Do you care for people? Do you want to make a change and look after vulnerable elderly and disabled? Do you want to change their life by assisting with every day tasks giving them as much independence as you can, teaching them how to regain confidence in every day life as disabled person? Do you want to be the one that is recognised for your job and have opportunity of personal and professional growth being supported by the company you work for? Well DO NOT APPLY FOR JOB HERE.
You will be exploited to the limits. Once you try to put some boundaries on we will call you lazy. That one day you have enough of this and try to call in sick don’t expect ‘sorry to hear you are unwell, please rest and come back when feeing better’. This is what you got instead: ‘oh nooooo, when did you start feeling unwell? Because your shift starts in half an hour, you cannot call in sick with such a short notice, you are letting your service users down, you are putting them at risk actually’. Someone in your family passed away? Well, we hope you can deal with it quickly and be okay to finish your shift and then be back after two days. You have a stomach bug? Hospital says you shouldn’t attend within 72 hours since last sickness episode? No, no, don’t worry, you can go back to work after 2 days. Doesn’t matter if you called in on Monday evening. You can work on Wednesday starting at 7, no problem. You cannot let your vulnerable service users down. Those who are in danger of getting infections that turn into sepsis twice more than younger people. But you know – it’s definitely not because we don’t have enough staff in place and we don’t hire enough people to cover emergencies like this. No, no. its YOUR fault their not getting highest possible standard of care on time.
You will attend very long training where you are going to learn about all the regulations. This is to scare you what consequences are there for not following the rules. Training will take about a week and there will be only 1 day of practical moving and handling because, you know, company needs your signature all over the place to prove you have definitely READ and UNDERSTOOD the rules, not to actually show you how to follow them. You will be assigned to work with an experienced carer and all you will need to do is to be their ‘shadow’ (they will even call it shadowing, makes sense doesn’t it?). You think that they will explain all the rules again, make sure you definitely understand what and how to do it, they will take their time and let you try everything safely, service users will be obviously previously asked and only those who gave consent will be trained on? You think that you are ever going to attend someone’s house without them knowing who is coming and that there will be more carers than usual? Don’t be ridiculous, we don't have time for that. Oh, you are asking how would we feel if some stranger appeared at our house and we cannot physically move or defend ourselves? They can always ring the office and complain, of course they can! But they are going to find out that they must accept new people in case their regular carers call in sick or have a day off. And also they will be promised that office will definitely give them a call a day before to let them know about any changes regarding their care – visit time, carers attending etc. Will it ever happen? Of course not! Dot be silly, we have just cut numbers in the office to fit in the budget so there will be no one having time for silly calls like that. They have to do their magic and find cover for you calling in sick for no reason, remember?
Oh, lets not forget about a situation when you are shadowing two carers working together and one is calling in sick. You think they are going to find a cover for that one? No need, you are there! Freshly out of training so you know what you can and cannot do, right? You signed that you read and understood all procedures right? Besides, don’t worry, person you are with has done this run so many times before they could do it on their own now. But they would never be permitted of course as this is against company policy! Unless there is no one else to help and they have been asked if they could do what they can themselves JUST THIS ONCE. So they go along with it as at the end of the day if there is no emergency what could go wrong? So you are now their partner and they give you the hardest tasks at every call as they are the experienced ones to do the meds and food as there is no time for you to be figuring out how to do it. You better hurry up otherwise they will definitely complain about you and you will not be signed off for a long time!
You have done so well, got signed off after a week. You feel like it has been a bit rushed, like how are you going to be able to work on your own as all you have done is showers and made few beds? People you worked with would not trust you with medication and they could not be bothered to show you how they do it. Yes, yes, you went through a training, so you know right? It doesn’t matter that you didn’t face any kind of challenging situation there, you ticked the right box on the piece of paper and got signed off so if you make a mistake now, it’s on you, not us. But you are a very responsible person so you will just take your time and make sure everything is done properly right?
