I’ve been working as an independent in-home caregiver for about a decade. I’ve only worked with a few clients, all of whom I’ve gotten along great with.
Currently, I have only one client with whom I work part-time, so I decided to try and find some more work. I put in an application at a local in-home care agency that I’d heard good things from.
They were extremely excited to see my application. While I realize that my experience level and having had CNA training (though not a valid CNA license, a distinction that I made sure to emphasize) makes me a desirable employee in this field, I still tend to get a bad vibe any time someone’s really trying to get me to sign up with them.
They called me in for an interview and training session. This was from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and despite the fact that I was the only person scheduled for it, they weren’t willing to hold it at a different time. I was told lunch would be provided but I’d need to bring my own drinks.
So, I took a day off working with my client and went in.
“Training” was dull. Insufferably so. It consisted of watching some extremely generic videos about “what our company is” — which was largely a rambling story about how the founder needed someone to care for his elderly mother and couldn’t find anyone — followed by signing some paperwork. The “lunch” provided turned out to be an offering of cheap candy bars and snack cakes, stuff that, even if I wasn’t diabetic, would absolutely not have counted as a meal. This was my first red flag.
After finishing the training, the rest of the time that day was spent filling out paperwork and meeting the office people. Among other things, I was informed that the company did not do direct deposit of paychecks; they insisted that employees come into the office in person to pick them up. In 2023. Second red flag, especially given that the agency’s office is located a thirty-mile round trip from where I live.
I was also introduced to the woman who I was told would be my trainer. The very first thing out of her mouth was:
Trainer: “Won’t it feel good to not be working under the table for once?”
This was before she’d even introduced herself.
Me: “Hey. I’ve been doing this for almost a decade. As. A. Professional.”
She sort of apologized at this point, but the damage was done, and I was already suspecting that I did not actually want to work for this company. But I wanted to at least meet my client and give them a chance first.
Then, I was asked if I’d be bringing my current client into the agency. I told them that no, I was not planning to do that; the effect would be my client being charged an extra $10 an hour more than what the temp agency they used to pay me charged them, for no increase to my pay or the service they got. That was an obvious bad deal all around, since most of the agency’s clients used veteran benefits or insurance to pay for their services.
Well, finally, it was 2:00 pm and I was able to get out of there and actually get some food, while my blood sugar had gotten dangerously low.
They sent me a notice that a client had been located for me, I was to show up at an address at a specific date and time the next week, and my trainer would meet me there.
I showed up ten minutes early. I waited for the trainer. And waited. The scheduled start time hit, and she still wasn’t there. I called the agency. They said she was on her way. She arrived ten minutes late.
We went inside and met the family. They wanted someone to take care of their father, a disabled veteran, while they were out of the house. Mostly, they just needed someone to be there when they were out of the house because he liked to wait until everyone else was gone before trying to get up and walk around the house without his walker. He’d already broken a hip doing this.
Trainer: “Okay, you’ve got it from here.”
And she left.
The family showed me the house (which was so full of cats that I was afraid that I’d get ringworm from touching anything, along with multiple litter boxes that were badly in need of cleaning, but the agency’s rules said we did not do anything for the family that wasn’t directly related to the care of the client). Then, they left me alone with him.
My session consisted of two and a half hours of watching him watch TV — and noticing that there was a rifle sitting in the corner of the room, completely unsecured in any way. He didn’t look at me once.
As soon as I got home, I threw all my clothes in the wash and took a very thorough shower. I also let the agency know about the rifle, as it’s allegedly against their rules for clients to have unsecured firearms in the home while caregivers are working. I was told they’d make sure that it didn’t happen again.
The next day, I was informed that the client had decided that they didn’t actually want me; they wanted someone else. Frankly, I wasn’t upset about not going back.
They had a new client for me. They lived outside of the zone that I’d put down as where I was willing to work, and the agency tried to tell me that it was about the same distance as it was to my other client. This was a blatant lie; anyone with access to any sort of map or navigation software could instantly tell that it was more than twice that distance.
This client was in a trailer park, living in a trailer home. I noticed immediately upon entry that it stank of stale urine. The client, it was explained to me, was largely bedridden but could use the commode with assistance. He was a Navy veteran who’d traveled all over the US and then decided to settle down in the trailer park because he enjoyed it versus getting a house. Well, okay, but the trailer was absolutely not disability-accessible and really didn’t have proper room for someone to be working with him.
After basic small talk (at least he was willing to talk to me), he had to use the commode, so his wife and I got him out of bed and got the commode to him. He promptly urinated on the rug, explaining the trailer’s smell. At least his number two ended up in the commode.
His wife proceeded to wipe him. Without using gloves. And put the soiled wipes down on the counter behind her.
Then, the client had a low blood pressure incident. This was apparently extremely common for him; he’d become incoherent and then unresponsive and start to collapse. The way to deal with this was to call the fire department and have them send some people over. Apparently, this happened at least twice a week. Unfortunately, this required the client’s wife to call, but she didn’t have her cell phone, so she had to borrow mine. She hadn’t washed her hands.
After that point, the client was put to bed by the fire department, and I was left without anything further to do for the day, so I got sent home early. I carefully applied bleach to my phone.
I went back the next day and did more work for the client — thankfully, without any further medical emergencies, but by this time, I’d already decided that I’d had it with the agency.
While I was there, the client’s wife decided that she was going to run to the library, so I was left there with the client. We chatted for a bit about various topics. Then, he looked at me and said:
Client: “I’m sure glad you’re white.”
I immediately had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Client: “The last caregiver they sent out to me was a [word that starts with N].”
Yup, it was just as bad as I thought it would be.
He proceeded to tell me about how bad their last caregiver was, and also about how he’d once lived in Alabama, which was an absolutely horrible place to live because of all the N-words living there. Any residual doubts or guilt I’d had about my decision to quit evaporated.
By the time his wife got back, it was the end of my shift anyway, so I went over to the agency — the trailer park was located in the same city as the agency, even though I’d told them that I did not want to work there and they’d agreed to it when hiring me — and told them that I quit, effective immediately.
And then I went home and had a panic attack because, even though I was 100% committed to leaving, it was still really stressful.
