I qualified 6 years ago and have always worked for the same place. First I worked full time (community) for 2 years and the first year the Christmas rota came out and I had been given Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day as well as EVERY weekend throughout December. I queried it but was told it couldn’t be changed. I accepted it as I was a newly qualified and thought it was just the way NQ’s get “initiated”.
The year after the rota was exactly the same. I questioned it and was snapped at and told “Everyone has got shit shifts! Not just you!”. I looked at the Rota, NOBODY had shifts like that, nobody else had every weekend in December and every “important” Christmas shift.
I went home on Boxing Day to a party going on at my house and cried. I was just so tired and I’d missed everything.
After that I went part time. 4 years on and I went through a bad patch with my son. He basically attempted suicide numerous times (final one ending in emergency surgery to correct the damage) and then was sectioned. Everyone at work knew. Not one person messaged me or called me to see how I was. At the same time I was looking on Facebook to see his colleagues had had flowers and chocolates etc delivered to their houses for stuff such as ...
“Thank you to my lovely team for the beautiful flowers and congratulations on passing my exam! Love you all so much”.
“Thanks you to my wonderful work friends for the card, flowers and Prosecco due to me breaking up with my boyfriend” etc etc ... I didn’t get one call. Not even a Facebook message. No acknowledgement at all.
I finally got a call a few weeks later ...
“Hi! Hope you’re ok now xxx don’t suppose you can cover a shift on Saturday? Xxx”
I resigned and went on the bank. I worked solidly for a year with set shifts until one day I messaged asking to confirm my shifts for the week after only to be told “sorry, we don’t need bank now”. Just like that, out of work. No warning, no heads up, nothing. I got a message off another nurse asking if I was ok and saying she was so sorry for the way I had been treated and she was leaving the profession for similar reasons. Her mother had died and they wouldn’t let her take annual leave for the funeral due to dangerous staffing levels.
I’m just done with it. I’ve been treated like this my whole life, I’m an afterthought. Contacted when needed. I have autism so not the most interesting person to be around, I get it but a bit of human decency wouldn’t go amiss surely? I feel so fed up today, not down, just distant and fed up.