You are out there, on your own, visiting people in their homes, giving them personal care, preparing their breakfasts, administering their medications. You ask a lot of questions to make sure you meet all their needs and expectations. Oh, they getting annoyed aren’t they? Oh, is it because Stacey is not here, their regular carer? How could you not know where do they keep their towels? They are diabetic so you didn’t put sugar in their tea? Oh their diabetes is being controlled by their meds? How could you not know? Oh yes, I know, you are not a doctor or a nurse, you don’t have to know what the medication you giving is for, all you need to know is if the sticker matches the description in the med book and you administer, right? Doesn’t matter, you can just get that sugar for them now, right? What’s the big deal? Its not like you are already running 30 minutes late and every second counts. You can always ring the office and tell them you are struggling, could they cover few of your care calls? No? They said you will catch up later? Oooohhhhhh, they meant you won’t have a morning break that you are entitled to have to eat your breakfast as you literally started at 7 o’clock in the morning and starving already! Not a big deal is it? You finish your shift at two o’clock after all and going to have a big, big lunch before you start your second shift at four o’clock. Sounds like a plan. Oh, you got lost and finished at 3 o’clock and now you don’t have time to cook yourself that dinner? No ready meals in there? Oh darling, you better stop buying them vegetables to cook your food from scratch. Nobody does that anymore. Few ready meals, make sure you will get them discounted ones as you are on minimum wage, remember? Oh you are not on minimum wage? A little above? And you will do some extra shifts to get more money? Please, do not make me laugh now. All your extra money is going to go to a tax man, don’t even let me start this one. Good thing is, you won’t be home that much so you wont be using electricity, and you know, these bills, right? Sorry, I forgot you use your car for business purposes. Have you added business insurance to your policy? No? you better do that quick! Oh you want your company to cover the cost of that? Don’t be silly! You can claim this on your tax refund next year. Will your company cover at least the cost of petrol? Yes, little percentage of it. You can claim a little bit more on your tax refund as well but until then – you’re paying for yourself princess!
Why am I assuming you’re princess not a prince? Oh because this industry is taken over by women. If a man applies for that kind of job there must be something wrong with them, definitely. At least according to your female service users who will not let them do any kind of personal care so they end up with doing just medication and well being checks leaving you with all the hard tasks such as showering 150kg service users every day, in the summer with a heating on. Remember to wear your plastic apron over your synthetic uniform, followed by a synthetic mask over your face even though pandemic is basically over and they don’t even wear them in the hospitals! But well, you know them care companies – they will do everything to look good.
Okay, lets assume you are a man and you decided to work as a care assistant. Don’t you think it’s going to be so easy all the time! All these lazy female carers will claim that its male carers that should attend care calls for heavy service users. Yes my dear, the same women fighting for equal rights say that only because you are a man you have to go to heavy people. And aggressive men as they are scared, you know? Oh you are scared too? Don’t be silly, you’re a man!
Remember that person you shadowed? You have seen them doing almost everything themselves due to you being unexperienced. But now you are the experienced one so you are expected to do everything. Oh, your work partner didn’t show up to work and now you are on your own with heavy people? But you could do them yourself, you have seen it happening and to be honest, you only need a little bit of help now, it’s not that hard is it? Okay, but you are not allowed, right? Oh, office cannot cover it so they asked if you could do ‘what you could do alone that is safe so service user receives care they need’? you agree, of course, you don’t want to be awkward as well as you don’t want to be late home, AGAIN. In fact, you want to finish early as you are absolutely exhausted by doing double shifts to be able to afford living. So OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO GO ALONE. Everything went well? Wonderful. Has the office found you a carer to work with for the rest of the shift? No? okay, let’s carry on until they can find someone who will join you later. Nobody joined? Did you really, actually think they are going to find you someone while you are quietly doing everything yourself and there was no accidents? Don’t be ridiculous. Just carry on, go home, have a shower and something to eat and go to sleep. Or just food as we both know you are too tired to do both shower and cooking. Still no ready meals at the house? Oh, you got yourself a meal deal from Tesco. Fair enough. How about, you eat it in the car, save some time and get a shower? Great idea! Illegal? What’s illegal? Doing moving and handling on your own? Attending high risk aggressive service users on your own? Exactly. You don’t care anymore. You’re a criminal now so just eat your dry sandwich and munch on those cheesy crisps while drinking another red bull while driving to another service user. Is it your 3rd red bull today? Do they even work anymore?
