I truly do not have a problem with her eating one meal, but she eats breakfast, lunch and dinner. I think what has sent me over the edge as of late is that she will put items on the grocery list that she does not give my mom. She will prepare them for herself and never offer it to my mom. I know this because we have cameras in my mom's home for her safety when she is left alone for short periods of time. I have noticed that she will also bring her clothes to wash as well. Understand that my mom speaks very little English and she will not ask her for much of anything. I feel that it is out of fear that the caregiver will be mean to her. My mom is also on a fixed income. Not that we don't supplement when needed. However, I do not feel we should have to provide 3 meals for an agency's employee. And...yes the agency has been made aware of the issue. As far as I can tell, it has not been addressed. Should I address the caregiver?
When I worked CG, I ate breakfast at home, and lunch was a shared meal. It was whatever my client wanted. I worked a 6-8 hr day. Never had dinner with her, not once.
As far as cominingly the laundry--that is over the limit, I think.
How close do you feel to this CG? Do you fear that if you approach her in 'anger' she may take it out on your mom?
I'd let the agency do the talking, then if you don't see a change, talk to the CG yourself. In the meantime, prepare to interview other CG's.
Call the agency and tell them you have no problem providing lunch but you will not provide breakfast or dinner.
I would agree though that she shouldn't be using your mother's funds for food specifically for herself. Same issue with laundry as with food. If she stays overnight, and is live-in, that's a big difference between someone who comes for specific hours and leaves.
Why didn't you discuss this first with the caregiver before calling the agency? To me, that's the polite and honorable thing to do.
It sounds to me like this caregiver works so many hours for your mother that she would have precious little time to cook for herself at her own home.
You say she prepares meals for herself and offers your mother none. Please put this into context. Does the caregiver eat at a different time than your mother? Does she say make herself a sandwich and your mother has soup instead?
She does laundry at your mother's house. Your mother could very well have given her permission to.
You "feeling" the caregiver might be mean to her does mean that she actually is. Why don't you observe them interacting with each other through the network of cameras you've installed in her home and see for yourself.
You saw fit to snitch the caregiver out to her agency and they've done nothing. Maybe the agency and your mother are not as upset about it as you are.
If I was employed in such a position, you would not have to report me to the agency for eating with a client because I would have left this position the minute that kind of knit-picking started up.
Good caregivers are hard to find. If you found one, don't be an a**hole about her eating with your mother.
If a load of mom's wash is already being done, what's the difference if a few more items are thrown into the wash that's already being done?
How many hours is this caregiver employed at mom's home that she's eating 3 meals a day there? It sounds like she's working too many hours & has no free time to do her own laundry, cooking or grocery shopping. If that's true, you may want to cut her a break b/c she's working long hours on your mom's behalf!
Why are you throwing in that you 'feel it is out of fear that the caregiver will be mean to her"? That statement makes no sense to me. So if you speak to this CG about eating food and/or washing clothing, she's going to punish you for doing so by 'being mean' to your mother? Have you ever seen or heard this person being mean to your mother in the past?? You have cameras in her home, so you'd be the first to know if something unkind was happening, right? The CG is either a nice person doing a good job or she's not. Or, you feel like it's not a very nice thing you'd be doing to her to tell her to quit eating your food, and for that reason, she'd retaliate?
If this CG is not doing a good job, ask for a new one to be sent to you by the agency. If she's doing a good job, don't be petty and look for reasons to be pissed off with her, that's my suggestion. Good help is hard to find, especially help that works long hours. When I worked as a caregiver to elders, the vast majority told me to eat whatever I wanted, and/or to join them for meals when I prepared food. It's common decency, in my opinion, b/c I was washing their bodies, cleaning their home, changing their soiled briefs, linens, providing companionship to them, and taking them on errands as well as shopping for them. In reality, I became part of their family to some degree and was treated accordingly. If you are going to treat your caregiver like a thief and put her actions under a microscope, then perhaps it's time for a new caregiver b/c you either don't like her, don't trust her, or both.
Address the caregiver however you see fit, but consider she has feelings as a human being and may be hurt & insulted by your words. Tread carefully and think hard before you speak. Ask yourself if it's worth it to possibly sever this relationship over a few bucks.
The OP should consider taking care of her mother herself instead of using hired caregivers. If she wants perfection she should step up and do it herself.
Now on to the part about your concerns that the caregiver's being mean to your mom, I'd put my focus on that issue. Get some of those battery operated cameras in the house to view what is going on when your gone. This food problem sound like the least of your problems.
