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.

Something like this story just happened to us. We went into a restaurant, the hostess seated us, and we just sat there. After a long wait, my wife went back to the hostess stand to ask if our waiter could come by.

A few minutes later, a waiter showed up, looking rather pissed. We gave him our order, wondering why he was so surly. A couple of minutes later, he came back.

Waiter: “I’m so sorry. Your original waiter just walked out with no announcement. We’ll give you a free appetizer for your trouble.”

From that point on, he was perfect!

Related:
Well, That’s Gonna Cut Into His Tips…

This happened some years ago when I worked for a small inbound call center that answered after-hours calls for many local businesses. One business was a branch of a cable company. We mostly just took calls during their lunches or after hours and only called out a technician if there was a problem or outage with local service.

This call happened on Super Bowl Sunday.

It was a mostly calm day with normal calls. I was on as Team Lead. Suddenly, our lines lit up. All of them were inbound calls for this cable company. It was instantly clear what had happened. The cable had gone out… right as the Super Bowl was starting.

I made a sudden decision that my team was NOT going to be screamed at. I yelled across the floor that no one was to answer any of those calls. Just pick them up and shunt them to our hold queue so we could get to other calls. I called the on-call technician.

Technician: “I KNOW! I KNOW! I GOT IT!”

With bated breath, we watched the call and hold count rise. Five minutes. Ten minutes. And then… silence and empty screens. The call count abruptly dropped to zero.

A single call rang into the cable company, and I took one for the team and answered it. It was the technician, sounding like he’d run a marathon.

Technician: *String of expletives not directed at me* “I got it. I’m gonna stay here for a bit and monitor it. Hope you ladies didn’t get s*** on too much.”

I haven’t a clue what actually went wrong, but kudos to that guy. The rest of the day went smoothly, and everyone was much happier we didn’t have to get screamed at by rabid sports fans.

Some people suffer from “RBF”, but I suffer from Resting B**** Voice. If I’m focused on something else, or just tired and out of it, my tone tends to come across as dismissive and snappy. It’s usually not an issue when I’m out and about or talking directly to people because, obviously, I’m focused on them. It most often kicks up when I’m at home playing games, or at work and someone comes up to me while I’m already doing something.

Coworker: “Hey, I got the paperwork for the [Customer] order.”

I’m focused on something else, but I gesture off-hand to a bin.

Me: “Put it there.”

Coworker: “Wow, really?”

Me: “That’s where it goes.”

Coworker: “Uh-huh. We’ll see.”

It’s only at this point that the offended snit of a tone he’s got going filters through to my brain. Before I can ask what’s wrong, he’s already storming off, papers still in hand.

I shrug and get back to work, but a couple of minutes later, my manager comes by and finally drops off the papers.

Manager: “Hey, is there something up with [Coworker]?”

Me: “No idea. He asked where those went, and I told him.”

Manager: “You didn’t insult or degrade him at all?”

Me: “No?! I mean, I probably just went, ‘Put them here,’ or something, but I never actually said anything direct.”

Manager: “All right, don’t worry about it. I explained that you were just focused and didn’t mean to insult or anything.”

Me: “So… If someone being distracted is insulting, what sort of pampered life did this guy live this far?”

Manager: “Well, just don’t ask him that directly, and things will probably be okay.”

I have a feeling I’m going to be “distracted” every time [Coworker] comes by.

A few years ago, I went into anaphylactic shock while eating prawns and was diagnosed with a sudden and serious shellfish allergy. Prior to this, I ate shellfish regularly. In fact, I’ve always been a real food lover and adventurous eater. I was very unfussy and would eat anything and loved trying new things, but seafood was always my absolute favourite and first choice on any menu for me. Since the allergy diagnosis, I’ve continued to eat — and love — fish but obviously not shellfish, and I am always keen to ensure there is no cross-contamination.  

My workplace provides a dinner for employees twice per year. These are usually at high-end, fine dining establishments which I’d never be able to afford ordinarily, so I look forward to these occasions and make the most of the experiences. More often than not, we are booked for tasting menus — around eight to ten courses of small plates, allowing us to try a variety of the chef’s specialties.

