Respect

Respect is something in short supply at work, especially when it comes to management and if they don’t start showing me some pretty soon, then they’re going to have a rough ride on their hands!

in the past i have kept my head down and just done what I've been asked to do. this has included frequent last minute shift changes and even painting and decorating when I've been supposed to be taking it easy because of my bad back. it’s this last request which caused me to begin losing respect for my Station Officer (SO).

so why now have i decided to stand my ground?
the introduction of Dual ECA crews was a big issue for me, basically it means that there are 2 non-clinicians on an emergency ambulance, doing pretty much all font line ambulance work. the crux of it is that it’s ambulancing on the cheap, except that we cannot currently fill our current front line rotas, so our reliance on private ambulance providers will increase.
there are other issues here, such as clinical safety, but the essence is that it’s a bad idea and no front line staff want it.
management on the other hand want it to such an extent that that they’ve publicly threatened the jobs of any ECAs who refuse to do it and the unions supported the management. so i left Unison.
i hasten to add that whilst i (along with many others) publicly objected to the Dual ECA scheme, i at no point refused to do it.

so last week i found out that i am being moved off the rota line which i have been on for the last 2 years and moved onto the Dual ECA line. i found this out from a fellow ECA, not my station officer, not the scheduling department, one of my direct peers. i found out just 9 days before the change.

so much for Agenda for Change (the regulations by which all NHS staff work) which states in Annex G Section 2;

in line with good working practices, employers should ensure that staff are given adequate time to be made aware of their working patterns, as a guide, at least four weeks before they become operational.

to complicate matters further, my soon to be crewmate is on leave for that first week and checking the rota boards showed that week to unplanned for me.

as i was on nights, i wrote a heart felt email (actually i sent the third draft as the first two were so angry I'd probably have been sacked) to my SO and the Scheduling department asking what my shifts were for that week and explaining that for reasons of parental care, i really need to know my shifts as far in advance as possible.

the first reply came from my SO and consisted of the most patronising email i have ever read. it basically congratulated me on my promotion to Dual ECA and consisted of nothing helpful whatsoever.

the second reply came from Scheduling and just contained my logon for the new Scheduling computer system.
dutifully i logged on to the new system, only to discover that with just 7 days to go, i still had the first week unallocated!

so once again i had to ask for my shifts and finally i receive them with just 6 days to go. at the same time however, i also get a note to say that my latest request for annual leave has been rejected. that means the last 6 requests in a row have been rejected and all the dates i actually want are unavailable. so i ask Scheduling to do what they used to do and just allocate me my remaining leave (approximately 4.5 weeks worth) and in return i get a snooty email stating that it is not their responsibility and that i need to apply through the proper channels and if i didn’t i would lose my leave.

so i did. i filled in an annual leave request form for every week remaining this year, then shuffled them…

now i have to see my SO at my “earliest convenience”. that should be an interesting chat!