Yes, the cookie jar is empty today.
I’m on vacation. Well, stay-cation.
Could I have made cookies?
Yep.
Did I make cookies?
Nope.
I decided to take a week off at the end of July to give my PTO balance a little breathing room.
Wouldn’t do to max out and stop accruing.
The max is coming faster these days since the hospital system started giving us with more than 15 years of longevity in the company a total of 12 hours of PTO a pay period.
I’ll do the math for you.
That is 312 hours per year. (I multiplied 12 hours of PTO earned by 26 pay periods in a year).
As I work 10-hour shifts, that is 31.2 days a year.
Am I grateful that I now earn 12 hours a pay period? Absolutely.
Does this create a bit of a boondoggle for me? It could.
Which is why I took this week off.
The second reason is that school is starting in 3 weeks and I will have my hands full then.
Relaxing week off at home it is.
Have I fielded a phone call from a surgeon who wanted to add on a case for the next day?
Yes, and happy to do it.
It would take more time to explain to them why I couldn’t help them than to call the evening charge nurse and tell them to call the surgeon.
It is a good thing that they reached out to me and not the nursing supervisor.
That is a habit I’ve been trying to break them out of.
I wrote a memo about it and everything.
I don’t think the memo got circulated.
I tried.
No cookies today.
I will pick it up next week when No Heat month commences.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 