I don’t know if this is common knowledge already, but if it ISN’T, I will tell you that if you find a mysterious pill, say under the bed in your teenager’s room, you can search online for the numbers/letters printed on the side of the pill and find out that it’s a perfectly unexciting prescription he took a decade ago for summer camp, and maybe you should vacuum under the bed more often.
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I finally got out of bed tonight after lying there for an hour and a half fretting pointlessly. The fretting is miscellaneously useless (the landlord who unfairly kept our security deposit 20 years ago; the phone call I need to make; the cleaning I should do for an upcoming get-together; politics), but mostly it is about work. I feel stuck. I love the client I spend the most hours with, and I feel as if I CAN’T leave her (I don’t want to / she doesn’t want me to). I feel quite bonded to the client I spend fewer hours with, and would rather not leave her. I feel as if my employer/supervisors don’t care at all what kind of job I do as long as I don’t get them in legal trouble, and that they only care about my ability to be a warm body they can plug into the schedule, and that they feel I bother them too much with the things I am SUPPOSED to bother them about.
I am gradually learning that most of the working rules are not to protect the caregivers or the clients but to protect the company, and that we are expected to break those rules. For example, someone with my level of training is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN to do any lifting over 25 pounds, which means for example that I can assist a client with balancing or some positioning or an arm under her elbow, but I cannot haul her up out of her chair, or support her body weight. I am SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTED to let my employer know if a client in my care needs more help/support than I am qualified to provide. And when I DO let them know? Nothing happens. Well, I shouldn’t say “nothing”: sometimes I get a snippy defensive email that makes me sorry I said anything. It’s “You absolutely cannot haul a client to her feet” combined with “We have assigned you to a client who cannot stand up unless you haul her. YOU figure out how to move her from chair to bed. Remember: NO HAULING. We value your safety / our workers’ compensation premiums!”
We are also SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTED to let the office know if, for example, a client has certain symptoms/situations for more than three days. And so if it has been three days, I let them know. Then when I go back a week later, nothing has been done and nothing has changed. I let them know that the situation is still as it was, and I get back a prickly defensive email as if I’m trying to tell them their job. They say again and again “YOU are our eyes and ears!,” so I try to be their eyes and ears, but what they really mean is “If we get in trouble for something you should have told us, we have set it up to be YOUR FAULT.” (I keep my own copies of all these times I notify them.)
And there are certain things we are NOT ALLOWED to do, such as shoveling snow and trimming fingernails, and clients request these things fairly often, and are very surprised if I say I am not supposed to do them, because the other caregivers ARE doing them, and then I feel it looks as if I am only following the rules because those rules get me out of having to do work, when that is not at all my motivation.
There continue to be so many calls to fill shifts, even though I can TELL they are making an effort to call me WAY LESS, and I do appreciate that. There are also emails that go company-wide, and use very annoying terms such as “step up” to refer to volunteering to take additional shifts, and add annoying phrases such as “or else our clients cannot receive the care they deserve.” If we don’t have enough staff to cover shifts, more staff needs to be hired. I dislike having it implied that we are shirking our duty or neglecting our clients if we don’t take the extra hours. Shall I send the COMPANY an email asking them to “step up” and recruit/hire more staff, “or else our clients cannot receive the care they deserve”? (And if they’re finding it hard to retain staff, which they ARE, perhaps I could offer a few hints for improving employee morale.)
I feel incompatible with my bosses’ values and priorities. I feel as if I am an extremely good employee in all the ways that SHOULD matter (bonding with the clients, really truly wanting to make their lives easier and better, really truly wanting to do a good job and be a good value for their money), and that instead I am considered a mediocre employee because I am not very concerned about making my bosses’ lives easier by filling extra last-minute shifts and not bothering them with issues. And I also DO make their lives easier by showing up reliably for all my shifts and doing a good job, but that doesn’t seem to count at all: if it’s not something they have to worry about, it’s not something they give credit for.
