You decide: Landscaping or overtime pay???

We had a discussion recently in the blogosphere about how much better run hospitals would be, and happier the workers like you and me would be, if there was more co-ordination between the administration and hospital employees.

I thought of this as I drove my wife to work this morning, and noticed a bunch of landscaping trucks parked out back. In my opinion, there is already enough money invested in landscaping so the property looks 310% better than any landscaping in my sub-division, so I can't imagine what more would really, truly need to be done.

It reminded me of our last department meeting, when we learned that the hospital was going to be spending millions of dollars funding and redesigning the hospital image, creating a new sign, logo and color scheme for the hospital. Yet, moments later, we learned that the hospital was in a financial crunch, and there would be a lock down on all overtime and on call pay.

A perfect example of this was last Sunday when my boss scolded me because I was swamped on Saturday night and wrote "no lunch" on my time card. What this would amount to was the department paying me time-and-a-half for one half of an hour for me basically doing the work of two people all night long.

In talking with the good folks back in OB, they are no longer allowed to have a person on call. So, when they are in a crunch, when every second is of importance, the nurses will have to get on the phone and start calling every single employee of that department right down the line on the list.

The thing is, since whomever comes in will not get overtime pay unless that person is already over 40 hours for the week, who would want to come in. I sure wouldn't. However, out of due respect for your friends whom are currently in a jam, someone usually bites the bullet and comes in to help.

Quite frankly, I've been known to do the same thing in my department when my co-workers are in a jam. I come in to help even though my company is too cheap, and too short on money, to pay me the well deserved time-and-a-half-pay I should get for being nice, for sacrificing my quality family time.

Yet, while the hospital is busy being cheap with us, it continues to fork out millions of dollars on beautifying the hospital grounds. It would seem to me that there would be a better way of managing the "few" dollars that the hospital has.

There is an answer, and it is to have one or two of us employees sitting on the board so we can put in our two cents worth. So we can make sure the hospital is taking care of us, and not simply its image.