I don't really know where to start.......
I started with the company in June of 2002, worked a few shifts (per diem) locally, then for six weeks, all my phone calls were met with "sorry, all the hospitals have low censuses. Keep calling back, hon.".
Finally, in October of that year, I decided to give them another try, since they had changed office managers. Turned out the new manager had graduated LVN school with me, so at least I kinda knew him.....
Rocked right along that winter and spring, went where I was asked to go, made some decent money.
Fall of 2003, after six straight weeks of 1-2 shifts a week, and straddling the fence on whether or not to continue with them, I was sent to a hospital two hours away to fill in. Hit it off with the staff and the DON asked me to come back, then asked to put me on their schedule, still as agency staff, but as a regular worker. Should have listened to her warning when she said "I want to deal with you, not the office. They lie and get things messed up and make it harder to run this hospital." The office was fine with that, said it was fine if I was able to schedule myself anywhere I wanted. Money in their pocket was the attitude.
Six months later, I am in the middle of a nasty divorce, still working away from home 3-4 days a week, when I was forced to step back from the assignment and concentrate on being home with my child and spend less time away from home on the job.
This ticked off the "staffing coordinator", but we were able to fill the shifts without any problem.
Rock along another two months, and I am starving again. "I'm sorry, we are SLOW right now" was the normal response when I called in to ask about job assignments, yet, there were nurses, whom I was close with, still working 4-5 shifts a week. Okay, warning sign #2......MISSED IT COMPLETELY.
I walk in one day to have a face to face with the branch manager, and overhear him telling a prospective client on the phone "well, I've been a nurse for about 12 years now"...and my mouth dropped open. When he hung up, I asked him why he would lie about how long he had been licensed. After, we graduated together, got our licenses on the same date, and somehow, he slipped into a time warp and gained 5 years experience on me. (At the time, we had been LVN's for almost 7 years....about 3 months short of that number) His reply floored me, but again, I missed the warning sign: "What they don't know won't hurt em, plus, it helps me get more contracts."
Seeing and hearing this supposedly professional person lie like that, without blinking an eye, made me think twice about the face to face meeting and I went out and found another job at a local hospital.
Things didn't work out financially, so I ended up back with the agency, back at the job assignment away from home 3-4 days a week....unhappy, but meeting my bills.
Hearing of a 13-week assignment at a hospital 20 minutes from home, I inquired about it. Lied to again. This time the "staffing coordinator" denied ever having any assignments, then refused to talk to me about any of it anymore. When I was told that one of the nurses on the job (which had been a contract assignment of 13 weeks duration) got escorted off the hospital premises, I decided to inquire again.
Even after phone calls to me from 5 staff members of the hospital, asking me to try and get assigned there, and with their eyewitness accounts of the nurse getting escorted away, my lovely "staffing coordinator" denied the event ever happened and told me I was not eligible for the assignment anyway.
When my child started having troubles in school, I told the DON at the hospital where I was working that I needed to find something closer to home, and she said she hated to see me go. She reinforced earlier advice to leave my agency and find another one or find a good hospital and stay there; "those people you work for are idiots and they lie. I don't trust them, and neither should you."
Cutting to the chase.........
Forty nine days after I worked my last shift at that hospital, I have received a total of 6 phone calls from my agency, worked three shifts, and they argue and say that I will not work. Even emailed me a copy of their "call log" to prove how unreliable I am, when the log, unfortunately for them, is so full of holes it is pathetic.
Since 1/1/2004, even with me taking off 5 weeks in May and June to actually work for a hospital, I logged nearly 100 shifts for this company, 69 of which were shifts that I got by prebooking myself. That left just under 30 shifts that my "staffing coordinator" arranged for me.
The call log is riddled with "CALLED TO OFFER SHIFT, HE SAID NO" when I was in the middle of an away from home assignment and NOT EVEN HOME TO TAKE THE ALLEGED CALL.
Not to mention that over half of the supposed calls to offer shifts were at a facility I had specifically told them I would not work at, as I would have to leave home before 4AM to get there, and my school age child was not old enough to handle getting up and getting to school on time. Or maybe I was not clear enough when I told them I wanted to work locally and local, to me, meant within 1 hours driving time, give or take 15 minutes.
Regardless, I am fed up with the agency gig.
I loved meeting new people, but I hated dropping everything and driving 4-5 hours to get to a job, only to be told on arriving that my shift had been cancelled. Or, being 5 hours from home, out of clean clothes and with just enough money to get back home, and getting a phone call from the "staffing coordinator" telling me I had to stay down there and work 5 more days "or we'll lose that contract."
I wish good luck to anyone who works for this agency.
If you want a tip on being successful, here it is, in the words of my former branch manager: "Goes anywhere, anytime, no matter how far, and never gripes."
Family time and family life be damned, that is how they rate a "good" employee.
I guess I don't wanna play that game anymore. You can earn more money, but you can never replace that quality time with your kids.
ADIOS!!!!!!