Forum Thread

Been musing over the idea of keeping an online journal here in regards to going ons at my current place of employment and after getting off the phone with a fellow co-worker just now, I'm decided to commit to it. So here goes....


061320
Entry 1

Today is my four month anniversary with my current employers and as it currently stands in regards to day shift crew, I've been there the longest. That should give you an idea of the revolving door of workers we are dealing with on a regular basis. Earlier this week, we had a new hire walk out 2hrs into her 2nd shift without a word to anyone and still no one knows why. We currently have a M.I.T. (Manager in Training) who can't finish her training hours because she's too busy working at a cook. Our actual and ONLY manager on staff gave his two week notice last Saturday, and did not inform ANY of his crew whatsoever. So after his last day this coming Fri, there will be no certified managers on staff at our location whatsoever. Thankfully our inspection from State was this past Monday and not a couple of weeks from now otherwise we'd be in some serious trouble with corporate. My next day of work will be one of the two days a week there are no supervisors or maintenance crew of any level on location; many of them even turn off their phones completely on those two days. So here's to hoping tomorrow's shift goes smoothly. One nice thing that happened this week was the lovely bump in my paycheck due to my new favorite 8-letter word: OVERTIME.

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Title: 061820

Entry 2

So tomorrow is the final day for our manager. There's still no clear idea as to who will be put in charge as replacement. Yesterday, another co worker put in her notice. Her last day will be the 30th. Scuttlebutt says we've got two possible new hires being processed through, just waiting on COVID-19 test results for one and background check on the other. Here's to hoping at least one, if not both, mesh well with the staff and don't up and quit their second day, as our last new hire did. Now, time to get back to binging Leverage on Vudu.

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Title: 062120

Entry 3

It's been a difficult time working today on two hours of sleep and and while grieving. Yesterday, my one day off all week, two of our residents passed away. Not related to COVID-19, fortunately for site, but still heart breaking all the same. One we were prepared for, but with Resident #2, it happened out of nowhere and so suddenly.

Got into it with one of the nurses' aides today for them not having a mask on at all throughout the day. I expect backlash from the superiors come tomorrow (Monday) morning but I couldn't care less about that. My priority is the safety and health of my residents and myself (and by extension, my family). Our residents are the highest at risk people when it comes to normal viruses already. with COVID-19, it's even more serious we, the employees, do everything we can to minimize their exposure. You can argue against the use of a mask in your personal time, but when your place of employment REQUIRES it of you, and failure to comply puts 100+ senior citizens with severe medical issues at life-threatening risks, don't expect me to stay quiet, or subtle.

That's all for this entry, here's to hoping this week goes smoothly as we adjust to the loss of our manager.

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Title: 070920

So it's been a while since my last entry and boy, I hope I can remember all the chaos and mayhem I've endured since. Wish me luck....


Ok so as I said per Entry 2, we had an aide (A.H.) put in her two weeks. Which is all fine and good considering that gave us time to find her replacement. The uncaring, thoughtless, selfish twat (after being made aware to and agreeing to the upcoming schedule) did a NC/NS (No Call/No Show) for ALL 8 of her shifts. That led to both me and A.B. being called in our only two days off in the 14 day cycle. Which gave us both overtime. Which the upper ups LOATHE, so we got in trouble over, though we had virtually no control on it.

This last week has been physically difficult for me beyond the usual, as the stress of work flared up my multiple ulcers. (If anyone is familiar with those know a flare-up keeps one from working.) It took me longer than I would've liked but I managed to find some anti-nausea medicine that has been effective.

Our manager position is currently being held (temporarily) by a fellow dietary worker from our sister building. (Which during COVID-19, we are NOT supposed to crossing employees back and forth between sites. I don't why, it is just the way it is). Now this woman has left our state multiple times since quarantine first started back in March to vacation in Tennessee and upon coming back, returning straight to work the next day instead of the mandatory 14x day self isolation. She also often "confuses" her REQUIRED face mask as a chin strap.

How does one remove such a health threat from my kitchen and therefore the residents, you ask? Get our M.I.T. (Manager in Training) full up on the specific aide position hours she is lacking. Not as simple as it sounds, though. Our M.I.T. is currently serving the position as cook which bring our grand total of cooks to 3. That's 3 cooks to rotate through 2x shifts, 3x meals, 7x days a week.