I should say that after I had a talk with one of my supervisors, she really does seem as if she is TRYING to be considerate of the things I mentioned to her. But I think the problem is that she doesn’t understand it at all: she’s such a different temperament type, it’s like she’s trying hard to remember that a particular employee doesn’t want her to use pronouns. She’s TRYING, but she’s an extrovert, a phone person, a doesn’t-hurt-to-ask person, an everything-is-always-a-special-exceptional-emergency-without-noticing-it-happens-constantly person, a what’s-the-difference-if-you’re-working-for-Client-A-or-Client-B,-it’s-the-same-work-either-way person, an always-putting-out-fires-without-ever-working-on-fire-prevention person.
Anyway. You guys have come up with a lot of good ideas already (changing to a different company, going into private service, working for a nursing home instead, working more hours for fewer clients, thinking of this as temporary / a learning experience / good practice, etc.), so I guess this is more a status-update vent about how I’m feeling about things now. I feel as if I know my options, but that I don’t know which one I should do.
1. Stick with it. Keep doing the parts I like and find satisfying. Try to avoid/ignore the parts I don’t like and find infuriating/frustrating/upsetting. Think of all of it as good experience. Maybe get more training. Realize that ALL jobs have bad parts mixed with the good parts, and many have this very combination of satisfying work + impossible supervisors, and in fact many instead have the combination of unsatisfying work + impossible supervisors.
2. Quit. Maybe all at once, or maybe quit gradually by agreeing to go only to the clients I currently have, until they, er, no longer need care. But basically come to the conclusion that this is in many ways the right job for me, but is in more ways the wrong job for me. Start all over with the job-figuring-out process. Maybe don’t try to find something Meaningful this time (my friend Surely and I have a theory that difficult/crazy people are PARTICULARLY drawn to jobs where they can exploit people who care: teachers, caregivers, people in medical fields, people working for charitable or not-for-profit causes, etc.), and instead find something that doesn’t make me fret and stress and feel upset so much. Maybe don’t find anything at all, because so much additional stress is coming from trying to balance work with everything else.
3. Stay in the field, but make a change. I don’t think a nursing home would be more satisfying: one of my co-workers did that for two years, and says it’s mostly the parts I don’t find as satisfying, like bathing and toileting and dressing, but all in a big rush, with too many clients per caregiver. Good time flow, but depressing and sad; she said she switched to home care because she couldn’t keep saying, “I’m so sorry, I have to go” to lonely elderly people. I don’t think I want to do private care: I like being under a company’s insurance in case something goes wrong, and I like having staff nurses to consult, and I like not having to find someone to cover my shifts, and I like not having to figure out the taxes. I don’t really want to get further nursing training. That leaves changing to a different company, but I SUSPECT that the problems I’m finding at this company are pretty similar at other companies.
4. Don’t make any decisions for now. This is probably what I’m going with. Just…stick with it for now, with no real plans either way, until a plan seems clear. It’s a Job In The Hand, and that is valuable. Right now I have dropped to 8-10 hours a week, which is very little (though it’s spread over 4-5 days, so it feels as if I go to work a lot), and with only two usual clients, and this feels sustainable for now. (I could go for more hours to either of those two clients, if I wanted to; right now I don’t want to, for various reasons.) I DO like parts of it. I DO think I was going pretty crazy without a job. I DO leave my shifts feeling good, generally. I DON’T want to start over finding something new. I COULD stand more practice in not caring what employers think WHEN THEY’RE WRONG.
No real wisdom here, but I’m up nursing my baby and just wanted to lend some emotional support. It sounds like a tough situation, but everything you’re doing is appropriate. I agree with #4. And I suspect the bosses need you a lot more than you need them.
Speaking of late-night fretting, I read somewhere that blood flow to your frontal lobe decreases in the night, and relatively more blood goes to the amygdala and other brain areas that govern fear, so basically, threats seem to loom larger in the middle of the night. I try to remember that when I am lying awake working myself up about something — that it’s possible the solution will present itself during the day, or at least the situation as a whole will FEEL more manageable in the morning.
