A backwards Sunday

I wonder if a dayshift aide ever considers the consequences to their coworkers when they call off, especially on a Sunday. After all, we have fewer aides, only three, on weekend days. Any dayshift aide who calls off should know their coworkers will have a challenging day. It's also almost impossible to get another aide to fill in, particularly on a Sunday.

Today, we residents dealt with the one aide call off scenario. We had two aides and a night shift aide stayed over until 10 AM. He was able to help with breakfast by assisting residents to eat, including me.

But, let's face it. Night shift aides are not used to the fast pace of dayshift. I bet watching the aides moving around made him almost fall into a hypnotic state after he'd been here all night.

My aide was late getting to me. She was already on a different section of the hall doing rounds when she heard there was a call off. Then, she had to abandon that assignment and instead come to assist me.

I was so concerned sitting in the bathroom waiting for my aide to come and do my wash up to get me ready for the day. I don't think anyone can really understand how antsy I was wondering what was going on to make her so late.

My aide got me ready quickly enough, even with her late start. That meant serving breakfast was already behind, because it hadn't even started yet.

But, without the third aide, lunch was more difficult. A housekeeper helped to pass the trays. But, with the slowest cook overseeing the newest dietary aides, things moved even slower. Even though I understood dietary was struggling, I wish the cook had thought to undercook our entrée. That way it might not have dried-up waiting in the steam table.

Since I got my meal last, the boneless chicken thigh, was dry and hard. The potato smiles were okay but I only got four of them. I decided to eat the strawberry rhubarb pie to fill up.

In the end, it was a mentally tiring day watching the aides and the dietary staff struggle to do a more difficult job on this Sunday.