My grandfather passed recently, and I wanted to share this story from a few months before his death.

Grandpa had memory issues, but he was ridiculously good at compensating for them with pure social charm. You’d have to spend almost forty minutes with him to notice that he was missing any of his faculties. This meant that there were occasional gaps in his care, because a doctor or caretaker who only spent ten to twenty minutes with him wasn’t able to identify issues and would think he was far more capable than he really was.

One afternoon, he was in his room, chatting with one of his favorite nurses, but he wasn’t quite responding to everything she said.

Nurse: *Half-joking.* “[Grandpa], do you have your hearing aids in?”

Grandpa: “Of course I do! See?”

He turned his head and pointed to his ear, where the nurse saw…. a cashew.

Grandpa had a bad habit of taking his hearing aids out and forgetting where he’d put them, so he’d apparently grabbed a cashew from his doctor-approved snack jar, forgotten that he’d meant to eat it, and stuck it behind his ear thinking it was his hearing aid.

Grandpa was no longer allowed to have cashews in his room after that.

When my parents hosted my youngest sister’s engagement party, they did so in one of the common rooms at the retirement complex where they lived. After the dinner, some of us were chatting in the hall when we heard a soft, insistent beeping, almost immediately followed by a nurse and two CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) tearing down the hall towards the restroom across from us.

Once the shouting and the tumult died, my oldest sister exited with a very sheepish look on her face.

Turns out each bathroom stall was equipped with an alarm cord in case someone fainted or became ill while on the john. She had accidentally tucked it into the back of her pantyhose and then started to walk away.

She still hasn’t lived that down.

I used to work in a nursing home for Alzheimer’s patients. Once a week, a sweet little lady would bring her dogs to the home so the patients could pet them. That was a great thing, don’t get me wrong, but the thing was…

Me: “Hey, [Supervisor], I think I should avoid working that shift.”

Supervisor: “Why? Don’t tell me a big man like you is scared of dogs!”

Me: “Scared? No. Allergic? Yes.”

Supervisor: *Big weary sigh* “Allergies are completely psychological. I used to be allergic to cats, but when I put my mind to it, I wasn’t anymore.”

She then proceeded to deliberately put me on a post that forced me to be near the dogs. I tried to refuse and swap shifts, but she wouldn’t let me. To make a point, I turned up anyway. I got sick and ended up in the hospital.

I got a note from the hospital because she said I was just faking it to get off work, but in reality, she was annoyed because she was down one member of staff that shift due to her cruel actions and had to do some actual work herself.

I was an Activities Director of a nursing facility where the Human Resources and Payroll directors were the same person.

My assistant came to me to let me know that her paycheck was constantly getting shorted. She was being stonewalled on getting the money issue corrected. She was promised that it would be rolled into the next paycheck, only for that paycheck also to be shorted instead.

I marched down to the HR/Payroll Director’s office.

Me: “[Director], my assistant’s paycheck is currently short by [amount].”

Director: “Yeah, I’ve been informed. The discrepancy will be fixed by the next paycheck.”

Me: “You’ve promised that for several paychecks. That’s not going to fly with me. You will immediately cut a check for the discrepancy.”

Director: “The company that owns our nursing facility has a policy stating that if an employee’s check is short, then however much they were missing should be on their next check. They do not cut a separate check for the amount that is missing from the employee’s check.”

Me: “[Director], I did not ask what the policy is, nor do I care. I said to cut the check for the discrepancy, now. You have made multiple shorted paychecks, and if I need to contact an employment lawyer or trigger an audit for your department, I can absolutely put that in motion.”

She reluctantly cut a check.

The next paycheck was short again, so I went back up to her office to have it out with her again.

Apparently, thinking that she could embarrass me, [Director] walked in on a managers’ meeting to confront me. Don’t ask me why she thought that airing her mistakes to multiple witnesses was a good idea.

Director: “You need to stop making me cut extra checks for your assistant! This is blatantly breaking the company policy, and I’m going to get in trouble for constantly cutting checks beyond payroll.”

Me: “If you did your d*** job and didn’t keep shorting my assistant’s checks, I wouldn’t have to confront you about the issue. I don’t care one bit that you could get in trouble, because you shouldn’t be making these mistakes in the first place. You have two choices: do your job correctly, or my next step is legal action. I would be very interested to discover where the missing money keeps going, since this is an issue that has been going on for months.”

Other Manager: “Payroll has been shorting employees for months? Why hasn’t this been corrected yet?”

[Director] suddenly lost her bravado, sputtered an excuse about computer errors, and beat a hasty retreat.

I’m not sure exactly how many other eyebrows got raised in that meeting, but lo and behold, my assistant’s check was never shorted again! [Director] “left the company to pursue other opportunities” around that same time, too. Rumors circulated a short time later that several paychecks were considerably larger for employees below a certain managerial rank. Something about owed back pay and corrected system errors.

I wonder if that’s related?

I work in the dietary department of a nursing home. I wear many hats, but one morning, I am working the dining room. At one table is a resident I’ll call Harry. Every day for breakfast, he orders two honeybuns warmed up. A coworker takes his order while I take care of a resident at the next table. I’ll call her Carrie. Carrie is hard of hearing, so I have to speak very loudly.

Me: “Hi, Miss Carrie. What would you like for breakfast?”

Harry: “Honeybuns!”

Me: *To Harry, as calmly and sweetly as possible* “[Coworker] is getting your honeybuns. I’m talking to Carrie now.”

Me: *To Carrie* “What would you like for breakfast?”

Harry: “Honeybuns!”

Me: *To Harry* “[Coworker] is getting your honey buns. I’m talking to Carrie now.”

Me: *Turning back to Carrie* “What would you like for breakfast?”

Harry: “I said I wanted honeybuns!”

Me: *To Harry* “[Coworker] is getting your honeybuns. I’m talking to Carrie.”

Me: *Turning back to Carrie* “Would you like waffles?”

Harry: *Sighing* “I suppose.”