In June I attained a job in a local branch of Wetherspoons. It paid £11.67 or suchlike (NMW is, at time of writing, £11.44). This particular building contained far too many steps as it is a converted bank and bizarrely had two roof gardens!? The app made it more of a waitressing job and the shifts were all over the shop. The pub closed at midnight and clearup took 90 minutes to two hours, so I ended up getting home at half two in the morning. I managed a total of three shifts, resigning with immediate effect.
In July I forwarded my CV to a local care home. They were offering zero hour bank care work, so I was duly interviewed and offered the job on the same day. Unlike Wetherspoons I was given a whole raft of paperwork to complete and then a huge amount of online training. I attended an in-house 'moving and handling' course, finding that everyone there had worked in care since leaving school, unlike me.
I had a really bad reaction to the CPR etraining, allied to the fact that I was being interviewed for a DfE role on the same day. This led to me seeking assistance from a local disability charity. The head of retention came along to a meeting with me, the General Manager and her deputy. It wasn't great - I was admonished for not declaring that I had bipolar and I didn't accept the job.
Time went on ... I was interviewed for office jobs and a Co-op role. Nothing succeeded. I then decided to re-look at the care home job and I started on 9th September. The first week was great - I was shadowing an absolutely lovely Care Assistant, but sadly this wasn't yo last.
My second weekend (Saturday 8am-8pm and Sunday 8am-8pm) was bloody awful. There was an absolutely foul care assistant I was teamed with on Saturday who picked on me all day. She and the senior care assistant made me accompany one of the residents to A&E, meaning that I was there for hours and ended up having to call the Deputy Manager to relieve me. On the Sunday there was a bossy Care Assistant who was a nightmare to work for so I ended up in tears, going home early. Following this, I did ask the deputy manager for Reasonable Adjustments via email, but they were never granted.
I worked there for twelve shifts in total. Although I never completed another 12-hour care shift, I didn't like it as the atmosphere was so strange, cliquey and unfriendly. I'd already changed my number to a burner phone so that I'd never see the WhatsApp messages which popped up all day every day.
I don't regret it whatsoever.
