The scheduling coordinator, a quiet woman named Donna, pulled up the request log while I stood at her desk. She scrolled to December. She found the request from Marissa, timestamped three days before the portal opened. Then she clicked on it.
A small window popped up. Entered by, and a login name.
It was not the login of Marissa. It belonged to her best friend in the department, a charge nurse on nights named Tricia. One of the two people with admin access.
Four Christmases in a row I had been the nurse who thinks she deserves special treatment, and the whole time, somebody had been cutting the line with a key to the back door.
Donna did not say anything for a long time. Then she clicked back to last year. And the year before. Every major holiday for four years, Marissa had a request entered days before the portal opened. Every single one was entered by Tricia.
The other two nurses who had been denied the same day as me came down to scheduling that afternoon. So did our charge nurse from days, a woman named Beverly, who had been standing at the station that morning. She said she had wondered for years how Marissa always got in first. She said she just assumed Marissa was fast.
Donna sent everything to the nurse manager. The nurse manager sent it to HR.
Tricia lost her admin access that week. She kept her job, but she was moved to days, under Beverly. Marissa was not fired. But her approved Christmas request was voided, along with her request for New Year, and she was put at the back of the line for every holiday the next year.
And the department changed how holidays work. Now it is a rotation. If you worked Christmas last year, you are off this year. It is posted on the wall in the break room in big black letters, with every name on it, for the next five years.
My name is in the off column for this Christmas.
I got home that night and my daughter was doing homework at the kitchen table. I told her I would be home for Christmas morning. She put her pencil down and asked me if I was sure. She said, like, really sure?
I said really sure.
She had a part in the church Christmas pageant that year. She was a shepherd, which she told me was the most important role because the shepherds found the baby first. I sat in the third row and cried through the whole thing.
On Christmas morning she woke me up at 6:15 and dragged me to the tree in my scrubs pajamas. She said she had been waiting four years to do that.
Marissa came to me in January and apologized. She said she knew it was wrong and did it anyway because she had kids too. I told her I understood. Everybody on that floor has somebody waiting for them.
That is what the rotation is for.