I work in homecare, and the clients are lovely but the management is wearing me down. It's shit pay, no benefits, no holiday pay despite scheduling me for christmas eve, Christmas day, boxing day, and I'm just tired. No wonder they can't get anyone to work in homecare. I literally came in for the job interview and they handed me an employment contract. I told them I can't work more then 20 hours (I'm on a student visa, don't want to risk my status in country) and they keep pushing me into 21.5 hours a week. They “can't” hire enough people and keep scheduling me solo on clients that need two people to safely move and care for them, and I told them my availability and they keep scheduling me outside of those hours. Their excuse is no one else is trained on those clients, so there's no back up. I show up or there's no one to care for them. Last week they had me sit with an actively dying client and took a very long time getting back to me on if they had a DNR. I can't stop thinking about it, how I have 0 training beyond a one day first aid course, and 0 medical background but I could have been the last person to be with them as they died.
And then yesterday I get the notice that my continuance fee for my masters degree (you know, the reason I'm in the country) is the same as normal tuition and I feel so raw and empty right now. I can't afford this job but it pays slightly better than minimum wage, and I spent 8 months trying to find anything when my stipend ended. I don't know that I can do better. I feel like I'm a lot cheaper dead than alive, and I hate that thought.