Aibu to give up career/ job I trained for due to eratic shift patterns?

[malificent7]

AHP here. Qualified 2 years ago with a 1st. Loved the academic side but found placements tough.
After a year in private hospitals with hideous boss bully, I am currently working for NHS. I now like my job but the shift patterns is awful. In fact...there is no pattern.
The rota is published 3 weeks in advance so I can not plan anything. This month I am working 4 weekends including nye. My poor family hardly see me and I feel very resentful. In January, I am down for a 51 hour week! We are going to discuss 3 x 12 hour shifts in the new year. I don't mind working out of hours as we get extra money but why no regular cycle,/ pattern? Aibu to leave and get my life back?

What are your contracted hours and day and a how many weekends on average do most people work a month?

I personally wouldn’t be happy to work every weekend in December or every weekend of any month for that fact. I also wouldn’t be working 51 hours a week..

37.5 hours. Apparently its because other weeks have lighter hours. They don't.

On average, most people work 1/2 weekends.

How on earth do they expect people to be able to cope with that? It is particularly discriminatory towards lone parents (overwhelmingly women as usual). One of my friends gave up nursing several years ago due to the sheer impossibility of her shift patterns.

You must have a new thread every week with a different reason for potentially leaving your job.

I do to be fair! I think that is a sign!

To answer your question, it is perfectly ok to give up a career you trained for if you find the reality doesn't match your expectation. Where I work we have lots of ex teachers for exactly the same reason.

Could you not look at another organisation/trust/post/job that is appropriate your AHP role elsewhere rather than leaving your hard worked for career?

have you considered posts in GP land or ICB, in a different setting like treatment centres or urgent care, or even NHS England (quite often remote or flexible working as well) - or in project teams within those, they are often looking for people with AHP experience to broaden their teams in projects/education/policy etc?

The projects/ education thing is interesting.

My first career was teaching and I dropped out of that too. I feel like a failure as so many of my colleagues have been there for years and climbed the ladder.
My cousin has been a teacher for years and got promoted recently.
I feel I need to be made of stronger stuff.

@malificent7 you don’t necessarily need to be made of stronger stuff, just find the right fit!

but working on your resilience is never a bad thing. But somethings are still too much no matter how resilient you are. Such as working erratic poorly published rotas with significant hours.

could you also approach your current org about restructuring the rosters? I’m not sure what your role is but surely they should be able to plan and prepare better than this. I’ve managed medical rosters across a number of specialties and whilst not an exact science, 6 weeks notice of roster changes is bare minimum!

You need a meeting with your manager. What's your trust's policy on off duty, it's normally 6 or 8 weeks in advance isn't it?
You need to tell him / her that you're struggling with the lack of notice, you can only work 37.5 per week and can't owe hours, and that you need the off duty as per policy. Its not your fault they aren't organised enough, they need to shape up.
Alternatively can you get a 9-5?

The policy in my trust is that each new 4 week roster should be available 3 weeks before its start date. We can't roster more than 48 hours in one week - the roster won't allow it. We get 5 requests each roster period - you can use these to request a weekend or two off. You need to speak to your manager

Yanbu. It sounds as if there are too many downsides to staying and the only upside is that by staying you wouldn't have wasted the training. What's the phrase? Sunk cost fallacy? I think that applies here. I'd find a new job in a related field ASAP. Don't leave till you have something though (imho)

It seems a bit drastic to go from ‘I don’t like my roster’ to ‘I’m leaving the profession’. Have you spoken to your manager, tried to change your shifts, looked at a different employer?

It seems as if op hasn't been happy for a while though

Plus points are i do love the team and the atmosphere.