While most Americans are enjoying the Christmas holiday by getting a day off work to spend with family and friends, many people are still clocking in on Dec. 25.
A quarter of Americans will be required to work on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day this year, according to Allstate/National Journal’s annual Heartland Monitor poll that was released last month.
Trae Patton is a crew trainer who has been working at McDonald’s for almost four years. When Christmas day comes, it’ll just be another day for him.
“I’d rather not work on Christmas, but the overtime pay makes it worth it,” he said.
While the fast-food chain doesn’t open until 11 a.m., Patton and some of his coworkers are working longer than normal hours to make some extra money.
“It’s good we’re open because we are still getting business, but also bad because that means most of us don’t get to spend the holidays with our families,” he said.
Patton said he encourages those who have to work on holidays to go in with a positive attitude and treat it as another day of work.
Heath Blandford, pharmacy clinical manager at Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, said in his six years at OHRH, this will be his second Christmas working.
His mentality is in healthcare the workers are “on” 24-7-365.
“Someone has to be here,” he said. “We are here for the patients. Often times there are situations come up that are emergencies that are unfortunate, and we are to take care of those needs. Given the impact in healthcare, it is essential that we have a positive attitude even though it is a holiday.”
Michele Jones is an RN and a bedside nurse at OHRH who is no stranger to having to work on the holidays, having been in the profession for 30 years.
“It is a bummer working on the holidays but it can also be a tremendous blessing,” she said. “No patient plans to be hospitalized during the holidays, so as a nurse you have to remember that.”
Normally on the holidays, any patient that can go home is discharged before the holidays, so the ones left in the hospital are often the sickest patients.
“Over the years I have noticed that patients appreciate that I am there with them on the holiday,” she said.
Her advice for working on Christmas?
“Put yourself in your patient’s shoes,” Jones said. “Try to imagine what it is like being too sick to be at home with your loved ones during the holidays. For me, I am going to make a difference in their life, whether it is Christmas Day or any other day. Put a smile on your face and lots of Christmas cheer in your heart.”
