I clearly need to move to Europe

danieleandwayne

I just got off the phone with my clinical coordinator. My hospital's policy is basically NOT to accommodate new moms and allow them to schedule specific days of the week to work, even if those days wouldn't interfere with the needs of the unit.

So, when I come back from maternity leave, I'll still be able to self-schedule, but the unit won't be able to allow me to schedule the same days every week (except for when I work every third weekend, of course) so that I can arrange for daycare. And almost every daycare requires that your part-time schedule be fixed and not ever-changing.

I'm so glad that my unit and my hospital likes to complain about poor employee retention but that every policy they make is geared to push people out to other employers. Did I mention that my hospital is one of the 2 largest in the state and is located in the 2nd largest metropolitan area, but we get paid $5-9/hr less than nurses employed in smaller, more rural hospitals? Oh yeah.

I'm in a very grumpy mood today. Can't wait to head on into work for 2 days tomorrow!

AmyM72

That sounds really dumb, sorry your work has such silly policies. I think I'd like to move to Europe for the vacation time alone

mrsjami

At least move to another hospital! That really sucks. Guess they won't be on top places for women to work this year!

danieleandwayne

Not a lot of choices, really. Maine is not vastly populated, and there are only a few real ICUs (i.e. more than 3 beds, handled vented patients, trauma center, etc.) in the entire state.

I love my community and want to stay here and help service the folks here (even if we have a high percentage of people who clearly don't care about their health). It just irks me that in our country, we have no supports for child raising and yet society and the government is so quick to blame everyone for the failures when they happen. We have such a culture of not caring for women-- from the cradle to the grave.

Okay. I'm off my soapbox, now.

danuli8

Your hospital is so freakin' stupid. Really, how much skin off their nose is it to let you pick the same days each week? You say it doesn't matter to the ward--isn't there some way you can get your ward colleagues to help you override the clinical coordinator or something? Allowing you to pick your days costs them NOTHING and yet they still insist on being douchebags. How pointless!

monica92603

Ok I can't speak to the job but I can to the daycare situation.  Keep looking.  Our daycare is awesome and so patient w/ us.  We change days (and in the beginning we changed the hours too) each week.  DD goes to a large chain daycare. I'm not sure about smaller or in home daycares. I'm not sure if it's just b/c they are desperate to fill spaces b/c of the economy or more moms staying home. A close friend sends her 2 kids to the same place and she does a flex schedule as well. That was the exact reason I chose them b/c H and I are both General Managers of restaurants and retail so we need someone to work w/ us.

technigirl

I don't know if you'd be any better off in Europe - I work with Europeans and it seems like they're always off on vacation or a government holiday LOL.  It sometimes makes it harder to work with them.  Anyways, I agree with PPs, keep looking for a different daycare.  There are some, especially the larger chain daycares, that can offer flexible scheduling. 

Melissa

 

danieleandwayne

technigirl:

I don't know if you'd be any better off in Europe - I work with Europeans and it seems like they're always off on vacation or a government holiday LOL.  It sometimes makes it harder to work with them.  Anyways, I agree with PPs, keep looking for a different daycare.  There are some, especially the larger chain daycares, that can offer flexible scheduling. 

Melissa

LOL Many European countries have government sponsored/sanctioned daycare and/or stipends to help parents with their daycare situations.

I'm going to keep looking, but we don't have a lot of big chain daycare centers here. My best hope is to find someone who is simply flexible enough-- maybe someone whose only infant is mine...