Overtime – I have given many many hours of my own time to charities, including rising at an unearthly hour of the morning, and working through to the early hours of the following morning – always with delight. As a volunteer, we are thanked for all that we do, all that we give, all of the love we show.
My entire working life, the environment in paid employment roles has proved different. I have seen behaviour and attitudes that would never be tolerated on a volunteer project. I could write many many pages on that subject, but today I want to focus on one area “OVERTIME”.
In salaried roles, I consistently gave extra time in addition to my contracted hours, and for the most part, nobody ever suggested that I receive a penny extra. That did not bother me. I gave extra because I wanted to help someone, so chose to go the extra mile purely out of kindness.
Currently, I am in a role that does pay you for overtime. The majority of overtime will be in connection to covering holiday time taken by colleagues. Generally speaking, it would not be my choice to volunteer for overtime. I don’t need any extra money. Plus the taxman takes a huge percentage of any overtime I am paid. But I understand that it is unfair to other colleagues not to offer to help out with extra hours.
But it is so tough to work extra hours. It is something I do not relish at all. My regular work schedule involves shorter shifts – less than seven hours. That works well for me on so many levels. I can maintain my energy and focus. My ability to assess patients, make sound judgements and feel satisfied I am giving my best are maintained with those shorter shifts. When a colleague is away on annual leave, I may need to work a double shift – up to fourteen hours.
It is absolutely brutal to work in a patient facing (or nowadays, mostly talking on the phone to patients) role. I am able to remain calm, but as the day progresses, I start to lose most of my brain function. Patients seem to become more difficult, more demanding. Doubt creeps in to my clinical decision making process. So, as I am second-guessing myself, I start to record more in the notes, so I can go back (or someone else can go back) and look at what was said in case I have missed something important and not picked up on important signs or symptoms.
It’s just one of those unavoidable situations. We have to cover each other’s holiday. At the end of the day, I am exhausted, but I like to leave the building knowing I did everything I could.
But what I hate…is when a colleague who has clearly had a bad day…crosses my path and starts grumbling about something. This happened to me recently. I had been working for over thirteen hours and my colleague complained that I was too kind to patients, and that if I am kind to them once, they will expect it every time.
“Too kind to patients”? What? I think they may be referring to my eagerness to get things sorted out, and not to keep patients hanging. That is not just my approach to patients, that is my approach to work in general – get things done properly and quickly, move on to the next task. I have been trained to work this way. I have been working this way for twenty years. I admire people who operate dynamically – acting decisively and energetically to achieve a result.
I was so tired I could not really respond to my colleague – I just wished them a lovely weekend. But it played on my mind afterwards. What exactly would they suggest I do? Be unkind or rude to patients? Procrastinate more? Put the phone down on patients when I cannot be bothered? Become stressed and irritable? How on earth would that help? It would not help patients. It would not help the reputation of the NHS or our practice. Perhaps most importantly, it would not help me.
I accept that there will be days I leave work exhausted, however, I like the feeling of being tired and satisfied that you gave your all and you helped patients. I like that I can rest my head on my pillow without worrying. It helps me to sleep deeply and peacefully – which is mighty important when you have to rise early the next day to do the whole thing all over again!
Like this:
Like Loading...
Caramel 