A Ridiculous Real Life Post

[borgmama1of5]

Today was crack at work.

 

 

Client A needs a caregiver 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not supposed to schedule anyone more than 40 hours to avoid overtime. Means I need 2 caregivers each for 3 days (36 hours) and a third person for the 7th day.

 

Has to be someone good with physical transfers. And client lives in boondocks.

 

Caregiver Mary is new and only working 2 hours every Monday and Wednesday morning. The new client is close to her 2 hour job but the hours overlap so it won't work. And Mary can't work weekends.

 

Schedule Mary for Tues, Thurs, Fri

 

Caregiver Jane is working Tues, Thurs, Sat with a lady for 18 hours a week. If I give her 2 shifts with Client A she would have 42 hours, 2 hours too much. She's willing to work some Sundays but not every one of them.

 

Caregiver Sue lives way the hell far away but is desperate for hours, She could do Mon, Wed, Sat but no Sundays because of church.

 

Jane has seniority and should get the 40 hours first but she lives five minutes away from her current client, and no one else wants that lady because of mostly 4 hours shifts, and it doesn't pay enough to drive 30-40 minutes each way for only 4 hours.

 

Caregiver Brenda can work weekends, so she is willing to just do Sundays with the lady in the boondocks, and I have another brand new client for just Friday afternoons and all day Saturdays. She says she'll do that combination, so today I drove 30 minutes to Client A, met Brenda there, introduced her to the client, then she followed me into the city to meet the second client, a 45 minute drive. Between the two clients, was actually in their houses a combined total of 25 minutes.

 

An hour ago Brenda calls and says her doctor doesn't think she should be doing heavy transfers.

 

Multiply this by two other new clients.

 

Argh.

 

However, I do love my job. Mostly.



 

Comments

[seesmooshrun.livejournal.com]

My head was spinning just reading all that. You must be exhausted trying to work things out. Good luck and don't forget to take good care of yourself too.

At least you love your job. Mostly. :-)

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

The most succinct way to describe what I do is that I am putting together a puzzle where the pieces keep changing shape.

And I am really fortunate in that I find this an energizing challenge, because to the wrong temperment this would be beyond frustrating.

[ariadnes-string.livejournal.com]

However, I do love my job. Mostly.


Oh, I hear you!!

Sounds like you are doing good work, though--finding people caregivers AND finding people jobs!

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

And amazingly I work for a man who puts peoples' care above profit, which makes me want to do the best I can on his behalf.

And helping people is what I'm all about, so I'm in the right place.

Thanks for stopping by!

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. 0_0 How do you keep your brain straight? LOL

This is like one of those word problems in math. Y'know, the ones I always sucked at. Obviously you were the person that looked at those problems and went, "Psh, easy!"

I bow to your infinite awesomeness. ^_^

~Nebula

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

No, still can't do those problems :)

But figuring out which people should go where--that I'm good at :)

So how are you doing as a college graduate?

[authoressnebula.livejournal.com]

See, that's much better than I could do, because when people would ask me, "Where am I supposed to be today?" I'd just say, "Somewhere. Um...try over there." XD Thus, fail on me, win on you. ^_^

I've been very...stressy. And non-stressy in other ways. Trying to figure out life and it's not easy. But I guess that's how it's supposed to be all the time, right? I'm trying to imagine my life that doesn't involve a 15 week countdown and can't. LOL

~Nebula

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Oh Jean, sometimes I wish so much I could transfer some of my 50+ years of life experience to you youngsters on LJ who are trying so hard to figure out their life...

In a totally positive way, I want to tell you not to worry so much, life will end up taking you in a direction you never imagined in your twenties. Or thirties. Or forties...

It's much more important to focus on the quality of your interactions with other people. That is what truly matters. The rest? Trust in the universe and when faced with a choice pick the one that makes you stretch more.

Feel free to roll your eyes at me, sounding like it's so simple and I have all the answers. God knows, I don't. But I have mostly grasped that stressing about the future doesn't do anything to help.

Hug!

[dievalkyrie-99.livejournal.com]

**mewl**

Math.

Thee needs a GOOD database...

and a hot bubble bath!!

*grin*

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Grrr...Can I swap the bubblebath for a caregiver who doesn't call to say they can't do the client I assigned them after all because of something else they are doing?!

How are you doing in your battle with the forces of evil? Thinking about you and sending positive thoughts!

[scwlc.livejournal.com]

My mother needs caregivers of just that sort. Actually she needs more help of various kinds, but Dad is optimistic and I still live at home filling in the gaps.

However, she's had a bad habit in the past of calling for new ones every few months because she's decided she doesn't like her current one. I have to say, every time she did, it made me wince, because I knew something like this was happening back at the office. There's a client's side too, but I totally wonder sometimes how the people in the offices manage not to go nuts trying to figure out the logistics.

Good luck, and I honestly hope no one you have to deal with is like my mother.

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Your mom doesn't sound that bad.

We have one client who is, quite frankly, our 'bread and butter' client for the amount of hours we work for her, but she has gone through half of my staff so far. Two caregivers have called me in tears, and at least four others have requested not to ever be sent to her again. And the one caregiver who has been with her consistantly since December, and who the client adored until a few weeks ago, is hanging on by a thread, calling me after every shift to vent.

So yeah, I could probably deal with your mom :)