Understaffed and Underpayed

There barely goes a day where we don’t have to use the services of bank and agency staff to fill the gaps!

No amount of bank or agency staff ever makes up for the fact that we should be fully staffed anyway and shouldn’t be lacking it care workers but the truth of the fact is that nobody wants to work in care anymore. It was once the most aspired to careers and now everyone would rather sit being a desk or stack shelves for some big ass fancy company because it pays better. At least stacking shelves you don’t have the constant worry of getting attacked by a service user! I’d never trade my job out and go back to retail but I do often misd the plain sailing. I guess I almost thrive off the fear of working in care. The rush of knowing that if you get hit in the wrong place it could be very, very bad news! But hey ho perks of the job and all that!

Back from the tangent of being an adrenaline junkie..Nobody wants to work in care anymore for the sole fact you can barely afford to live off what you earn on from your flat rate so you have to work yourself to the bone for a holiday you will probably never be able to afford the time off for. Imagine a lovely beach hut, crashing waves aaaandd the screaming of an anxious service user with sensory overload; there’s your holiday for the next few years. A client holiday. Enjoy it while you can, go and catch those rays but don’t forget the PRN!

Bad days

Not everyday is an easy, walk out happy kind of day when you work in care. It’s unpredictable..it’s hard..sometimes it’s even tear jerking.

It has days where you sit down and question if you’re even in the right job. It’s hard and it hurts sometimes to know you can only try your best for the people you support and that’s not always good enough to help. It hurts to know that no matter how hard you try, sometimes it just doesn’t even scrape the surface of what’s wrong.

The bad days are the ones where you want to scream, tear your hear out and quit but you go in the next day and remember why you do it. For anyone new to working in care, one word of advice is don’t give up on your first bad day because you will have so many worse days and you will have some amazing, beautiful days which will make you proud!

Bad days are getting punched, kicked, slapped, headbutted, strangled, bitten, scratched, spat at, sworn at and a whole variety of other wonderful things but that’s just the nature of the job and if you haven’t had at least one of these..do you even work in care?

It really ain’t all bad though! Just remember that bad day for your next good daym. It’ll make it worth that while and you’ll probably look back on it and laugh about it wondering why it even bothered you so much!

Just remember that bad days only last for 24 hours..it ain’t bad forever!

JUST HOLD ON FOR THOSE GOOD DAYS!

Sex

Yes this maybe a strange title that you didn’t expect to see on a page about care work but give me time to explain..it’ll make sense in a while (I hope so anyway).

Picture this, you get home from a long shift and you want to have a couple of drinks and enjoy sometime with just you and your partner.

Sounding good? It does to everyone who works in care too! We would all kill for this to be so straightforward. To step out of work at the end of shift and completely turn off from the world of work and just switch to play mode. Instead it doesn’t go so smoothly. Especially not when both you and your partner both work in care, on the same unit.

Does that mean carers never have sex, all they do is go to work and talk about work? Well..it’s not all that far from the truth but thanfully it’s not the completely depressing issue it sounds like it would be.

You see, there are some simple things that a careworker does when they get home from work..

The first BIG thing is shower..like jesus christ a sweaty double shift scent is enough to turn anyone off!

When you’re out of the shower, the next thing you want to do is put on some nice, clean, comfy clothes and go and snuggleup with your partner.

This is the make it or break it point! The time when it either goes one of three ways!

1-You get into bed and immediately fall asleep.

2-You talk about work for hours until you eventually fall alseep.

3-You actually manage to muster up the energy to have…don’t say it…S E X!

Not all careworkers are even in the mood after work. Like yeah not everyone is always in the mood to have sex ALL the time anyway but careworkers seem to find it especially hard to switch off from work and actually, god forbid, have S E X!

Then, if you’re lucky enough to get over the tiredness and actually leave the work brain behind, then something is bound to be aching. Whether it’s because you’ve been hit on shift, fallen, been pulled, dragged and ragged around in every direction or you’re just unlucky enough to have pulled a muscle bending over to fit a fitted bed sheet that is likely to be at least 10 times smaller than the bed. But, if you’re some sort of super human that manages to avoid all of this then;

ENJOY YOUR SEX YOU LUCKY GIT!

Just remember that if you are dating someone who works in care then just remember to be patient and give them time.

So what’s it like to care?

So everyone views care and support work and being easy..brush around a bit then put your feet up for a cuppa and a nice conversation. Is it really like that though?

Some days are most definately better than others by a long stretch but no day is without it’s bumps along the way. Every shift you begin is a new beginning, a new scenario and most likely a new issue to arise.

The world of support work opens your eyes to so much that you never thought you would understand before your job’s beginning. A first person view of how the others live..how everyone has a different battle to face everyday and how they overcome the issues that they face. Whether that be physical or mental. We all get paid to do a job but some are just a little more under-appreciated. I would love for nothing more than to be able to invite someone along to shadow a shift..to show them how hard life can be for other people. Care is one of those jobs that you can’t switch off from; you go home and wonder what the next day will bring, if that hard day someone was having has been improved yet? Even if it only brings a hint of a smile, it presents so much more happiness than their previous state.

Everyone can say they couod easily do a job until they experience it. There are days I drive out of work and want to tear my hear out, other days I just want to break down and cry but I wouldn’t change a single second of any of it. Every bad day makes the good days ever more welcome.