You managed to work for this company for so long, how did you do it? I know, I know, its ‘rewarding’, service users love you for cleaning their bottoms every day regardless of the fact that you are tired and want to kill yourself. Yes, everyone thinks that you are a bum wiper darling, don’t think its any different. unless you are a senior carer. That sounds better doesn’t it? And I bet there is a respect coming with the role right? More responsibilities but less physical job, you have seen some senior carers sitting in the office doing care plans, and they only really go out to pick medications up and take them to service users homes right? Or to carry on a spot check on other carers. Now you remember how stressful it was so you are pretty sure it’s a very serious thing and there will be an opportunity for you to be professional and efficient at your like you always wanted to be! So you obviously apply for that position! Go on! Let’s do NVQ as well to be able to actually grow and progress in life. Life you have been recently questioning if it has any other purpose than sleep and work. But no more! With a pay rise you will be able to drop some hours and actually REST. Magical word which’s meaning you nearly forgot. So you become a Senior Carer and your 1st task is to update care plan of one of your service users. Oh, you’ve never heard of them? Yes, I forgot, they live outside your area but it’s an emergency, could you please go? Pleaseee. So OF COURSE you go as you want to be the good one. Service user is nasty? Not happy about their care? What’s wrong? Oh, care call times? They told you on the training that you’ve got to note it down and promise that our planning team will work on it. Will they do it? No. Will carers follow their updated rota? No. But everyone is extremely professional and respectful towards the MOST IMPORTANT GROUP OF PEOPLE FOR THE COMPANY. Remember? You’ve read that on the poster. Let me remind you: SERVICE USERS are 1st most important for our company, CARERS are 2nd important for our company. You would think that if company keeps you happy it would be easier for you to keep the service user happy? Don’t be silly, please. We all know why we are making customers happy. Certainly not so they are nice to you. Office don’t care if you are being treated with respect! You need to put up with it as they are ‘elderly, vulnerable, disabled people who suffer and we must forgive them a little bit of grumpiness, you know? Especially when they have dementia. They just don’t know what they are doing. Oh they hit you, spit in your face, pulled your hair? Some old man touched your breast? Oh, he is just an silly old man, don’t take it seriously. He was definitely joking, you know…’. By the way, of you go to update creepy pervert’s care plan. Don’t even try to put in there that he is high risk due to sexual behaviours towards young women and he should have two carers attending at all times for safety, or at least a male carer. You know well it would be impossible to cover that, right? Just put up with it like an adult, set boundaries, you are wearing uniform after all, right? Are you sure you are not wearing see through leggings there? Because you know, if he can see a line of your knickers you shouldn’t be surprised he got carried on. Go on, wear those ‘very comfortable’ synthetic trousers that are too long and it’s not worth mending them as that would cost twice as their actual price. Don’t forget those thick shoes your feet cannot breathe in. You are only wearing them 12 hours a day, nothing to complain about. Doesn’t matter that its literally 40 degrees out there and you don’t do any personal care, just doing your senior work. Rules are rules, right? by the way – you like your acrylic nails long and colourful, it cheers you up right? NO. absolutely not. Natural, short nails only! You are saying they are sharper than any type of acrylics and they have been hardened so they won’t come of, besides you wear gloves when carrying on any task? DOESN’T MATTER! Rules are rules. But use your common sense. Without breaking the rules. Unless we tell you so. Or if you have to as emergency. But we won’t praise you for doing something exceptional. We will reward that person in the office who has never been out there doing care for coming up with an idea in such a stressful difficult situation by simply telling you ‘do what you have to’.
