hard chalk

today lance was taking a break in the activities office while i was in there. at some point he turned to me mid-conversation and said “at the end of the day it isnt about the money, its about the people. right, lucas?” now of course. this is the single most wrong thing i have ever heard. but i said Yeap. Sure man.

on the topic of money. do you have a senior in your family? grandparents? If they needed extra help, would you want to put them in an assisted living center? i probably would. the problem is that there is a lot of malpractice - both on the management level, and on the bottom rung.

if you’re touring a facility and everything looks good, clean, and safe - no immediate red flags - then it’s mostly good on the management level. but see if you can catch a caregiver on their own, and ask them how much they get paid. im serious. Get as candid of an answer as possible.

Is your senior’s life worth minimum wage? Would you describe taking care of them as an entry level job for high schoolers?

if the care staff is getting low wages, they are likely putting in low effort. i don’t really have a problem with this mindset when it comes to work in general, but the problem is the work involved here is your grandma or whatever. of course low wages are not always going to result in bad work, but ive seen alot of shit happen

remember

A few months ago, there was a man working as a caregiver that just sucked Ass. he couldn’t do his job in the first place, but he was clearly not too thrilled with it anyway. he was also just… creepy as shit. he received a bunch of warnings but for some reason never got fired until it was way, way too late

after several weeks and him being transferred to another side of the building, he was caught splashing buckets of water on sleeping residents to wake them up. this is already fucking horrible but keep in mind - this was on the memory care side of things. It’s a more intensive care unit, specifically built for residents with severe dementia. they had no idea why he was doing that shit to them. he got another warning for this. Not fired! a warning

One week later he was caught slapping a resident because she wouldn’t speak. she used to live on the regular assisted living side, but after a stroke she couldn’t function without intensive care, so they moved her. he was believed to have been assaulting her for quite a while – the other caregivers suspected something was up when the resident would react to the sight of the caregiver’s outfit by whimpering. He only got caught when they left a fucking camera in her room.

personally, i dont think just firing him was enough. It’s dangerous for people like him to live.