#(with personal info redacted both for hipaa reasons and general privacy/decency yk)

[yardsards]

this next part is just me bitching but. the main interaction that lead to me making this post (combined with just. all of the incidents of me saying my current job and whoever i'm talking to goving me wayyy too much kudos for just Doing This Job and me feeling sooo weirded out bc like bruh it's not community service it is a Job that i am getting paid for. and this job is easier and pays better than my past job as a cashier but no one gave me kudos for being a cashier.):

during a work holiday party me and a couple coworkers were talking about this pair of clients we shared

and someone brought up how the husband was nice but the wife was a grouch (in my case, she was a little sour to me at first but actually became quite sweet once she got to know me. apparently she had not similarly warmed up to any of my coworkers. which, by the end of this conversation, i realized Exactly Why). no screaming or hitting or any other kind of abuse, not even direct insults, just generally being a bit impatient and condescending and grumpy.

and then my (already least favourite, lol) coworker was like "i straightup told her she couldn't be talking to me like that. that i was there to provide help and if she was gonna treat me like that then i wasn't gonna help her anymore."

and all of our coworkers there, INCLUDING OUR SUPERVISOR, were congratulating her for "standing up for herself" or whatever???

and like see if she was a cashier or housekeeper or whatever i would've been like "hell yeah, get their ass, demand respect on the job" but in the context of this job it really just rubbed me the wrong way because like.

1: we have a significant power over our patients that most other professions don't have over their customers

2: i question if she would have said that to a customer if she was a cashier or housekeeper, or if she only felt emboldened to do this/deserving of a certain degree of respect BECAUSE of the power we have over our patients

3: while we absolutely shouldn't tolerate outright *mistreatment* on the job (as i said above, we're employees, not fucking martyrs), i think we need to be a little more discerning over what constitutes mistreatment than many other professions do. like we gotta be able to think "yeah this woman is in constant physical pain, knows death isn't far away, and now has to pay money to have total fucking strangers coming into her house to do tasks for her that she used to be able to do by herself. it's actually pretty understandable for her to be huffing and eyerolling here and it's not a personal attack on my ego"

4: the way my coworker talked about being there to help like she was providing a FAVOUR rather than just... doing the job that she is getting PAID to

AND THEN this mf had the gall to be like "it's funny that she's planning on checking herself into a home in the next few months. they aren't gonna tolerate being talked to like that there and she's not gonna be in charge there like she is at her house." and like??? idk man i just don't think we should be treating losing power via institutionalization as a justified punishment

i wish i could say that i had some eloquent retort about disability rights and whatnot to stand up for that lady but i was just too fuckin dumbfounded to say anything

i think i've said it before but. as a professional caregiver it rubs me the wrong way how our field (and pretty much any field that involves caring for vulnerable people) is venerated

like don't get me wrong i am all for appreciating blue collar type professions, employees that are underpaid and overworked and vital for how our society functions

but it's a specific flavour of treating us like martyrs that doesn't show up when people appreciate construction workers or garbage truck drivers or janitors or fry cooks or whatnot.

it's a specific flavour of acting like we're doing a huge selfless favour for our clients that doesn't show up when people appreciate customer service workers or housekeepers or whatnot.

what's really ironic there is caregivers have far more power over their clients than customer service workers or housekeepers have over their clients.

and it just leads to so much shittiness in the industry. it's bad for patients cuz they don't feel like they can speak out when a caretaker is mistreating them (or even just doing something they don't like, even on accident), cuz they're expected to feel grateful for what the caregiver is doing for them. and it enables some shitty caregivers to get a complex about how their patients owe them gratitude for doing their jobs. isn't good for non-shitty caregivers too cuz sometimes the good ones then feel obligated to overextend and sacrifice themselves to be worthy of that gratitude.

just like yeah idk appreciate us but don't appreciate us any differently than you should appreciate any other worker i guess idk