Self Scheduling Rules

There are certain rules that you learn to follow when you have self scheduling and work in an ER. Never work night the weekend of "fall back" - you end up working 13 hours. Never work days the weekend of "spring forward" - you only get 11 hours off instead of 12. Work the Labour Day weekend as one of your summer weekends - it's usually dead because everyone is away for the last hurrah of the summer. Never work the weekend closest to St. Patrick's day - you'll end up dealing with drunks and their green puke. And finally, never ever work Halloween...especially if it's on a weekend. These rules are not set in stone of course. They are just the common sense rules that any sane nurse follows when signing up for the schedule. Apparently I had a momentary lapse in my sanity when signing up for the Halloween schedule this year. Yes dear readers...yours truly worked nights all Halloween weekend.

I have to admit that we were all very surprised at the lack of drunk and violent idiots. There was an injured cat and a drunk bumblebee but other than that the normal Halloween hoopla was very subdued this year. That still did not prevent the evil spirits from making our lives hell. The acuity of patients was out of this world and it seemed that the spirits overtook the bodies of those patients making them confused and restless. On more than one occasion this weekend there were no more ventilators left in the entire hospital - they were all in use. I'm pretty sure that we also used up most of our stock of Haldol and restraints too. So despite the lack of stupidity showing up on our doorstep, the weekend was still hell. But I have nobody to blame but myself. NEVER WORK HALLOWEEN!!!!