didn't cross over when it came to the units--the unit's original staff got preference even if they were there as long.  This is one reason why I was able to keep mostly days.

Overall, staffing still needs work.  I saw in the papers that they're massively recruiting  again.  I'm less insecure about being bumped than I used to be, partially because I am permanent staff now.  But I always fear that some other nurse is going to come along and wow them so much that I'll find myself eased out of my days on my unit and relegated to a unit or shift I dislike...or worse, just cut free.  I know the odds of that happening are slim to none.  I'm just paranoid.

There's been crop of new grads that were hired.  Some are good.  Some...hopefully they'll come up to speed.