AIBU to have expected at least ONE day off over christmas and new year. I OBVIOUSLY don't have a FUCKING family life!!!.

[USoRight]

I am working Christmas day, Boxing day, New years Eve and New years day and the day after (Sunday). I have 27th and 28th off (big bloody deal). I work for the fucking NHS. I hate the BASTARDS.
Last year I had boxing day off.

My husband ordered a turkey who is still running around and called cyril.

Yes, but doesn't make it right does it?

I'm a home carer and also work in a residential home so I feel for you too....I think this would be a nice time to just give a thought for the sacrifices the caring profession (sp) make especially at xmas. We are not terribly well paid and work as carers because we genuinly care about the people we support. I especially take my hat off to the NHS workers who have to put up with the abuse etc...from the drunks over xmas. Personally USR I would tell them its unfair to expect you to work all over xmas especially as the 'office staff' will be off? is as usually the case in my residential home we have been told that all annual leave needs to be taken before 17th Dec x

Its not great but at least you'll get extra pay

Auntie, it still doesn't make it right. Because it's all 4 days and they are so close together. It's not just Easter Sunday and then the August bank holiday. It's 4 days in a very short space of time. (Do you work in a managerial role in the NHS by any chance?)

Extra pay is a different issue altogether. It's about some bloody time away from work. I don't mean to speak for the OP, but that's how I see it.

That is rubbish......... where we have rolling rota's they normally suspend it for 2 weeks and allocate the shifts out equally over the festive period.

If it makes you feel better I have worked nights over Christmas for the past 5 years and am doing so again this year.....but I have always had new year off.

i know it don't make it right, but the op will get double time plus extra hoildays for this.

As a nhs worker you are entiled to approx 7.5 weeks off work.

i have not got a management position

I was thinking that Auntie definitely doesn't have a management position - management are never to be found working the unsocial hours, they are mainly Mon to Fri nine to five [may be some rare exceptions to this but I am yet to see it]. But management [the hypocrits] love to tell their staff that they must themselves work to "suit the needs of the department", meaning therefore that they must sacrifice their own needs as the staffing [usually understaffed] in the department takes top priority.

Surely noone has to work all of these days....doesn't really matter what the computer says, does it?

My brother always used to have to work Christmas day, so we ended up having our family Christmas on the 27th (or whenever we could all fit it in ... sometimes happened in January sometime). Bad luck. I am so glad I don't have to work Christmas day (unless I choose to).

YABU unreasonable, in my opinion UNLESS someone has deliberately adjusted your shifts to be so unfortunate.

If this is just the way your rota falls, then, tough, you work in a shift orientated job. My husband was formerly an AA man and worked 14 out of our first 15 Christmasses together, that's just the way it was.

It is not unreasonable for you to be disappointed, but surely some years you will have the lucky shift pattern, this year is just not it.

I have worked in the NHS for many years and have found that as a rule if you work Xmas you get New Year off and vice versa. To work both Xmas and New Year is incredibly unreasonable. As to the issue of having the right to have xmas day off due to having children what a load of bollocks. I have children and have always taken my share of the shit off duty. I have never expected special consideration just because I have chosen to have children, my wife who is a teacher accepts that the profession that I have chosen is 365 days a year 24 hrs a day service and that it has to be staffed and that I am but a tiny cog in the large machine. We have managed to enjoy every Xmas by making Xmas day the day we want it to be wether that be the 25th or the 26th Dec or even on the odd occasion the 27th.

I write the rota at our work - where the staff do 24h shifts. We usually have a 9 week rolling rota but for the Xmas and NY period I hand write a 3 week rota. I ask our staff (9 people) if they would prefer 5 days off over Xmas OR NY ... I can usually manage to give people exactly what they want, even down to what shifts they would prefer to do over their 5 days working.