The person always in charge of booking the events, [Coworker #1], does not believe I have an allergy and constantly questions why it was okay for me to eat shellfish a few years ago but not now. She refuses to believe this happened suddenly and tells me, and others, that I am attention-seeking. It’s important to note that she also has a longstanding allergy (nuts) and thinks I am jealous of the attention she gets. I’ve tried to ask her why I would deliberately cut myself off from trying delicious food, but she has no answer. It’s also important to note that she doesn’t have much interest in food or restaurants and is a very safe eater, which is fine — no judgment from me — but also makes it difficult when she is in charge of booking the meals and often doesn’t understand the menus.

[Coworker #2] doesn’t like eating fish or seafood in any form. Again, that’s not a problem, but at one meal, I was disappointed to find that I was seated next to this coworker and a “non-fish” meal had been ordered for both of us. I spoke to the server about the fact that I could eat fish and could see that there were delicious dishes coming to other members of our party which I wasn’t being given, but they had obviously prepared according to the information given by [Coworker #1], and there was nothing they could do. They were, however, quite concerned and angry that [Coworker #1] had not mentioned there was an allergy, only a dislike, so they needed to take extra precautions about cross-contamination. Obviously, I was very grateful to them for taking this on board at the last minute.

The next dinner booked was at a particular restaurant that is part of a distillery and famed for its smoked salmon, caught fresh from the river right behind the restaurant and smoked on the premises using chips from their own whisky barrels. The flavour is said to be out of this world, and I had wanted to try it for years but couldn’t afford to eat there.

I was beside myself with excitement when the company announced this location and determined that I wasn’t going to be given a no-fish meal, so when [Coworker #1] asked for confirmation of attendance and dietary requirements, I reminded her of my allergy but made clear that it was shellfish and crustacean only and I could eat fish. She said it would be easier if she put me with [Coworker #2] again and arranged the same menu for both of us. I stood my ground and said no to that.

After a long argument, I thought she had understood the issue. Then, this happened at the meal.

Server: “Welcome to [Restaurant]. Allow me to confirm that we have [number] vegetarian meals, one nut allergy, and two fish-free menus.”

Coworker #1: “Yes. That’s right.”

Me: “No, actually, that’s not right. There should be one fish-free meal and one shellfish allergy. I was really looking forward to trying your famous salmon.”

Coworker #1: *Rolling her eyes* “Oh, God, here we go with this nonsense. [My Name], can you please be quiet and stop faking an allergy that doesn’t exist?”

Server: “Okay, let me clarify. This is a genuine shellfish allergy, so we need to be careful about preparing your food in a separate part of the kitchen, but you can eat all other dishes including fish?”

Coworker #2: “Oh, you really don’t need to go to that bother; you don’t need a separate cooking area, just as long as there’s no fish on my plate.”

Coworker #1: “See! [My Name], it’s fine. Stop causing problems.”

Me: “Actually, [Coworker #2], he was talking to me, and yes, I do need my food prepared separately.” *Holds up my EpiPen* “It is a genuine allergy. I appreciate that you don’t like fish, but these are two separate issues.”

Coworker #1: “That looks like a fake EpiPen. I have a genuine one, and you’re just trying to get attention. It’s not possible to be allergic to one kind of fish and not another. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous and you’re obviously lying.”

Server: “Hold on everyone. Yes, it is possible to be allergic to shellfish and not fish. In fact, my sister has the same allergy, and I’m happy to say she has eaten — and loves — our specialty salmon here at [Restaurant].” *To me* “You’re in luck; we always have reserves of salmon, so we can ensure you have that dish along with everyone else, but there is also a seabass dish which I’m afraid we cannot give you as there are no reserves and—” *with a hard stare at [Coworker #1]* “—your requirements were communicated incorrectly. There is also a crab dish for which we had already arranged a substitute and a second salmon dish which also includes prawns, and we can work around that for you. We’ll also ensure that all your food is prepared separately.”

I’m happy to say that the food was delicious. I gave that server an extra tip, and I emailed the restaurant later to praise his service and handling of the situation.

[Coworker #1] still isn’t talking to me.