Okay, but at least you don’t have to do any personal care anymore. Your job now is to do assessments, updating care plans, filling out medication books, picking up and dropping off medications from the pharmacy. You are spending most of your time in the office anyway as that what you’ve seen other senior carers do right? okay, maybe occasionally you will have to cover few calls, but ONLY in emergency as you know the office will do everything to cover someone’s sickness before asking you, they would never ever tell you ‘you are a senior carer now, it is your responsibility to cover those care calls to make sure those people receive care on time’ as you know it is not YOURS but THEIR responsibility. They would never try to manipulate and try to make you feel guilty like that, would they? Well. Let me explain my dear. You are STILL on zero hourly contract and your holiday pay is still calculated based on your hours. Official hours. Sorry dear but your ‘senior work’ is actually extra and you have to apply for everything you do through our internal system. But we already have set approximate times for how long certain tasks should take so don’t try to claim more than you are entitled to get. Oh it took you longer than that? Then maybe you shouldn’t do that job. But please, don’t quit, we need you! So, yes. You still do care work full time. Okay, maybe dropped one or two shifts a week. Extra day off? Don’t be ridiculous, how are we supposed to cover that? Besides we would be calling you to cover it anyway as we don’t have enough people to work. Yes, yes, we were employing, but for some MYSTERIOUS reason majority of new starters don’t want to sign a contract. Some of them just didn’t show up to work after their first shadowing day! I guess this job is not for every one then…. Anyway – you need to keep your job in certain time frames as you will not be paid more than you should! We already pay you 50p more for senior job, you should be grateful!
You want to get a mortgage? Not on your zero hourly contract. Company offers carers shift pay? Officially the contract is still zero hourly darling so you won’t be able to do much… UNLESS you come and work in our office for annual pay. Oh no, it will be very minimum wage and we very rarely pay any overtime HOWEVER office staff is required to go out and cover care calls and that is paid on top of your wages, isn’t that great? You will be doing basically the very same thing but being paid double! Excellent! So you join the operations team, and as you don’t really know what is going on and how to deal with situations you are the one being sent out to cover last minute pull outs (yes, we call it a pull out when someone calls in sick). Following that you don’t really have a chance to learn how to work better so you do your very best to improve and show the others that you are worthy of trust. Its totally normal that you want to be the part of the team, that you want to be included in the conversations, that you don’t want them looks when asking the same question over and over again. Because you are very smart person you get it very quickly and you don’t get sent out anymore. Regret yet? not yet as your back still hurts. Give it a moment then. Let’s wait until all carers from one area call in sick the same evening and your manager pretends to be blind and leaves with smile on their face. Let’s wait until you cry and call them to say that you are not coming tomorrow to work but they sweet talk you and convince that everything is going to be okay. They actually start helping from home. I mean. Sending messages to all carers that are already working OUTSIDE THE TOWN WHERE ALL THE CALLS ARE UNCOVERED. You cry again, but this time on the phone with two carers who has been helping you before. But they also work somewhere else. You feel bad for doing this but you ask if there is anything they could help with. They end up rushing and working till midnight in order to cover all the remaining calls that didn’t get cancelled. Because yes, you did call all those service users, apologised in advance and informed it is very likely that you are doing your best to find them a carer tonight however there is a huge chance that you won’t find anybody. So despite the fact that your company have DUTY OF CARE and those people have carers in place FOR A REASON you manage to cancel most of them. Some of them will be looked after by their friends or family ‘as one of’ but some of them will tell you not to worry as they can manage themselves, they just won’t get changed, but again, it’s a one off, right? You feel bad for doing this but at the same time your colleagues are so happy that you managed the situation. And your manager says the next day ‘I told you everything is going to be fine, at the end of the day, all care calls got covered’. You don’t even mention the cancelled ones. You just made sure that you have put a good reason for cancellation and that nobody hurt themselves that night. I mean service users because if any carer got hurt after 22:00 they are not insured anyway. They were running late? Not included in the policy, sorry. Oh, so in that case you’re not going to continue your work after 22:00? But you have to if you are running late, we have duty of care! NEVER forget that. Never.
So you are enjoying working in the office right? Not really? How about a different department? Okay, but we cannot let you go from the busiest place like that. How about you will join other team half time for a start which gives you opportunity to learn about it, but you will stay with operations team at the weekends? Oh, you have every other weekend off… that’s not very convenient then, is it? It is for you? But we don’t care. Anyway. Let’s do week days for other department and weekends or Thursdays and Fridays for operations. Yes, you right, weekends including Fridays are the absolute worst in operations so you won’t really feel the difference besides taking on more responsibilities in other department. But look at us! We are looking after you! We have even paid for your counselling due to your mental health issues you have regarding your family situation! It’s not family situation? Oh, you are blaming us? Your employer who pays your bills? No way. Anyway. You are starting other department tomorrow and there is no turning back because no one else wants to do it. You want to quit after a while as other department is even worse than operations? Oh, you will have to wait until we find someone else to do it, sorry (not sorry).
