So, it's been an awfully long time since I last posted but I have been incredibly busy. Most importantly, I finally rejoined the working world! I think I had applied for literally every job available and been rejected when one of my best friends suggested that I work for her. Now, she had mentioned before that she would give me a job but I honestly didn't think that I would be able to do it. At this point though there wasn't really a choice, I couldn't spend another day at home feeling sorry for myself!
Ark Home Health Care are a national company, my friend is south west regional manager. At the time she was still only the branch manager in Torbay. Well, after doing a week of Induction training I went off shadowing one of the other care workers and haven't looked back since. I absolutely love my job!
Care work isn't for everybody but, in it, I have found my niche. My start was a rocky one, however. One particular lady took a dislike to me from the get go, insisting that I was an uneducated (being as I was new), immoral ( having a daughter whilst unmarried), gold-digger ( saying Mark was in his 50s and I was in my 20s). I felt the need to point out that I was, in fact, very well educated, had been with my partner for 11 years and that I was was 30 and my partner was 47. She phoned the office the next day claiming that I had poured acid on her face! Then another woman slapped me around the face and spat on me. There was an incident which ended up with me being covered head to toe in diarrhea, which was probably an all time low, but I've lived to tell the tale!
I suppose that it's like any other job involving the public in that you meet some wonderful people as well as some rude ones but thankfully we don't have too many of the latter. My regular service users are all fab, of course.
From fairly early on I realised that I wanted to make social care my career rather than just a job and enrolled in NVQ level 3. It's called QCF now but no one ever gets what I'm talking about if I tell them that. Linda, the assessor, visited today to pick up two assignments i had completed and give me a couple more to do. Learning is so much fun when it's something you're interested in and it's your personal choice to do it. Linda loves me, she tells me how great my work is all the time, which is always a good boost for the confidence.
For the past 3 weeks, most of my time has been spent in the office going through every scrap of paper work to either file it correctly or archive it. You have no idea how time consuming that is! Anything over 5 years old can go in the confidential waste bin and I filled it and had to call for collection several times so far. Archiving has to be boxed and a list made of everything that's in there if we should need to produce it for the CQC (Care Quality Commission) or for any legal proceedings so it's all numbered. I honestly have no idea how I ended up being roped in but I don't mind because being in the office has been a nice change.
Our Care Co-ordinator, Becky, is going on maternity leave soon and last week a letter was sent advertising the job to cover her while she's off. After much debate with Esa, my boss, and a lot of internal contemplation I decided I would apply.
It occurred to me that I know all the carers in Brixham as well as the service users, I get on really well with the office staff and I can learn to use the computer system so I may as well have a go.
Everyone thought that loads of the care workers would apply but there were 2 external candidates, me and a woman who only started working for Ark a few months ago when we took over the Guinness care company.
My interview is next Monday at 2pm. Wish me luck!
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