When Caitlin, a 24-year-old in Pennsylvania, US, graduated from her nursing program about a year ago, she was assigned to the night shift. “Most new

Should young workers still have to 'pay their dues'? - BBC Worklife

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2021-10-27 20:00:15

When Caitlin, a 24-year-old in Pennsylvania, US, graduated from her nursing program about a year ago, she was assigned to the night shift.

“Most new nurses are sent into the night shift, which some people love,” she says. “For me it just wrecked my body and my life. I went into a terrible depression. I’m a super extroverted, daytime, sunshine person. It totally messed up my eating habits, my hormones, everything.”

Caitlin, who is withholding her surname for job security, says her circadian rhythm was so thrown off, she became unable to drive herself home after a shift without falling asleep. “Once,” she says, “I woke up in the opposite lane, a half-second from a head-on collision.” 

She approached her superiors and human resources to try to get her hours changed, to no avail. “The way you get to day shift is a seniority list based on when you started,” says Caitlin. “In order for me to get a full-time day shift position, I had to basically wait for people to quit, retire or leave. At the time, there was a day-shift position available, but they wouldn’t give it to me because there was someone who’d been there longer than me. It was a tough lesson: they weren’t going to let me skip the line.”

Ultimately, says Caitlin, she wasn’t shocked by that outcome. As one of the newest nurses on staff, she knew she was expected to work those overnight hours, no matter how tough it was. “You’ve got to just pay your dues,” she says. “I was kind of taught that is how life works. You’re at the bottom until you work your way up to the top.”

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