Where I've been

I have been too busy to post anything these last four days. Busy with work, that is. One patient after the other on a twelve hour shift really tires me out. With the long commute into the city, and add on an overtime call at the end of the shift, a twelve hour shift turns into about fifteen or sixteen hours. I get home just in time to get enough sleep to do it all over again the next day.

It's hard to believe that we are on strike. We have not reduced any services to the public, but we are not coming in for overtime shifts on our days off. That part has been great for family time and commitments. I never realized how much of life I was missing by constantly working overtime on my days off until I stopped making myself available. Now I have time to spend with family (and a reduced income) but I can make myself available to do what really matters, and right now, with both my parents nearing the end of their lives, family matters the most.

Things are heating up with our strike, and I (and about three hundred other co-workers) just received a threatening letter from my employer telling me I must make myself available for overtime shifts on my days off, since I had done so in the past. Last time I checked, we were not quite a Communist country, and we have something called civil rights here in Canada that entitle us to take our scheduled days off and do anything we want with them. Historic practice is history. My new historic practice is to enjoy my days off and spend time with family. We are on strike to save lives. Who says you can't change history?