I would find it extremely invasive.
I deal with agency, have respite care, but never thought of that.
It is legal to have cameras set up in a house. They aren't supposed to have them on in a home's bathrooms while the caregiver is on duty, or in a bedroom that a live-in caregiver would be using. They do though.
People and agencies alike have absolutely no respect for in-home caregivers. Often we are treated with less regard by client families then a family pet would be. Homecare agencies couldn't care less either. CNA, HHA, and homemaker/companion employees are treated like non-entities. Yet we are the employees who keep them in business and make them rich.
I worked as agency help for years before going private. On my last agency position I took an injury on the job helping a super morbidly obese client transfer from the wheelchair to the shower. I had to be out of work for two months. The agency did not pay me worker's compensation because technically I wasn't full-time with them. No one was. How they hired was to make sure regular hours stayed low so they didn't have to offer any kind of benefits. Then they'd offer fill-in hours.
I had to sue this agency through the Labor Department in my state and they had to pay me. Such action should never have been necessary.
I tried for a long time to organize the CNA's, HHA's, and homemaker/companions to go on strike and demand unionization. They are partially to blame for how badly people in this line of work get treated because they have no loyalty and solidarity towards their own. The agency (it was a big franchise operation) heard that there was a rumor about a possible strike and they gave everyone a ten cent an hour pay raise. At the last meeting we held I asked how many of my fellow caregivers worked an eight hour day. Most of us did and then some because we all had fill-in hours. Many hands went up. Then I asked why they were willing to kiss the feet of our agency's owner and be a Judas to their own kind for 80 cents a day. Now these caregivers who earn minimum wage or just above reached in their own pockets to contribute what they could for me when I was down with an injury and had nothing coming in.
Yet they were so easily and cheaply bought for ten cents an hour more. We had this agency by the throat and they would have met our demands if only we stayed strong in solidarity to each other.
This is when I stopped working or agencies and went private duty only. I earn top money and only take clients I want to take. I only work 12 hours a week now because I have to be here for my mother.
We had a live in caregiver who ONLY cooked foods she liked and wouldn't give my parents anything if they didn't want it - spicy foods from her culture. So I would make food for them and she would give them small portions and eat the rest herself. That was NOT ok.
You may need to look over the care plan/contract before making any decisions, as there may be an agreement in place for her to add food for herself. Maybe your mom told her she could?
This ridiculous level of overreacting will surely accomplish absolutely nothing.
What happens next? There's not going be an agency who can send the OP's mother the perfect caregiver. Sorry, but nobody is getting 'Downton Abbey' quality servants or a geriatric-care Mary Poppins for what care agencies pay.
Unless a family or individual is willing to pay what private caregivers like myself demand, the quality of service they expect for their "loved ones" and the quality of person they want to provide it is pretty much unavailable for the insult wages a care agency pays its help.
Minimum wage = Minimum quality.
You get what you pay for. Agency-hired caregivers can easily walk away with no doors hitting any parts of their bodies upon their egress from a care position. They simply go to the next low-wage, crappy position. Sometimes they get lucky and work for a family who doesn't have unreasonable and unrealistic expectations.
I've been in homecare for almost 25 years. Many of those years were agency-hired. Let me give you a little tip about hiring care.
If you're using an agency and insurance is paying, make a little deal on the side with the caregiver. Drop her an extra Benjamin every week in cash. Then watch how fast she stops eating mom's food. You'll be amazed by how little time she spends on her phone. There is almost always a marked improvement in the attitude and appearance of the clients too. They will usually look and smell better. The house usually does too.
Well worth the investment of paying on the side.
Let's face it finding reliable caregivers especially after a Pandemic is no easy feat.
I believe in hospitality. Other's wrote your mother would not have to eat alone.
It's so touching, even though my mother has dementia, she never picks up her fork until I join her at the dining room table. It's important to have company when one eats. Basically, this caregiver has to eat. If she's order fillet mignon and charging it to you that's a different story.
There may be more benefits than drawbacks. I make sure I sit with my mother at every meal. Now I realize that I am a family and your situation is employer/employee but at this stage of the game, I call it the last mile, food is one of their major enjoyments. I think I would like someone to join me rather than eat alone and serve me.
If you think that the caregiver would be mean to your mother than by all means you should NOT employ her. Everyone is scrambling for good help so to speak and you have decide if the benefits out way the problems.