So YANBU

my friends dh is a fireman
her dcs are 4,5 and 7
last year they had christmas day on 24th kids didnt even know and he dh had to work that night and the 4 days after but at least he saw the dcs christmas 'day'

I still haven't got my Christmas hours. The scheduling department say they will try and let us know the first week in December but can't promise that. Not quite sure why it takes that long as all holiday is allocated by lottery back in August and they obviously won't know sickness levels until the day before.

YAdefNBU. I am appalled by this. Surely half the people could do Xmas day and half Boxing Day, or some do Xmas period and some do NY. I hate this attitude that work is the only important thing in life. I also think it is so short sighted in terms of staff health and morale. Fine to use the computer as a starting point, but then adjust. It's all very well to say that there is next year, but who knows where the people involved will be next year. I don't think the OP did sign up for this.

DP has a similar job to you OP, and is working Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and probably New Year as well. We are having our Christmas on the 22nd at home and then me and the DC go to my parents for another one on the right day I know it sucks that people have to work, particularly when it all lands on a few people to do everything

Working Christmas and New Year doesn't seem fair. I work shifts too, we usually work it so that if your shifts fall on both, you get one or the other off. If your shifts fall on Christmas and your days off on New Year or vice versa then whoever gets the rostered shift off is back of the queue the next year. However this all falls down when some people abuse the system and do things like taking parental leave (which seems to over ride normal leave where I work) or going 'sick' (always the same people), therefore blocking others from being off.
I don't agree with the thought that if you have kids you have the right to be off on Christmas day, after all, Christmas is a family time and we all have those
Maybe you could get together with colleagues in a similar position and speak to your manager as a group about this. It might be too late to do anything about this year but it could stop the same thing happening again next year.

Op, if you work to a standard rolling rota then yes YABU. However, if it is a rota that is "drawn up" and changes then YANBU- and it's unfair you got shafted for those shifts.

I work for the NHS too. Ours is a rolling rota, never changes, different days and shifts each of the 4 weeks of the rota though. It's great as I know when Im working any date years in advance! The downside is it's not always equally balanced over all staff for holidays like Christmas. I'm working nights 24th 25th 26th Dec and 31st! Some people's rota means they have all those days off. But it's just tough luck really. I have a 6 yr old dd but we'll have our Christmas dinner and presents during the day as Im working night. It's part and parcel of working shifts.

That really sucks. With the staff shortages that the nhs has, you'd think they would make it easier for people to train as nurses, midwives etc. I don't have interest in that myself but I know people who would love a career change but cannot do so due to NHS red tape.

you do have another option, just go to your ward manager and tell her you will do either or but that you are not going to work all of them. Tell her if she dousnt come to you by the end of the week that you are taking xmas day off.

You dont have to work those hours at all.

I feel for you OP. My DH is a firefighter, and this year his rota is crap- he's working Christmas Eve all day, Christmas Day all day, Boxing Day night, the night after. He's working all over New Year as well.

We manage by thinking that one year he might get the whole lot off.

We're going to keep the kids up and have some seperate pressies for them to open when DH gets home on Christmas Day evening. Me and the DCs are decamping to my mum's for the day! It won't be the same as having DH there.

Hope you can get something sorted.

YANBU that's really shit, I used to work in in-patients as a psychiatric nurse and got screwed over regularly with the rota, and as a senior nurse always had to be on call even on my days off, it was shit. a lot of bullying went on via the rota the NHS to tend to treat nurses like crap.

I work in the community now so just have to cover working days in between xmas and new year and xmas eve. I'm covering 30th and 31 st dec 9-5 as on call risk assessment clinician as have had last 2 years off. It's only fair on my colleagues.

I'm afraid though you don't have first choice over booking AL just because you have kids, you have to do your share of shit shifts just like everyone else. But working al thr Bh is unfair, and you should take it in turns each year with your colleagues.

Just an idea but if you wanted a set date to celebrate why not Yule (21st Dec this year).
Have a nice meal, presents, socking early that way you wont feel like your missing out on Christmas day cus you will have the happy memoires of Yule to think of and gifts still to get you though work.

That would also leave DH free to see his mum on the day when your at work.
Might work?