ATO

How many times does your work call you and say, there are too many people today, go ahead and get back to bed? Well, my work did just that today. While I was in the shower at 5 am to get ready for work, the charge nurse called and said that if I felt like going back to bed, I could.
Call it a case of too many nurses and not enough babies, but my unit is "OVERSTAFFED" each shift we are using about 16 nurses and each shift is scheduled with about 20-25 nurses. What do they do with other/extra nurses at Children's? Why, they recycle them to other units, or throw them out completely and let them stay home. Children's is a very "GREEN" hospital.
Anyway, ATO stands for authorized time off, or something like that and when there is too many nurses and not enough babies some nurses are lucky to get thrown out of the mix and ATO, stay home in bed, go shopping, eat out, finish house work and chores. It is a lucky surprise, and getting back into bed feels so much better, when just moments before you thought that you were going to be driving that hour commute to work.
I just feel a little bad for JR, because he was the one who go the call at 5 am, while I was in the shower, so he was awoken from his precious slumber, and could not fall back asleep. He is not lucky enough to ever be ATO'd. Since, he is the only employee, they are never overstaffed. Poor, JR.
Thanks to the ATO day, I am able to update my blog, and get some well needed rest after last week.