I just came back after a 12h shift in a nursing home. I never worked in a nursing home and I imagined it a bit differently. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, nursing home is a care home for people who are pretty much bed bound, while people who need care for various reasons but are more physically able are usually placed in residential home. This is my own, simplified explanation, but it is considered that residents in nursing home need higher level of care, therefore it seems like working there is harder. Although obviously if residential care home is short staff then working there may end up being much more demanding.

Anyway, after trying work in various establishments during the last couple of months I can honestly say that the hardest job was the posh hotel. I remember, I came back totally exhausted after merely 8h shift and I had such a back pain that I could barely move. It’s the tucking bedding underneath heavy mattresses that had such an impact, and it’s impossible to do it while adhering to good manual handling practices. I really don’t understand how come hotel workers don’t go on strike?

Today, although I am tired, I’m not exhausted and I can still move ok, even though the shift was 4h longer than the hotel shift. Although, I presume some shifts may end up being more busy, but I guess, if I survived today, I should be able to cope on other days too. I’m also somehow surprised to see that not every care home (and I worked in 3 different ones through the agency so far) is so full of gossip as my old one was.

Oh, BTW, I had an unexpected break after around one hour of work today, it was probably like 35 minutes when people in charge couldn’t decide which floor I should be working on and I was told to wait in an empty lounge. I came out twice as I thought they must have forgotten me, that’s why it’s taking so long, but both times I was told to go back and wait. And this way it added up to those 35 minutes, which then made me feel like it’s life that made it up to me for that lost break in a different care home last week and I now feel that life treats me fair.

It’s really strange, isn’t it? That’s the only shift I did this week so I wasn’t even tired, and those two care homes are run by a different companies, yet somehow that’s how I see it: life made up to me for my lost break. I did say a while ago that my instinctive understanding is that life is a system where everything is connected. I can see that logically that doesn’t make sense, yet, that’s how I see things subconsciously. At the same time when things really are connected (by people spreading gossips for example) I can’t imagine how this is happening.

So in general I can say it was a good shift, although there was a bit of miscommunication involved as well (can this be spared to me one day, possibly?), but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow to discuss.

Goodnight!