Possible change in hours problem

[Daisycat]

I have been the head surgery tech at my clinic for about 2 years now. I very rarely have shifts where I do anything besides surgery. I love this shift since I get to leave at 3 and with my insomnia I am out of energy most days by 4 and have no motivation to work or do anything.


My PM mentioned that a girl is transferring from another clinic who was a head surgery tech over there. While she will not still be in that position, she asked me if I am OK with doing a few less surgery days to “be fair”.


I honestly do not think I can work as many hours as the other shifts would be. I already work one long shift a week now and it is rough. The hours I have now are one of the reasons I have stayed at my job, even when we had the worst human being ever as our PM. (he lasted 2 months – 3 people quit).


I don’t want her to think I am asking for special treatment, but since finding out about this disease my insomnia has gotten 100 times worse. I am not sure how I can explain my problem to her without it sounding like I am asking for special treatment.


Any advice on how I should approach this? This new girl isn’t coming until November, but I want to be prepared on how to handle this situation. I thought about asking if I could just work a half day morning shift, but again that’s not something many people do so I would feel like I was asking for special treatment.


A year ago I was always willing to work open-close any day I was needed. My insomnia was bad, but I had learned to deal. Now with getting 4 hours of sleep a night if I am lucky I don’t think I can do that anymore.



If I could just learn how to sleep I would be OK , but since I have had insomnia since I was a little girl I don’t think that will ever happen.

[pennstater]

Any resution to your hours? I am not sure why you are asked to be "fair" if the girl they hired is not in the same position you are. She accepted a position knowing that someone else is in the lead role. Am I missing something?

Can you just say that while you would love to help out, for personal reasons, you need to keep the hours you have, but that you can revisit in the New Year? That would give you time with your new neuro, discuss insomnia and anxiety/stress and see if any steps help resolve?

Sorry late to this, but just saw.

[Daisycat]

Any resution to your hours? I am not sure why you are asked to be "fair" if the girl they hired is not in the same position you are. She accepted a position knowing that someone else is in the lead role. Am I missing something?

Can you just say that while you would love to help out, for personal reasons, you need to keep the hours you have, but that you can revisit in the New Year? That would give you time with your new neuro, discuss insomnia and anxiety/stress and see if any steps help resolve?

Sorry late to this, but just saw.

I've been on vacation for the past week so I haven't really had a chance to talk to my PM about things. Apparently from what I have heard from my friend from work is the "assistant" PM is leaving in a month , we had one girl transfer to a different location , and corporate just told my PM that we are getting two new doctors one full time and one part time starting in December.

So I am not really sure whats going to happen with anything. It sounds like everything is going to be crazy for awhile. I am pretty sure my PM will want to keep things as normal as possible for all the old time staff members.

If this new girl wants the associate PM position that would solve my problem since people in that position are rarely scheduled for the surgery shift. I go back on Thursday so I plan to talk to my PM about it more then. So far on all the new schedules she has done she has kept me at my regular schedule. I know she is under a lot of stress with all of this being dumped on her last week.

So I'll see how it goes when we talk Thursday. She is great and I am pretty confident she will be understanding.

[Nabbosa]

If you are in the U.S., get your neuro to write an accommodations letter and apply for accommodations under the ADA. The letter does not have to state what the diagnosis is, just the situations that need to be accommodated. In fact, the doctor can't write the diagnosis due to U.S. Federal law (HIPAA) unless you allow them to do so.
The ADA is the law, and it's meant to protect those with medical issues of various sorts - visible and invisible. It's meant to keep people working for as long as they can.

And forget "fair" - it's not "fair" that any of us have this disease. If the law can help you continue to contribute to a workplace, use it. (N.B. I don't mean to put down anyone who isn't able to be in a workplace due to M.S. or any other situation.)

[Sirius0ne]

If you are in the U.S., get your neuro to write an accommodations letter and apply for accommodations under the ADA. The letter does not have to state what the diagnosis is, just the situations that need to be accommodated. In fact, the doctor can't write the diagnosis due to U.S. Federal law (HIPAA) unless you allow them to do so.
The ADA is the law, and it's meant to protect those with medical issues of various sorts - visible and invisible. It's meant to keep people working for as long as they can.

And forget "fair" - it's not "fair" that any of us have this disease. If the law can help you continue to contribute to a workplace, use it. (N.B. I don't mean to put down anyone who isn't able to be in a workplace due to M.S. or any other situation.)

I also used to end work at 3 pm. About a month ago I applied for ADA accommodations to adjust my work hours because of fatigue in the afternoon. My employers (in conjunction with our union) agreed to a new range of work hours, however, no one was allowed to leave before 4pm now.

My ADA Request for just that one hour (I would still be working an 8-hour day) was denied. It didn’t matter that my neurologist wrote a justification. My employers said it was unreasonable that I would be unavailable every day after 3pm. Further, they said that if I absolutely had to leave work at 3pm, then I need to find a different place to work, one that would better fit my work schedule needs.

I’m just writing this here to let people know about my experience of asking for ADA accommodations. I thought, it’s only an hour, surely it’s a ‘reasonable accommodation.’
Instead, I left that meeting feeling like I was lucky to even still be employed.

[pennstater]

I also used to end work at 3 pm. About a month ago I applied for ADA accommodations to adjust my work hours because of fatigue in the afternoon. My employers (in conjunction with our union) agreed to a new range of work hours, however, no one was allowed to leave before 4pm now.

My ADA Request for just that one hour (I would still be working an 8-hour day) was denied. It didn’t matter that my neurologist wrote a justification. My employers said it was unreasonable that I would be unavailable every day after 3pm. Further, they said that if I absolutely had to leave work at 3pm, then I need to find a different place to work, one that would better fit my work schedule needs.

I’m just writing this here to let people know about my experience of asking for ADA accommodations. I thought, it’s only an hour, surely it’s a ‘reasonable accommodation.’
Instead, I left that meeting feeling like I was lucky to even still be employed.

Did you review with the union lawyer? I know sometimes they really only look out for union and not individual, but curious what both your rep and union lawyer would say.