So about a month ago, I took a job as a personal care attendant supervisor for old and disabled people. I’ve done this kind of work before, so I knew going in that part of being a supervisor would include “On Call”which would basically be responding to emergencies after hours. During the interview I asked how the on-call work, the person who interviewed me, the owner, insisted that on-call rotates, which I agreed with. No biggie.
Turns out there are other problems with the place: the company basically it’s a shit show, people calling in left and right, people clocking in and leaving, no actual schedule, condescending mean boss who’s not only mean, but incompetent, she’s the changing the rules left and right, then denying they ever were the way the straw that broke the camels back for me is on-call.
I’ve worked this kind of job before and with round the clock care and clients that can’t be left alone, a manager needs to be on-call 24/7, which is fine, but my previous company rotated it.
During office hours, you dealt with your own clients emergencies. After hours the person on call does. Sure if that person had a case they didn’t know much about, you could help, but it was by phone. And that was supposed to be more of a courtesy, not a requirement. Didn’t matter who’s case it was. If a staff no call no showed and you couldn’t find coverage last minute, the on call person covered the shift.
But not here. While I was told in the interview it rotates. I learn now, the only thing that rotates is the actual phone. The company is “too big” for anyone person to handle emegencies. So if someone gets a call and it’s not their clients emergency, the correct case manager is called and helps handle it. Okay, fine. Here’s the thing, if someone actually has to report in person to cover a shift. It’s not the person on call but whoever the case belongs too. So even if I’m not on all. If the Saturday night overnight staff doesn’t show up, the person who the case belongs to has to go. And if they refuse. The person on shift who leaves still gets in trouble but we could catch a whole neglect charge because those clients aren’t supposed to be left alone.
I think that’s dogshit. Because that means at any moment I can get a call, have to drop what I’m doing and cover a shift NO MATTER WHAT!
When I brought this up to my manager she said “well find e coverage and you won’t have to go. And “yeah but we barely have 24 hour clients”
Oh yeah? Well I’ve been here a month and already had to work a 12 hour shift, it wasn’t on the spot and it happened to be during my first on-call rotation. Long story short, a time off request fell through the cracks.
But anway, I want to fucking quit. Being on call is no fun, but I can handle 1 out of every 4 weeks but not 24/7. It doesn’t matter if it happens once a year. It COULD happen at any point. Which makes me feel like I’m never truly off. Especially with the turn over rate at this place. These workers make $9-$12 an hour. They dgaf, they the place is short staffed and unorganized. So they know if they do no call no show, if they know a handful of clients, turn their paperwork in and do a good job, nothing will happen other than maybe some rudeness from one of us.
This is no way to fucking live. I can’t leave town to go see my family/friends (which I do once or twice a month, I moved to this city a year or two ago so all my people live about an hour a half away) no vacations, no drinking, no anything that would inhibit me from our hour window of being able to report to whatever clients house. Hell sleeping can be stressful because I could a call at 3 AM from an overnight staff deciding to leave for whatever reason. You couldn’t tack a couple of 0’s on my salary for me to agree to that. Sure is shit not cool with making 55k a year doing that.
Is this that unreasonable though? Some say, that’s a pretty intense reaction because someone MIGHT call out one night and you’d have to go. But to me, that’s just fucking huge abs I want the fuck away from this place. If the cost of living wasn’t so high and I know I could get another job making at least $25 an hour, I’d put my notice in tomorrow. But unfortunately that’s not an option for me.