Schedule Woes

I am probably not picky enough on the wording of my expected schedule in the contracts I have had, but somethings I don’t think of because it never crossed my mind that it might happen.  My first assignment I was surprised by my schedule because no one had told me that I would be scheduled for four days one week three the next alternating and I didn’t have guaranteed hours, I learned really fast that guaranteed hours are VERY important.  Ok, you got me this time.  On my next assignment the schedule was pretty good and I had my 36 guaranteed hours.  Switching day shift to night shift was the only thing, but honestly I kind of liked that, and I knew from the interview that would be part of the deal.   On the next assignment I remembered the guaranteed hours again,  it was self scheduling, but I couldn’t schedule until last and the days with the fewest people were always the weekends so I worked pretty much every weekend.  It wasn’t my favorite but it wasn’t all bad either.  This assignment I was warned that I would be put on call a lot and that they would schedule me for 40 hours a week but I was only guaranteed 30.  I would still receive my full stipend if I was put on call as long as I had an initial on my time card saying that I had been scheduled my full hours but had been put on call.  When I got here I was informed it was really 60 hours guaranteed in two weeks not necessarily thirty hours each week.  Okay.  I am not a fan of being scheduled four or five days a week.  Granted that one of my shifts this week is a call shift and I have an added shift because a coworker asked to trade a day from next week for a day this week so she could go to a funeral and I’m a softy, but my schedule for the last week and a half had been atrocious.  All night shifts. Three shifts on one shift off, three shifts on one shift off have already been worked and now I start four more shifts on (it’s a total of six days working this calendar week).  It is very hard to recoup with only one shift off especially working nights… This is a pretty inhumane schedule.  Working 10/12 contiguous days….. We learn from our mistakes…Lord give me strength!