MACS wrote:We are not allowed to work more than 6 days straight.
I think the only rule is they can't schedule us more than 16 hours in a 24 hour period. Also, the weeks are broken up at midnight on Saturday so while I routinely work 84 hours/7 days in my work week, it's really a 41 hour and a 43 hour work week 3.5 days each week. Subtract the unpaid lunch breaks that we don't ever get to take, and it's 80 hours - no overtime. We put in an hour unpaid every day - gotta be in early enough for report/changeover but pay doesn't start until the official shift begins, and gotta stay after for changeover but pay stops at the end of the shift, then there's the unpaid 30 minute lunch break that doesn't exist.
Worst is when they declare an "internal disaster", nobody is allowed to leave without an ok from administration. You work 16ish on (as long as someone is able to relieve you, otherwise you stay on) 8 off until they call "all clear". Happens several times every winter. But you stay on the clock while sleeping. One year I had to do a little over 24 hours, went to sleep and got called back on 4 hours later, that kinda sucked a lot. But I was on the clock for 150ish hours in a pay week so HUGE paycheck.
Some departments that have scheduled on-call teams will work their nurses 24 hours. Say you're on call and get called in an hour after you clocked out from your normal shift, and work through the night, you still have to work your shift the next day. I did that for 9 months back in 2015 and it sucked, the money wasn't worth it.
Should be off tonight. But if they need me I'll go in. We have a very critical patient with some life support devices that only a handful of us are trained to run. There's two people scheduled tonight that can cover it though.