Breaking In: How I Found Freedom (and Money) in Strike Nursing

My first travel assignment to Florida was through one of what I later learned to call the evil empire companies. I think there were three of them at the time — Travcor, Cross Country, and one more I can't recall. Once we got to Florida, we both did our first thirteen-week contract, and then once we were established there, we broke off and did our own things: local agency, staff, whatever. We stayed in Florida for about five years.

Then we decided to come back to New York, so we took another travel assignment to Syracuse. I re-signed at the end of that contract, and once the two contracts were done, we were settled here again. That was pretty much the end of my wife's nursing career — she herniated two discs — and that's when I went back to traveling because it paid so much more.

My first contract from Syracuse was actually a strike. Yes, I ended up doing strikes for about two years. You can hate me if you want, but the bottom line is you cannot close a hospital completely. Consider the logistics of moving every ICU patient, every bed, to another facility — it's just not feasible. And even if it were, think about the rest of the hospital staff who aren’t part of the union — you're putting them out of work too.

As it turns out, doing that first strike was one of the best things I’ve done in my career. Not only did it lead to two years of incredible experience, but I also learned from veteran travelers that the evil empire companies are the worst ones to work for. And by the way, the idea that strike nurses are new grads or idiots? Absolute nonsense. I didn’t meet a single nurse on strike sites with less than ten years’ experience. I was the rookie with six.

I learned there were companies out there that didn’t stick you with 13-week assignments, didn’t hold your hand, and paid two to three times more. No fancy furnished apartments — just extended stay hotels, which made more sense if you were there to actually make money. And I was. The adventure was nice, but I was in it to bank cash.

Another thing strike work taught me: don’t limit yourself to 3x12s or 5x8s. I was working six or seven nights a week. The overtime alone changed everything. My longest stretch? Thirty straight 12-hour shifts in a neuro ICU step-down at Queens Medical Center in Hawaii. Sounds brutal — but it’s not hard when you don’t cook, clean, or drive yourself anywhere.

I stuck to that hustle when I returned to straight travel. Two-week contracts, four-week contracts, occasional 13s. I’d work five or six shifts a week and come home with enough money to take two months off. People say, “You must miss your kid’s events.” Not really. I timed my contracts to end before anything big — and when you’re home for weeks at a time, you don’t miss a thing. You’re even rested when you get there.

Sadly, I haven’t seen assignments shorter than eight weeks in years. Probably because of the time it takes to onboard nurses to hospital systems. Anyway — my last contract was in 2016.