You are saying that you cannot work in the office anymore, that this is too stressful and also due to your family and partner working for us in care you are conflicted with them? Why would you be? You are not doing anything wrong, we just asked you not to favour them just because they are your relatives. Well, if you insist, but if you are conflicted with them you will not want to work with them? Oh you will because you live with them and it makes more sense? Well we can try but if we HAVE TO you will have to work separately, understood? So you go back to the very beginning thinking its way better and from now on, you will just go to work, do your job and go back home. There is no way your work will affect your private life anymore. Everyone says working with your partner is a first step to a break up, but not for you! You have a special bond! Besides, it is so good to work together as you are both understand each other so well and also whenever they are unwell they don’t have to call in sick as you will do everything for them. Another positive – if you ever do any mistake or decide to follow common sense rather than strictly stick to the rules, you know there is literally no one to report you! Perfect! Okay, so can you do some extra care calls please? You tired? You don’t feel very well? Oh, I think we will have to reconsider you both working together then. You both called in sick at the same time? Very suspicious… how comes two people living in the same house, sleeping in one bed got sick exactly at the same time, interesting… I think we have to discuss this at the meeting, next week, on your day off. No, we cannot do it right now, you are working, you have to finish your shift. You want to come in your break? No, don’t think so. We want you to stress about the meeting that could have been an email. Then we will ask you to attend separately in case you will be speaking for each other, also we love to intimidate people and we never accept carers bringing other people to our meeting even though we know exactly that it is illegal to refuse such a thing. Yes, it has to be your day off as you are working double shifts and we cannot deal with it during your break in case it takes longer. So yes, you’ve got to come on your day off , right after you have worked 5 days, double shifts in a row, to the office, in the middle of the day so you have a feeling that it’s actually waisted.
You will end up being so stressed before every meeting and tired after them. You won’t do anything productive for the rest of the day. That will result in ordering a take away and wasting those groceries you bought the day before in your break promising yourself to cook from scratch. You and your partner will be blaming each other for every mistake you do at work as you both want to do things differently but you will not stop working together as at least you know that there is someone to work with the next day. You are going to feel trapped as you know you know that are good at your job but being mistreated by management makes you question it. You don’t want to work with your partner any more but you are scared to say that as they made themselves dependent on you. You don’t want to do them behind their back as you see it as a betrayal. You start committing to your job even more and more, you treat it very personally. You start to build a bond with your service users as their appreciation brings you satisfaction that your employer should provide. You are aware there is ‘no boundary policy’ in place but you convince yourself that what you do is being friendly. You got to a point where service users start to use you but you don’t even see that thinking that you are being special if they refuse to be showered by someone else but you. You start to fake your happiness even to yourself. What’s worse – you believe in those lies.
Congratulations! You developed the most common mental illnesses – anxiety and depression and you don’t even get support from your partner as they say they are in exactly the same situation. They go for counselling but it’s too expensive so they quit after a month. You don’t even have a courage to ask if you can go since it’s ‘too expensive’. You start to deal with it yourself. You start getting severe OCD – that doesn’t help your relationship. You also getting addicted from shopping/alcohol/drugs – choose one. Or you know, choose it all because I tell you, you WILL need it. and because you started spending money to cheer yourself up, you cannot quit the job. You want to change it but you literally have no power or motivation to start looking. And then it becomes a little better at work. You don’t argue with your partner as much, service users don’t complain for a while, senior carer got occupied with other carers and stopped chasing you for spot checks at every possible moment. You settle up again and kind of forget about the bad days and carry on working for that amazing care company. It must be good if it’s a main provider for the county for such a long time? At the end of the day they pay the most and there is always work. You must work to pay the bills. You cannot risk it and go somewhere else to get another zero hourly contract and risk not having the hours. So you stay. Maybe you could go back to the office to rest a little? You’ve got a back ache after all… or maybe a senior carer? You would drop a few shifts and rest your body? Sit in the office around other people rather than sitting with your partner 24/7. Yeah. Great idea.