I read somewhere that we’re not really in our right minds between two times I forget—something like 11:00pm and 5:00am—and that it’s best not to try to problem-solve during those times. I’ve found that somewhat helpful too when I’m lying awake: I think, “Anything I’m thinking right now is not going to be as sane as it ought to be.”
“Anything I’m thinking right now is not going to be as sane as it ought to be.”
I feel like that could be my mantra for life. -_-
Oh my god, that is SO HELPFUL! (said the early morning doomsdayer)
I know you don’t necessarily want to make a change, but have you looked into CareLinx? I don’t know if they are in your area, but more of a combination of private care with company back up and insurance. A different model but I have thought several times they would be a good fit for what you are looking for.
What us it about early morning fretting? It comes so naturally to me, and involves a time machine-like procession of old grievances. Hugs!
I once spent time as a hospice volunteer and found it rewarding, but of course it didn’t pay. It was a lot of just being with each person.
Love the pill story!
I think that if you talked to somebody who worked in a daycare, you’d find exactly the same complaints. By this I mean that caregiving employers aren’t in it for the satisfaction of their staff. Maybe you could say that about any employer, but I have just come to feel that professional caregiving is the ultimate “womens’ work” and it isn’t valued as it should be.
I hope it seems better today, but my only advice is to focus on what you DO get out of it. There is money you wouldn’t otherwise have at this moment, there is freedom to not have to report every day no matter what, and there is freedom to pick up extra if it works for you. There are the clients you like, and maybe you were there for them in an important way. In some ways you’re like a nanny in reverse. Instead of being with the young for the early years until they no longer need you, you are helping them stay at home until they go into their final journey. I hope that can feel meaningful even if you are employed by people who see your care and your clients through capitalist goggles. I think you are burdened by thinking you can get them to take those goggles off and see what you see…but those goggles aren’t removable now. They will come off, some day when Father Time has worked his magic on these people, and they’re the ones in the bed wishing somebody would help them with these nails that are too long and bothering them so badly.
YES, in fact I was thinking about how similar this was to my daycare job. There were STRICT RULES about caregiver/infant ratios, and about MAKING SURE we had our LEGALLY-REQUIRED breaks—and yet, we had a daily schedule that DID set us up for illegal ratios and DID NOT allow for breaks. And the director did not thank us for bringing this to her attention; in fact, she would say, “And also, you must keep the infants from doing any crying at all: it looks bad when parents come in and hear crying.”
I find this very helpful: “I think you are burdened by thinking you can get them to take those goggles off and see what you see…but those goggles aren’t removable now.”
Ah, I didn’t know this. Yes, contradiction is the worst. You go in believing that what you’re told is true, only to have to debunk it to get to the real truth. It’s galling, and some days I feel that all I do is debunk what I’m being told in all areas of my life. It’s not how I thought it would be, this adult gig.
That was brilliant, Celeste. You captured exactly what I was feeling but I was unable to articulate. Really good advice.
Celeste is my new Yoda.
Brilliant.
So frustrating! I feel your pain. Both in the specific sense and in the larger “this is so what is wrong with the world today” sense. So frustrating.
And I’d probably stick with it too. You can always quit and that’s a satisfying thing by itself
I have to detach myself from my bosses/leadership and their goals DAILY. Control what you can control, do your best work, and forget what you can’t control. “It’s a Job In The Hand” has been my operating statement for a long while now. (Sigh.)
One thing I wonder is, could you leave a note for your client’s family members, or speak to them, after you’ve reported something that hasn’t been addressed by management? That way, they (presumably the paying customers) could call in to the management, and say, “I know that this was reported to you on Feb X…, why has nothing been done about it?” Just a thought.
YES, most houses have notebooks for communicating with family members, and I’ve been using the heck out of those—partly for my own protection, to show that I DID report issues, and partly to sort of call in the guard and give the family what they need to speak up. This is another reason I think my bosses are…not thanking the heavens for me.
I find this very helpful: “I have to detach myself from my bosses/leadership and their goals DAILY.” Yes. Detach myself from their goals. I hadn’t thought of it like that.
