Throwaway name because hospitals don’t fuck around.
I’m not sure how I feel about this sub, but this is my story of how my last job came to a somewhat sudden end.
I am a nurse and this pandemic over the last two years has been quite a ride as you can imagine. I loved my job, I loved the coworkers, the community I served in, and generally liked the management. As a nurse I’ve always felt like hospital administration and sometimes doctors viewed my profession as cattle, and treated us as such. They often leverage our empathy for patients and community to guilt/exploit us. In the middle of the pandemic it was time for the union contract to be renegotiated. I though “perfect, we’ll get a decent raise, our value has never been more apparent. Nope, the administration gave a 2.1% raise, I’m not sure of the specifics but that doesn’t keep up with inflation in an average year. At the same time the hospital CEO has been heard touting what a strong financial position the hospital is in, even during covid times. So that struck me as…frustrating. But again, I liked the job and general had the $$ I needed so I didn’t get too riled up, I have what I need, seems selfish to demand more.
Anyway, as time goes on and the surges came and went we inevitably had to hire a few travel nurses, who were making 4-5x what staff does. This is a well publicized problem, and it obviously causes some intense conversations about what current staff should be paid. It hit a little closer to home given the recent contract negotiations. Staff was understandably bothered by this development. Many people were considering leaving and taking a travel contract, or at least that was the general discussion. Not everyone is able to pick up and relocate every few months due to how their lives are structured, so to some it was just wishful thinking while to others it was a real opportunity. I mean, if you could work 3-6 months and pay off any and all debt you have…it almost seem irresponsible to not do it.
Eventually administration got mad at us for constantly bringing up how mush we could/should be paid. I mean I get it, I didn’t expect them to love that were asking for more money, but it really seemed like a reasonable thing for staff to gripe about. Just give me some incentive to stay, something more than a monthly pizza party. Well someone finally decided to apply for a travel contract, she even agreed to do it part time at a location reasonably distances from our hospital. This allowed her to keep her staff position and still make bank on the side. Well administration didn’t like that at all. They came at her hard and told her that if there was any conflict or drop in her performance whatsoever she would be disciplined (which is an unreasonable thing to do in the first place) they went even further though. They let it be known among the staff that the new “unofficial policy” of the hospital was that anyone entertaining travel agencies (meaning just inquiries as to what a contract could pay/look like) would be met with termination. Furthermore, the hospital would provide a negative reference in the future when/if applying for other jobs. When contacted by a new employer they would report only that you had been listed as not rehirable and due to job performance.
The vast majority of the staff got pretty quiet and all talk of pay raises and travel contracts stopped and became a dirty topic. No one wanted to touch it. The second I heard of this “unofficial policy” I went to the union lead for my hospital and asked if this was real. It didn’t seem like something that was actually a thing, like it was just a rumor. These sort of things kinda take a life of their own sometimes so I wanted confirmation. My union lead confirmed that she knew of the policy or “unofficial policy” and that was all she said. I asked if there was a planned response. This seemed like a blatant threat, instead of an incentive to stay they were threatening us to not leave. They had no planned response. “We are going to discuss with management” is what I got.
Anyway, I put in my notice the next day and I’m happy to say I’m debt free now and couldn’t be happier. Thanks for reading.