Maybe I’m just getting old and crabby....

After getting up this morning, eating breakfast, brushing my teeth and checking my computer only to see zero replies to an ad yet again and that my ad had been buried on Craigslist again, my frustration inspired me to write this…

Just an advisory before I begin. My abundance of frustration is what is prompting me to write this. It’s nothing personal against anyone who reads this and it most certainly isn’t about any of you. Those who have worked for me for awhile (past or presently), and by awhile I mean at least nine months, know that you’re the best. I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world. I really wish I could clone you or better yet, offer you enough pay and benefits to keep you forever. There just aren’t many people like you in the world nowadays. But, I know that there are others – sick in hospitals, others with far more significant lifelong conditions, or businesses – who need your wonderfulness more than I do.

And, by writing this I am definitely not asking for sympathy and for people to think my life is hard or sad. So don’t. I hate it when people think that.

With that said, let me begin my rant.

It’s become hard… so hard… to find good quality care attendants. It seems to be a fairly new problem, not only to me but to others I know who also rely on them. It used to be that I could post an ad on Craigslist and in a matter of minutes the replies would start flowing in. In less than a day I would have on average 30 replies. And, at least half of them were worth pursuing. I miss the days of having narrowed things down to five wonderful candidates and having trouble deciding which one to hire, because I truly liked all of them. Oh, those were the good ole days!

Present day is typically very different. I can post an ad on Craigslist and if I’m lucky, I will get maybe five replies in a day and rarely more than 10 in a week. That would be fine, if they were people who actually read what the ad says. 99% of the time these people don’t meet the requirements, can’t work the hours advertised or clearly didn’t read the directions for applying. Honestly, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the people replying are simply just fulfilling unemployment requirements. All they have to do is tell the unemployment office that they applied for x number of jobs and that’s it. They get their benefits. The unemployment office doesn’t verify any of it. If people were truly eager to get a job, they would take the time to properly apply for the job and even make an impression. Society has become lazy because the government makes it too easy to freeload off of it and my experience with applicants just proves this. (Note, I'm not saying everyone is lazy.)

So where are the applicants? That is a good question and one I would really like to know the answer to. When the economy was good and unemployment was lower, I had tons of replies. With the economy bad and unemployment is higher, I have far fewer replies. This baffles me, because you would think it would be the opposite and I would be overwhelmed with replies. People should be desperate to find a job. There are a couple of factors that I think are partly to blame…

People (although, not everyone) have less of a work ethic than they used to. Some people don’t want to work, even when they need to. It’s become easier to live off of other resources, such as the government and parents. Now I’m not saying everyone and every student has a wealthy mom and dad to live off of. It’s just that when people can just get by without having to work and having no responsibility, they do. People would rather go out drinking and partying, or just sit at home and do nothing, instead of having actual responsibility and developing work skills and work ethics they are going to need to survive later in life or even currently in life. It used to be that getting a job in high school or college was something you just did. It wasn’t a choice. I guess you could say it was a rite of passage. Now, young people would rather just live up those years.

I should be clear and say that I will not only consider college students. Yes, probably 90% of my care attendants the past 12 years have been college students, but that’s just because they have been the best candidates. College students can have a flexible schedule, depending on what degree and schooling they are pursuing. They are usually physically fit enough and have the stamina to be able to handle the physical aspects of the job. They usually will enjoy the same hobbies and interests as me, and will want to do these with me. And, if they are pursuing some kind of healthcare or medical degree, they are usually eager to learn and genuinely interested in learning what I need them to do. With that said, I’m certainly willing and do consider others who are not students and may be older than the traditional college age, as long as they meet the requirements, can physically do the job and that I feel we will mesh well (more on this later).

The other factor is entitlement. Or at least I think that’s the right word. I could almost also use the word, greedy. People (although, not everyone) want to make money and a lot of it. Maybe this is sometimes because they have high standards for material things and want to live a luxurious lifestyle, that in reality they can’t really afford. Maybe it’s sometimes because they know there’s a shortage of workers – for whatever reason – and so they like to follow the idea of supply and demand. I cannot tell you how many people have replied trying to negotiate the pay. Some people demand around $20 or more an hour. While I perfectly agree care attendants are underpaid (mine are some of the highest paid by an agency), you simply aren’t going to get more or much more than I can offer you, unless you can find a client who private pays. I think it’s safe to say – but could be wrong – that most are not.

When I do find candidates worth interviewing, there’s a whole other set of issues. I would say I experience around a 30% rate of people not showing up for their interview. They can come across as being super interested in the job and I can confirm with them the night before or the day of, and they still will not show up. No phone call. No email. No text. Nothing. I’ve wasted an hour of my day. I plan an hour for each interview I schedule and sometimes I go out of my way to agree to a time that is convenient for them but isn’t great for me. I understand that maybe another job offer may arise, maybe they realize it’s farther than they thought, or maybe they decide it’s just not a job they want. No matter what the reasoning is, just tell me instead of wasting my time! When people do show up, I cannot count the times there’s phones going off, they didn’t bring something with that I asked for, they aren’t paying attention and so on. I try to see past these things, but it makes it hard to know that they will be a good fit.