I did staffing at a nursing home and at a medical staffing company for years. Sadly, companies are always looking to trim every penny and the corporate mentality is “get the buck in or get the f out”. Too often, the fact that there are people, real live humans, getting shorted on their care is overlooked.
Hospice services seem to be more caring and have more interest in providing the best care for limited time. Perhaps you could volunteer for a hospice and see if you would like that environment better? Or maybe you could align yourself with a doula and help new moms adjust to being mothers?
I think Swistle has already helped a lot of us new moms adjust to being mothers! I read and re-read her “Postpartum” posts again and again and it just helped me feel less crazy. And a friend just had a baby and is feeling bewildered and exhausted, and I sent her the link too. So I second the postpartum doula idea… :)
Aw, this is such a great idea. Swistle, has this been on your radar before? I can’t remember you talking about it, and I’m sure it’s not the easiest thing to get involved in doing, but we all know how much you love babies but also understand the inherent impossible and overwhelming feeling of parenting.
I suppose most doulas are small and independent though, which cuts the simplicity for insurance and taxes, but maybe insurance isn’t as critical in that situation??? And freelance taxes aren’t that bad, in my experience!
It’s very reassuring for some reason to hear that yes, the priorities ARE as they seem. I think it’s because I sometimes feel as if I must be crazy: they’re SAYING all this stuff about how our main goal is good care for our clients, but their ACTIONS say, as you’ve put it, “get the buck in or get the f out.”
As someone who has worked both in home care and nursing homes (at the same time! What can I say? I had two kids going to very expensive colleges) I can tell you that you are definitely not crazy. As for the suggestion that you try a nursing home, I would not recommend that. Nursing homes are a hundred times worse. And the work is physically very challenging. VERY. Plus, instead of feeling that you are letting one client down you will at all times be letting 15 or more let down. Even when they are dying. Literally. I was once reprimanded for complaining that while one of my favorites was dying (he died hours later), his room was being vacuumed. When I asked the cleaner why he was doing that he told me that the room had to be ready for the next patient. I kid you not. And I was being the unreasonable one for complaining to the administration.
Oof. This whole thread is making my heart hurt.
I think hospice care is so great because it’s covered by insurance. It gets more respect because they can charge so much for it, and as a result they invest in their staff better or else it all falls apart.
My husband is one to fret about work/people at work/supervisors/what people say to him/what doesn’t get done that should/etc. I feel like I’m constantly telling him things like, “You can’t change other people” or “Just do your best, that’s all you can do” or “Worry about yourself, not about other people.” Because honestly, worrying/fretting gets him nowhere but very upset.
In my own life, there was a time many years ago when a very awful person became my boss’ boss. I never cried at work until this man came. I never got SO upset as when this man was in charge. I would fight him on things because what he wanted us to do was so ridiculous. But i never won. And finally I realized it was never worth it to get so mad. So, I put a post-it on my computer (and I still have it to this day), that said, “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” Because it’s NOT. Even if you fight, complain, push until you get your way or make someone understand, in the end, it most often still doesn’t feel worth all the effort and hand-wringing.
And (last thing, I promise!) a woman once told me about a relationship I wasn’t sure if I should end, but I think it works for jobs, too: You’ll stay in it until it’s harder to be IN it than NOT to be in it. When going to the job is worse than it would be to just stay home and try to figure out something else? That’s when it’s time to hang it up, I think.
I’m sorry it’s a struggle. (Also, I totally agree with the doula/hospice nurse idea!!)
“Worrying/fretting gets [you] nowhere but very upset”—YES. I wish for a SWITCH in my brain. Last night I was thinking, “Here I am, lying awake, apparently trying to change the entire structure/priorities of the company with…my mind? THIS IS DUMB.”
I like that stay-in-until-it’s-harder-in-than-out thing. I’ll remember that. At my daycare job, the director would make new silly rules periodically (one was “Infants cannot do any crying at all, because it makes a bad impression on people in the lobby”), and I used to fight EVERY ONE of them. I wanted her to SEE that the rule was stupid. Instead, she thought of me as combative and overly emotional, and I never got the rules changed anyway, and I would lie awake raging about the way she would say with fake sympathy, “Awwww, I didn’t realize you were so UPSET about this!” The juice was indeed not worth the squeeze.