Earlier this week we had a new hire start and at first it appeared he'd work out satisfactory. Yesterday proved otherwise (though there were extenuating circumstances that could have caused the situation). He and I had our positions switched to where he would cover my usual tasks and I would do his. NOW as far as I'm aware he's NOT been technically trained for my position, however, with some gentle nudging and reminders and general assistance (which falls under the tasks I was responsible for as an A3), he managed A2 during breakfast okay. It wasn't great, but we weren't late, and he didn't have any major mess-ups that results in staff coming and yelling as us, so I consider it a win. Now here is where things start to derail. Our cook took so much longer to clean up her breakfast pots than it should have taken her, which put me & A.J. vastly behind on the task of cleaning the breakfast dishes of the residents (cups, plates, trays, etc). I'm not worried at this point cause I know I can make up time unloading the carts and have A.J. put the clean dishware away. And it would've been fine, if he hadn't tried multitasking. By this I mean, putting a rack of cups away, then disappearing back in the kitchen for 5-10 minutes, doing what- I never figured out. Which, ok, fine, I can handle it. I would've finished with the breakfast load only about 10-12 minutes late had the cook & HR (who at this point had come into the kitchen to help prep lunch - but NOT dessert) not continually brought back cookware from lunch prep, thereby halting my process to a halt every time. Okay, okay, so I finally finish, 30 minutes behind schedule, and come out to discover no discernible results of A.J.'s constant vanishing act. Silverware isn't rolling, dessert isn't portioned out, puree isn't prepared, and his specialty drinks (which he was told to prep during his hour on the clock BEFORE breakfast, had not be poured. It is now 30 minutes until serving time. I scrambled into action, ordering A.J. is simple tasks while I tackle the bigger ones. I have to roll silverware as we're serving the lunch line, but we manage to start on time. Ten minutes, things really fall apart. Now HR has been helping the cook make lunch. Well, everything is cooked and on the line, ready to be served out, so HR is just standing there in the kitchen, not offering a hand towards us aides (which I can swallow), but continually making remarks in her "boss" tone and confusing poor A.J. to death as he is trying to tray the plates correctly. To be fair, when she's "vulturing" in the kitchen during lunch, I get easily frazzled too, and I'm considered to be a veteran of the place. After the second hall (of seven), HR has finally had enough of me explaining to A.J. what tickets get what and such and tells me to take over as A2. The relief in A.J.'s eyes was completely visible, so I couldn't protest. So we switch and I quickly discover he didn't have most of the extra add-ons he needed (yogurt, ice cream, special shakes, prune juice, etc). This quickly put us behind as I had to have A.J. go and fetch each of them as they popped up because I could not collect them myself. I don't remember how long we were but I do know we ended up finishing late, which is never a good thing. Especially with HR in there the whole time (who continued to do nothing to assist us as we fell further and further behind). Now because I had taken over A.J.'s tasks, and we were so behind, the tasks I was responsible during the actual lunch line itself (putting together afternoon snacks & drinks for breakfast) did not get done which resulted in me clocked in beyond my allotted scheduled time, which I'll hear about next time pay period I suppose.

Now, you may be thinking, if A.J. can't handle the A2 position, just have him stay as an A3. And I'd agree with that idea, normally. A.J. had remarked the previous afternoon he couldn't do the A3 position because its shift hours would make him late for his other job. So he can't work A3 and he can't handle A2 well enough, what's to be done? Whenever he is scheduled as A2, our quasi-manager will come in at the same time, make sure all the morning prep is ready for when I arrive an hour after and later assist me in the cleaning of the breakfast dishes. I have no clear idea what A.J. is supposed to be doing during that time, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning (7hrs from now).

And that finally brings us up to today. Today, where HR approached me during my auto-pilot mode (washing dishes after breakfast), after saying my name is "boss" mode and giving me a heart attack cause I thought I was in trouble, asked me to consider something very serious: training as a cook. I got to be completely honest, that came out of freaking left field. I'm 75% sure it includes a pay raise, but longer hours and more stress (having to prep two meals and a dessert (sometimes two) every day). Not to mention we are hilariously understaffed when it comes to aides. Well understaffed on cooks too, as mentioned earlier, but I'm on the only aide on day shift trained for both A2 & A3. On the flip side, however, if I train as a cook, that opens up a chance for our M.I.T. to complete her training to become a full fledged manager on site. Not only that, but that would be the last stepping I'd need to pursue management level one day, if I so wanted. As I told HR, I'll think about it and hope our new hires stick around. We had one start today on 2nd shift, so fingers crossed that things work out in one way or another. That's it for tonight.

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Just a quickie insert, I'll give full debrief later...

So this dude I used to work with a few years back starts up at my current employment, doing pretty much the same thing, but for a lot less people. Things are going great, then suddenly local college opens up in-person classes and BOOM he quits the very next day out of the blue with a "it's me, Idk what's going on" bs excuse. Fast forward one week, and he's now back with our original employers.

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Not going to be as full of an update as I'd like to make, just need to express this frustration somewhere.

So all vacation requests have been put on hold since April because of the virus, meaning no vacation time is allowed to be used. SOMEHOW despite that, a woman in my department is on vacation ALL this week. Why do I care? I'll tell you why, because of her being gone all week, everyone else has lost one of their usual two days off during the week. Meaning, I'm working 6x days straight. And I'm not the only one but I fairly certain no one else has realized it yet. Smh. Stunts like this is why our turnover rate is so ridiculously high. Speaking of high turnover, we had a girl training last week. She made it through two training days fine. The first shift she works and is not shadowing someone, she has to leave early-doesn't tell anyone this until she's about to leave. The next day she calls out less than an hr before her shift starts. She's scheduled to work tomorrow night, so we'll see how that turns out.

I'm no longer allowed to clock in 15 mins early for my shifts anymore. Which sucks, not just cause of the $, but those extra 15 mins can really make a difference when I'm trying to play catch up on the prep work the previous shift failed to complete. Oh well, I'll make due somehow. Ten hrs of overtime on this last check was certainly nothing to sneeze at, that's for sure.

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