The agency probably figures, you don't like it there's 100 other people that are looking for a caregiver.
Your home is not a laundromat. I would speak up about that. You need to have a "Come To Jesus" meeting with the caregiver and tell her the things that are going good but inform her that other "things" should they continue would be a deal breaker.
Let's face it caregiving work by agencies is backbreaking. They are underpaid, overworked and short staffed. The franchises make the $$$. Usually immigrant women or women of color do this work. The immigrant women also take care of their parents and do not put them in nursing homes. I respect them and also think they should unionize and be paid at the least nothing less than $35 per hours plus gas, continuing education, uniform allowance. Ireland and China are turning this into a highly regarded profession.
It's shouldn't be let the immigrants do it they'll lucky to have a job. This is the Lord's work. Look at what athletes get paid. Did you know it takes more hours to attend school for a certificate in dog grooming than it does to become a caregiver. It shows what we value in this great country. I love America but there are certain things we could improve.
After WWII the elderly became discarded and less valued. Gone are the days when people rose to their feet when an elderly person entered a room. The immigrants respect their elders but you/me also have the responsibility to protect them.
It's time for a meeting...Amen!
What this caregiver has been perpetrating is theft, and it is simply unacceptable. No one takes anything without asking or being offered. It is a poor representation of herself, her ethics, and her character. It also poorly represents the agency that she works for.
Don’t engage her directly. Arrange to have a replacement in place first and then call the agency to inform them of problems and fire her. If you engage her now, she might be abusive to your mom.
If your mother seems to be frightened of this woman, that’s an entirely different matter. If that’s the case, you should have replaced her as soon as you detected this. But you have cameras in the house watching her every move so if there are sharp words or verbal abuse, you should see some evidence of it on the camera footage even if there is no sound.
Why does doing her laundry bother you so much? Is it really that much extra expense for you or your mother for her to do an extra load of laundry or two while she is doing your mother’s laundry? And if you don’t want her to do these things, why don’t you tell her what you would prefer she do and not do instead of calling the agency she works for and complaining?
She’s with your mother practically every waking hour. This woman is simply trying to get her own normal activities of daily living done so she can ho home and relax and sleep before she shows up to feed your mother breakfast, lunch and dinner, change her sheets, entertain her etc. Try to start thinking of her as a member of the family and ask yourself if you would be so put out if it was a relative you were paying to take care of her. In these post pandemic economics, you are lucky if she is hanging in and perhaps taking a little advantage of the knowledge that she is pretty much indispensable as far as you are concerned.
This woman isn't a member of the family. She's a hired contractor. When you start thinking of care givers as part of the family, unless the person has great boundaries, that causes all sorts of problems.
The agency told me we are NOT obligated to feed people so now she brings her food from home. My mother is also cognizant and told her we did not appreciate (or I did not appreciate) her eating our food.
I think you should definitely address her and the agency again about this. Explain that is NOT part of the contract and your mother is on a fixed income. She is also taking advantage of the situation with the laundry if she did not ask your permission first.
On the other hand, if this is a caretaker who does her job well, and your mother likes, then you can make some concessions, because good care is very hard to find and keep. That said, this is a discussion you should have with the caretaker, describing what irritates you the most. My mother loved company when she was eating. So for instance, "I love that you keep my mom company during her meals, and we don't mind sharing the food at all, but if there are extra items you want here, you should bring them from home".
The bottom line is think long and hard at what exactly is bothering you most. Is it the extra money you're spending or the fact that she is bold enough to do these things without asking? If you can convey your concerns without being confrontational, then I think you will feel much better, and she will not over-reach in the future.
I had a caregiver call me at work saying there was an emergency and that I should come right away. She wouldn't tell me what the emergency was, so I drove the 40 miles back to mom's place only to find out the fat pig said we didn't have enough food in the fridge. She was fired on the spot.
So was the gal who made my aunt move into the guest room, then proceeded to ruin my aunt's bedroom furniture. Out you go! Don't try and explain.
So yes, address it with the caregiver in the form of a written list of dos and don'ts and send the agency the info. But do look up the law about if you have to provide them breaks, etc. based on the duration they stay. I would also ask the agency for a new caregiver. This is not one that's going to really be there for her when she needs it. She's someone who will continue to figure out how to take advantage.
The message should be that she is welcome to eat what mom eats while she’s at work. But as far as special requests, she gets to choose among a variety of complimentary beverages and small snacks.