“Juice is not worth the squeeze” is brilliant. My spouse is having a very frustrating time at work currently, and the consequence is that ALL the house stuff is falling to me because he is working many hours. Which is making me very cranky and grumpy that he isn’t fighting his bosses enough (in my opinion). But perhaps he has already come to the conclusion that the juice won’t be worth the squeeze (and I suspect he is correct in his assessment.) Sigh. I think I will add this to my fridge, thank you!
A+ work rant. I have the “is-this-the-right-job-for-me?” fret ON THE REGULAR, and pretty reliably every Jan/Feb. As a rule-following, people-pleasing type in general, I find I have to Release My Attachment to the Outcome practically daily (also, what el-e-e said).
Ohhhhh man. I am in a very fraught “Is this job worth me staying in it?!??!” mental battle daily with myself right now too. On the one hand we’re in the middle of buying a house, I am 3 months pregnant, I super duper do NOT NEED to try to start a new job search right now. On the other hand, everything right now at work makes me want to quit on a daily basis and.. i don’t know.. live on the streets? completely tank our finance approval if/when I switch jobs in the middle of trying to close on a house? But can/should I stay here where the stress is keeping me up at night and the rage is driving me-cry in the bathroom on the regular?! arrgghh.
(none of that was helpful. sorry. apparently had my own rant/vent stored up.)
I think lots of jobs like this, where your employer and actual place of work are different, are very similar. I am a gov’t contractor. My main company has one set of rules, etc. but I am on-site w/customers. I can (and have) hate my company, but love my day-to-day job and co-workers. The last time this happened where I hated the company, I stayed for 2 years because I had so little interaction with the company part but I loved my daily work so much.
“maybe you should vacuum under the bed more often.” Ha! Yes! This is totally me. I think I keep a relatively clean house, then realize that the stuff that’s been blocking me from dusting my dresser is detritus from a vacation six months (oh who am am I kidding A YEAR) earlier. Sure I keep our guinea pigs clean, and clean the bathrooms and kitchen pretty regularly, and stay relatively on top of dusting and straightening the shared areas of our home, but my own private, tucked-away spaces? Ech, not so much.
Do you live in a town with a courthouse? I think you would be well suited to some kind of administrative job at a courthouse. I’ve become very good friends with a woman who spend 1/4 of her time running the bar assn, 1/2 her time on abuse & neglect cases, 1/4 of her time floating around to helping different judges with whatever they need help with, and it seems like satisfying work which can be left at the office at the end of the day. She knows her way around setting up websites and newsletters and people think she’s a goddess who does magic.
Also, I teach at a gym and love teaching, but hate dealing with the company administration. They tell instructors over and over that covering our classes is our responsibility unless it’s an emergency in which case they are supposed to intervene and find subs for us, then when there is an emergency they give us helpful “tips” on how to find our own subs. If we do not show up and cannot find someone to cover, we are raked over the coals, even if we’ve followed all the protocol we’re supposed to. If we go to work super-sick (like, pausing every other song to run and throw up sick) they make sure they emphasize that doing so is our “choice”, and instruct us to make sure members know that we’re not being forced to work sick, we’re choosing to do so.
This is maybe not the most helpful comment, but my thought is keep on doing what you’re doing and realize that at least your supervisors are just a small portion of the job (it’s not like you’re having to go in and report to/see your supervisor daily, right?) . There really will be a downside to any job, and it sounds like you enjoy much of the work itself…getting to spend time with your clients you are bonded with, helping them, etc. The rest of it seems like something you can gradually tune out. :) I am guessing that is what is happening with the other caregivers…over time, they have learned what to pay attention to vs. what to tune out. My job is a VERY different field, but there is a whole lot of “tuning out” I do so that I can focus on my job itself. I think that will come in time for you. (And NO to the nursing home idea…it sounds like the worst parts of your current job time 1,000,000 without the benefit of getting to bond more with individuals.)
