this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Sharing my story for posterity.
I used to work at a medical center for old folks with varying disabilities. It was a great job all things considered, just didn't pay very well and the scheduling was a mess.
Anyway, one day I'm cleaning tables on the dining room when I hear on my walkie talkie that one of the new people need help with a guy in the bathroom. Usually "they need help" means "something has gone awry, please unfuck the situation" and, since I was the supervisor on shift, my job frequently involved untucking a situation.
I arrive outside the bathroom door and the new employee tells me that she walked into a situation that she wasn't prepared for. I figured it was some poop, or the guy fell asleep on the toilet or something.
I walk in and the walls were all painted with poop. The sink was painted with poop. The floor was painted with poop. The paper towel dispenser had poop all over the front of it.
The poor guy had gone to the bathroom, got confused and tried to remember what toilet paper was. He saw me and knew I was there to help, but he was nonverbal. His way of saying thank you was to gently take his hand and rest it under your chin.
He did so, but his hand was also still covered on poop.
I'm used to poop. It's a normal job hazard in that line of work. But something about having to clean myself and every surface in the room from caked poop while somebody else gave the poor guy a shower...that kind of story sticks with you. To this day I can't look at finger paints without feeling a little queasy.
Iโm sorry, that sounds like a really shitty day.
Your story makes up for the non-work related stories in this thread. It's both work related and shitty lol. I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Normally I'm very much anti "lets use robots to replace jobs", but this is one case where I think it would be a win for everybody. The robot won't care, and the elderly person won't feel their dignity lost, and all is taken care of behind closed doors.
My grandma started losing control of herself towards the end, and my mother did overtime in taking care of her and cleaning her. This sounds sweet, but it was a bad situation for everyone. My mother essentially started treating her own mother like a baby, often in front of us, and my grandmother (a proud and strong woman my entire life) essentially lost her sense of dignity and independence. I still remember her as the strong and proud woman she was, and I do my best to forget her last year.
We need robot caretakers.
The only problem is that robots don't have the kind of sense of connection and humanity that human caretakers often have, on top of the general complexity of the task. I was always frustrated when family would visit and treat their aunt/cousin/etc like a baby when like, no, they're 80 years old and were raised on a farm. It's really just a matter of needing appropriately trained caretaking staff who are also paid enough, which sadly the industry lacks both of those things