Wasn't this supposed to be my week off?

[mousme]

I am breaking radio silence to post this amusing tidbit.

On Monday, I received three requests for overtime at work.

On Tuesday, I received three more requests for overtime at work.

I just got another call this morning for overtime at work.

Do we see a pattern?

Thus far, my week off is still intact (I am standing firm!), but next week my two days off (i.e., my "weekend") are toast.

It took me two days of sleep to get over my last two weeks. I got the cats to the vet Monday morning (which is a whole post in and of itself, please remind me to write it up), and took a "nap" around 13:00 which lasted until 08:00 the next day. I then had another nap around 17:00 which lasted until 21:00, and went back to bed at midnight and got up at 08:00 today with a hell of a headache. Thus far the migraine candy seems to be holding it at bay.

So, 31 hours of sleep later, and I am feeling more rested and in a much better mood than before. I got next to nothing done except a bit of laundry and the aforementioned epic vet visit, but at least I'm rested. No way in *hell* am I going back to work before next Monday. I am quite sure I'd go postal. I have told them, unequivocally, that this week is off-limits to them. I am OFF this week, period.

Comments

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

Sleeping that much after insane overtime and night shifts *is* work.

I wholeheartedly support your Stand Firm! policy. One wonders when HR will look at the amount of overtime being done and realise that they need another person on staff.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Oh, everyone knows we're short-staffed. The problem is we're currently bleeding people faster than we can hire them. We've hired one new guy (he started last week), but we've lost two people in the last month: one to illness and subsequent retirement, and the other was Fitness!Girl, who has gone on to become a regular member of the RCMP.

We have one woman who has *just* gone on a 52-week maternity leave (yes, the RCMP has awesome benefits), but she's been on sick-leave since before I was hired, making a giant gap in the schedule.

There's another guy on permanent sick leave until he retires (sometime in the fall, if memory serves), and two people who are part-time only due to health concerns.

We've also lost one guy to promotion: he's still around, but has new administrative duties to fill, and no longer works the same schedules as the rest of us.

So that's five full-time positions we need to fill, and two part-time positions (we don't hire part-time anyway, so it would be at least one other full-time position), and the hiring process takes a minimum of nine months. In that time, we're probably going to lose at least one person to "sick" leave (don't get me started on her), and there's at least one guy on probation.

In essence, we have a serious problem on our hands.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

Apparently the problem is that your department experiences a heavier concentration of staff entropy than anywhere else. Yikes.

Nine months? Argh! Knowing the hoops and checks you jumped through to get there, though, it makes sense.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Entropy is a big problem. A lot of our staff are near retirement age, and they're having an increasingly hard time coping with the difficult physical requirements of the job: working seven days straight, for instance, and often on night shift. For someone who's sixty years old, it's not nearly as easy as for someone who's 24 or 30.

We're going to be "losing" about half the staff to retirement in the next five to seven years, for instance, and if we keep working everyone this hard, there will be a lot more casualties before then. The supervisors are trying to hire young people, but the process is long (it took me nine months to get in, and I was "fast-tracked"), and I'm worried there will be burn-outs before too long.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

Is that 9 months before you even start training? Or does that include training?

We do several tests, a criminal history check, an interview, a 2-hour sit in (before the interview), and a complete background check (it's the same one the police department uses for police officers and you have to write down every address you ever lived at and every person you ever lived with and every job you ever had and so on--although I will admit that I don't believe they check every single bit of that out, although I'm sure they have a way to check if you are lying about schools and addresses and jobs) and then a 6 week academy. I had to wait until there were enough people for my academy. I applied in early December, was hired in late December, and was on the floor by March. (I had two months of OJT then, but even with that it's still only about 5 months before I counted in manning.)

I'm thinking they might be going a little overboard. And I do remember when you were applying, but it didn't seem like that long (I guess because I was only reading about it and not really paying attention to the time it took.) Are you dealing with national secrets? Even to get my secret clearance in the military (once they stopped losing the packet--I had to fill that damned thing out 3 times) it didn't take that long. But, I guess if you were dealing with the Canadian equivalent of a top secret, it could take a while.

I wish I knew some ways you could suggest to them to recruit. I just don't have very many Canadian connections in this field. There is a Yahoo group for dispatchers called 911console that could be helpful.

Something's gotta give.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

National Secrets™ it is. I have Top Secret clearance. The nine months doesn't include training, but we don't exactly, uh, have an official training program. Shh. Don't tell anyone. :P

What takes a long time is the background check. Mine was quick and easy, and took almost three months. They check everything. I got calls from people I hadn't seen in over fifteen years in some cases. o_O

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

Well, then, they need to do a big push and hire a bunch of people at once. If you tag 20 or so people, you'd probably get at least 5 out of that. I have no idea what your manning is, but doing that at least a couple times would probably get you pretty close to what you need.

Not that you can fix it. It's something that the recruiting people need to do.

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

OK, well, I've found an upside to my job. They don't bother me when I'm off. If it's my day off, no calls. If it's vacation time or any other time off, no calls.

That really sucks. If they need that much overtime, then they probably need to work on their recruiting.

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

The Irish girl (woman, rather) I was helping train last night said I have a Canadian accent. I said it must be because I have Canadian friends. ;) But I guess that wouldn't help me get a job there, because I couldn't telecommute or I'd apply, help you out. I haven't had more than 4 hours sleep straight for a year on work nights anyway.

You have to take care of yourself, make sure you have time off. Even if it is a matter of National See-curity you are no good to them (or yourself, or the rest of us who love you) all burned out.

[luvenditti.livejournal.com]

awesome! good for you!

[julienne64.livejournal.com]

Hang in there, they'll get the message soon. :-) You deserve your vacation.