Earlier I mentioned meshing well. By that I guess you could call it getting along. Being a personal care attendant is just what the title implies – personal. Some people just have care attendants a few hours a day and then there are some like me who can have them all day. I think no matter how much time you spend together, it’s important that you get along. Yes, first and foremost, they are working for you and that you are not hiring people to be your friend. But having similar personalities and interests is important so that you get along and enjoy being around each other, and that you don’t dread them coming to work. Sometimes people just don’t mesh well and they drive you nuts and stress you out. This is not a good situation to be in and I can tell you from personal experience that at some point – probably sooner rather than later – it isn’t going to end well… possibly even leaving you or putting you in an unsafe situation. I’ve tried to whole idea of hiring someone because they “look good on paper and could physically do the job” even though I felt the personality wasn’t a great match – a few times – and it just didn’t work for me. There were usually problems with behaviors, following directions, feeling like they weren’t at all interested in anything we did and I found myself not feeling like I could be myself, kept to myself more and generally looking forward to the end of their shift. Needles to say, I love it when I’m actually looking forward to someone coming to work!

If I can get through the interview process with successfully finding someone I want to hire, I’ve had a problem that is definitely new. People accept the job only to not follow through. Eight times since February this has happened. At least half have gone ahead and completed the paperwork. One even completely trained in and trained in good. After accepting the job, people either receive other job offers, rethink the job or realize that maybe they won’t have a car or be able to change their schedule to work the hours like they originally said they could. Sometimes I think people just get nervous about starting a new job. What these people don’t realize is that it costs me time and money, and my hiring agency money. Every time my hiring agency runs a background check, it costs them money. I think it’s $25. For me, it costs me usually at least seven days (not including the weeks spent recruiting) as new hires cannot train or begin working until their paperwork has been processed and their background check has cleared. If I have started training them, factor in roughly another five to seven days. When they back out of the job, I’m first suddenly left without someone to work the hours I planned on them working. This means I have to ask others to work extra. Sometimes they can and sometimes they can’t. When they can’t it can mean I have to cancel some appointments or even worse, miss my own work. It’s my personal policy to never allow my care attendants to affect my ability to work. Then, because usually I didn’t have any other suitable candidates, I have to recruit all over again. This can mean weeks of my time, $25 for every post on Craigslist and the cost of Care.com memberships. So while backing out of the job doesn’t cost them anything, it costs me… a lot.

Being completely successful in hiring someone – and by that I mean they didn’t back out, they completed training and have started working – should mean that I can relax. This used to be the case. I could hire someone and know and trust that they would be here as scheduled, do everything that is expected of them, be able to catch on to things and take initiative to do the things they are expected to do, follow the rules and guidelines of the position, and just be a mature and responsible adult understanding that I need them there in case I need help and not to be their babysitter or chatty partner. While I need them there and like having them there, I need my space. I need time to myself and to do things on my own. I don’t need a babysitter. Maybe this is asking too much. Or maybe the kind of people out there has changed. I don’t know. In the last year – maybe less – I’ve sort of struggled with newer care attendants. Even after weeks of working here, I find myself having to do much more supervising than I should. I find myself routinely having to tell them what needs to be done, that they actually need to do it and how to do it, even though all of this is posted for them. I routinely find myself having to remind people that they need to be on time, despite multiple times emphasizing the importance of punctuality during recruiting and training. And, despite initialing and signing guidelines and contracts acknowledging these things, and again (hopefully) reading these things in the training manual, I still have to tell people that they really do have to turn their phone off and put it away, and that they really do need to not (excessively) speed in my car. But again, maybe I’m asking too much.

I’ve definitely learned that even though I could not make things clearer – whether it’s doing my personal cares, household tasks or following the rules and guidelines for the position – I have to be clearer. This new kind of “workforce” must learn differently or have a different kind of attitude, because managing and supervising care attendants has become a fulltime job. A fulltime job that I don’t get paid for. Factoring in the recruiting aspect of it, it’s a fulltime job that I actually pay for.

I realize all of this ranting… actually, I want to call it venting… may sound like I’m complaining or angry or depressed or hate life or hate my disability or hate having care attendants. I want to be clear that that is not the case. I certainly do not hate my disability or my life. On the contrary, I’ve always embraced my disability. It’s not and never has been a hindrance to me. And I absolutely love my life. I think it’s been pretty great and I feel fortunate to have had and have the opportunities I do. There are others who have it a lot worse and I wish I could be like Ellen DeGeneres and help people in need and make their lives better. I am definitely especially grateful for even getting to have care attendants. They are my lifeline. They are my independence. They are the reason why I can do the things I do. Without them I would be nowhere. I have been blessed with many wonderful ones. And, I’m definitely not depressed or angry. I’m just frustrated.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and crabby.