Of course, i also say that you really should consider a writing career. Seriously, you could write the ingriedients of my cereal box and I would find it interesting. You have a great way of capturing things with words!!
I agree with all of this (especially the writing part). Here’s what I’m thinking:
1. Every care job is FILLED with areas of possible tort, and everything you do–even reasonable, conscientious, and extra-generous things–exposes the company to completely disproportionate amounts of liability. Their constant reminders are a nuisance and I feel your pain, my morale would also be low, but the price of not paying those reminders is just too high. That’s true all throughout this industry, as you say. You won’t find a legitimate job where you’re paid to take care of other humans and not constantly feel like you’re on the FBI watch list (although you might find one where the supervisors are nicer about it–but who’s to say you’ll have the same supervisors for long?).
2. You’re relatively new to THIS job, right? How do you think you’ll feel in a year? You’re so savvy and so quick to notice things, I feel like you’ll have figured out literally every single loophole and that your life will feel much, much easier once you do. (Not that you should disregard any warnings, of course, but doesn’t everyone, a few months into the job, figure out which warnings are “real” warnings and which ones are just “CYA warnings designed specifically because of that one person who used to have your job but wasn’t as smart as you”?
3. That said, the rules DO protect you too–maybe it would be helpful to keep in mind a vision of what could happen to everyone involved, particularly yourself, in the event of some freak accident (the one I’m picturing is shoveling a client’s walkway and accidentally whacking him in the face, Home Alone-style).
I have always imagined in-home elder care as being something I would like to try if my current job disappears (cultural nonprofit. I love it, but funding is always an issue). I have read all of your work-related posts with GREAT INTEREST. This one is simultaneously so encouraging and discouraging that I may wake up in the night and fret about it with you. Encouraging: I love how you seem so attached to your clients and feel like you are doing good because this is what I fondly imagined the job would be like. But gosh…your supervisors and the unwritten expectations that basically indicate a lack of care for the clients makes me feel…clenched. What a difficult situation. It sounds like you are navigating it as gracefully as possible. Good luck as you continue to toe the line for now, and if a decision needs to be made, I hope it feels clear to you.
Oh yes, I think this is common for people whose jobs are “care” givers. My husband drives a school bus (and has for 30 years). He is awesome at it, but the reality of what he experiences in “the field” is so different than what the department/directors say that it drives him nuts. And makes his job harder. But all the parts that he likes is what keeps him there. I would recommend #1 or #4. I am always reminding him of #1 and he has pretty well successfully managed this.
My unsympathetic suggestions are above; now here’s my sympathy dump. I SO feel your pain on this. I work full-time as a lawyer, but I also work part-time for a private company some evenings–not in the care industry (is that the right term?), but one where I have prolonged interactions with a group of (generally) young adults for 2-3 months at a time. Part of my job is to strike up a warm, friendly rapport with these people, which I make an effort to do; but because they’re also customers, I answer constantly to my company about how closely I’m following the (rather long list of) policies in our interactions.
These two things really do feel like they work directly against each other. It’s hard to be genuinely sweet to customers while also running through a mental checklist of all the rules I can’t break, and hard to adhere to the rules without sometimes seeming impolite or making the customers feel awkward.
But, silver lining: After failing miserably at it for my first year on the job, I reached the point where I did almost everything impeccably for another couple years (with occasional lapses and reprimands to keep me on my toes)–and since then, threading the needle has gotten a little easier every day. I’m neither following the rules perfectly nor violating them obviously, and the quality of my interactions with customers is pretty darn high.
TL;DR–it will get better! But, of course, you must do whatever is necessary for your sanity. Hang in there, Swistle!
A couple days late, but I just wanted to say that I have basically the EXACT SAME PROBLEM with feeling like I’m considered a mediocre employee because I can’t drop everything and pick up extra shifts. I have a two year old! I am great at my job, my clients are very happy with my work 99% of the time, but I get the feeling all they ACTUALLY care about is booking more clients, rather than actually providing good service to those clients. I think this is partially because we work with a lot of people who are traveling so they don’t worry that much about getting repeat customers, but it’s VERY FRUSTRATING.