Published on 12, July, 2020
I started a new job last Monday, and after a very frank review with manager on Friday afternoon I'm considering quitting after only a week.
The basic theme of the review was that I'm not showing an aptitude for the work and not engaging with the clients well enough.
I will start by explaining some of my background and situation.
I, unsurprisingly have had long gaps in my employment and need money desperately. And I cannot be choosy! So obvious route is finding paid employment. Any paid job!!!!!
Other routes are trying for more benefits. One debt advisor suggested I apply for PIP. The next three professional advisors ( same week) laughed at the suggestion. Saying that my social skills problems are minisule compared to some people they deal with.
I have and had multiple advisors giving me all types of contradictory advice.
In applying for this job, one of my employment advisors actually changed my answers.
For confidentiality reasons I will not give specific details but the job is full time at the minimum wage and involves supporting people with complex physical/mental needs. Over the past twenty years I've been involved in doing this type of work for family and neighbors, so I am familiar with the issues and can emphasize with most autistics and their problems.
The problems are that I'm not showing enough enthusiasm and the will to get involved in specific tasks while shadowing existing workers. I am too reserved.
And the end of week review was very very negative.
Should I quit? Or turn up tomorrow morning and carry on ?
At the moment I'm intending to continue and apply for other jobs simultaneously. Just doing application for work at local poundstrechter.
The whole situation is a mess.
Firstly I'm not even sure if I'm employed by them?
I am two weeks into a six month probationary term.
I have not signed any contract of employment which specifies terms and conditions of employment.
I have not been paid a penny.
Contact with them has been by phone ( voice and text message). Asking me to start work at this address on this time and day.
I can cope with the work. It's the politics, personal agendas and management bullying that gets me down.
It started to go wrong on the first day. I was shadowing a senior support worker, when the task was to bathe one of the female clients.
She is wheelchair bound with physical/mental problems and on a cocktail of drugs. Two care workers are always needed to move her using mechanised hoists and supports from the wheelchair to the bath etc. It's all move this loop to this hook etc etc etc. Some loops are colour coded, some different lengths..... This goes here, that goes there. I can't remember it all.
When they started to wash her, I walked out of the bathroom to give her some privacy, thinking that it must be awful for her to have some complete stranger standing there watching her being bathed. I knew that personal care that includes bathing and toileting is part of the job.
But the mistake I made was walking out of the bathroom. I should have offered to join in the bathing/washing.
At the review this was the big issue. Why did I walk out of the bathroom? That I am not a hands on person! What was my motivation for applying for this job?
I could almost see the humour and double meaning in this questioning. ( Hands on!!!!!!! Washing a naked woman!!!!!) I was being told off for not joining in the washing of a naked woman, two hours into a new job. As for my motivation. ( It's money). If my motivation had been anything else!!! I should have been sacked on the spot!!!!
A week later I was involved in bathing her with a different support worker. This again worried me. The written instructions in her customer care plan explicitly stated that she needed two workers to move and hoist her in and out of bed and bath and wheelchair. There was only one worker and me shadowing. And I was left alone in the bathroom to bathe her. This included everything, groin, breasts etc.
Then there other trivial complaints.
Those people seem completely and utterly incompetent and dangerously so. It sounds like an accident waiting to happen and guess who will get the blame if it does, when they basically just leave you to do stuff you're not even trained for. I retract what I said before, which was that you should stay and try to make the best of it. It just doesn't seem worth the trouble. If you complain or write a letter to them it'll just get ignored, but I wonder which authority you could send an anonymous letter to in order to complain, in order that the people they care for stop being endangered by them. Maybe even a news agency or something.
Robert124 said:
At the review this was the big issue. Why did I walk out of the bathroom?
Okay... everything about this is wrong and smacks of institutional incompetence and negligence. Firstly, if you are on a two-hander and you're on a shadow shift, you aren't properly qualified to take one of the roles - especially if you haven't received the proper training. Shadow shifts are just that: you're observing and learning. You need to have been given a proper training course in the use of hoists, and issued with a certificate to show that you've completed the training. This is mandatory. Secondly, you should have been given access to care plans so that you can at least glean basic information about the clients you're working with. You should also have been given full information about that client by the senior before you even entered the bathroom. You're quite right about privacy - but it's perfectly acceptable for male members of staff to administer personal care to females, providing it stipulates as such in their care plan. It isn't your responsibility to offer to join in. You should be directed by the senior, and told and shown what to do before you do it. You cannot be relied upon to take actions on your own initiative in this circumstance. Your employer, at this point, is fully responsible. You have that on your side: if you haven't done certified training, you shouldn't be expected to do that task. We had a situation in my current job where a new employee was assigned to shadow shift with a more experienced member of staff. The client they had required two staff members to attend him if he went out into the community. The 'experienced' member of staff took him out with the shadow shift guy, assuming this equaled a 'two-hander'. It didn't - and the senior member of staff was sacked. It's an Adult Safeguarding issue. Trainees do not count as full staff members in this situation. You should have refused to even touch the hoist (not that you knew that, so it isn't your fault) and there isn't a thing they could have done about it. You can't be sacked for refusing to do a task that you aren't trained and certified for.
You have no contract, either. I mean, what the hell are these people playing at? You need to write all of this down, Robert, and use it all as evidence in a report. You must inform CQC of this practice, because it is not just out of order, it's against statutory requirements. It's illegal.
It's also, unfortunately, common in care - even in good homes and establishments. They're often desperate for staff, and people just get expected to flout the rules in order to get things done. I was taken for a ride that way myself in my first care job - because I knew nothing, so didn't know any better. They're taking advantage of your inexperience.
One other thing - I can't remember if you mentioned it... have you got your valid DBS certificate through yet? If not, then you shouldn't be doing any hands-on tasks at all. It's not enough for your employer to say that it's been applied for. In my current job, I wasn't even allowed to start until I had the certificate. Establishments differ in this requirement, though. It should all be in your employer's Policies and Procedures, which you should also have been given access to. During most of the first few days in a new care job, you should be given time to do reading like this. Most of the more reputable care providers give all new staff a week's induction training before they start, and things like P and Ps will be covered during this.