For some context, I live in Sweden, which I know has the tendency to get fetishised for being a worker’s paradise of sorts, and while the parental and sick leave policies are light years above the US, we still have problems for sure.
I work at a dementia care facility and I just read in the paper (as well as heard from coworkers, I don’t work full time so I don’t always hear news first hand) that our boss is resigning next Monday. He’s citing extreme stress and budget pressure, not receiving enough money from the municipality, as well as a culture of silence that pervades in upper management. Basically, upper management thinks that in the case of an extremely obese man, paralysed from a stroke, suffering from dementia, they shouldn’t have to pay two of us to lift him from his wheelchair to his bed, because why can’t just one do it?
Not only my boss, but several of my coworkers are resigning in protest. I’m so sad because not only am I losing a great boss who has always been kind, helpful and welcoming, but I’m also losing some of my most experienced coworkers. I wish upper management could come work for one shift, change diapers and feed stroke patients and listen to a woman with dementia asking why her sons took her house and put her in this place, and then cut our budget.