From my reception desk in the lobby, I watched my boss hang a poster, featuring a team of superheroes familiar from comic books and franchise films. “Heroes Work Here,” the poster declared.
The heroes here looked nothing like the ones on the poster. Instead of athletic bodies able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, most employees were women of color, sometimes in back braces, sometimes limping, and almost always carrying food from home.
We worked in senior living. I earned minimum wage. The women doing the heavy lifting, the nurses and care managers, earned slightly more. Though they had manager in their titles, they had little say in their daily routine, which involved responding to house phones they carried with them, calling them to multiple rooms simultaneously, sometimes to lift a body twice their size. During the pandemic, as residents isolated in their rooms, care managers had to deliver meals door to door, while also being responsive to the pings and rings in their pockets. Then go back and collect the dishes. Most of these women had second jobs. I had a gainfully employed husband.
The week the poster went up, we also got T-shirts—bright orange and also claiming heroics. News outlets were reporting a shortage of workers. Somehow, beyond my insular world where everyone had a second job, there was a labor shortage. Businesses where employees risked getting sick just going to work couldn’t hire enough people. Businesses where employees got hit or scratched or yelled at were run by people who didn’t get hit or scratched or yelled at. The safe people got paid a lot more.
Under the shadow of the hero poster, one of the residents, who liked to hang around my desk, decided she needed to go home.
“This is your home,” I reminded her. “You live on the fourth floor.”
She marched to the exit and forced the door open, setting off an alarm. I rushed over and took her hand to lead her back inside.
“No!” she yelled. She had a brain injury and limited ability to speak. We communicated every day with gestures and nods.
“Yes,” I said with a reassuring smile.
“No!” she yelled, shaking her hand free.
I reached again for her hand. “Come back inside with me,” I said in a calm voice.
“No!” She dug her nails into my forearm and dragged them toward my hand.
Passersby on the sidewalk swerved away from us. I felt especially unheroic.
I yelled for help, and a coworker came. We coaxed the resident back inside. I filed an incident report with shaky hands. My head filled with words I wanted to say to our company’s new CEO, expected to visit the next day. The resident, on the other hand, forgot about the incident immediately. She stood over my desk admiring a colorful lamp.
I didn’t always work with heroes. I used to work in newsrooms or magazine copy desks, with regular people, often in khakis. Then I was rightsized, downsized, capsized. Belts were tightened. It’s not you, they said. It’s us. You’ll land on your feet.
I tried to join other teams.
My inbox filled with kind words: We appreciate your interest! We had many outstanding candidates! You have many wonderful qualifications! The choice was difficult! We wish you success! We invite you to follow us on Twitter, on Instagram! We might post new openings!
My first week at the senior living residence was spent in a small dining room, normally reserved for family celebrations, with six other new hires from different departments: kitchen, sales, activities, caregiving, and me, the receptionist. We arrived at 9 a.m. and sat around the table as managers led us through a series of PowerPoint modules related to their departments. We learned about dementia, dignity, validation, and what to do when a resident falls.
“Stop and greet them. They all have interesting stories,” the activities director told us.
“Practice active listening. Redirect rather than contradict,” the head of resident care advised.
“Don’t ever click on our Google reviews,” the sales director warned.
A presentation about unions popped up as the head of nursing queued up his module.
“We don’t really need this unit,” he said, exiting the screen.
The elderly care and assisted living market are among the most rapidly growing industries in the United States, Forbes magazine reported, in an article that classified these residences, and presumably the people living and working inside, as an “asset class.”
With advancements in healthcare and a lower birthrate, the US has the highest median age in its history. The census bureau predicts the population of adults over eighty-five will double by 2035. Real estate investors see this as an opportunity to accrue more “assets.” But without paying more for caregivers. The industry is hoping under the new Trump administration, a staffing mandate put in place after COVID will be reversed.
According to McKnight Senior Living, it can cost between $2,500 to $3,500 to hire and train new caregivers. Industry newsletters propose solutions from including smart devices like Alexa in resident rooms, wearable devices that claim to predict falls, and hiring fill-in staff from third-party agencies. Higher pay and better benefits are at the bottom of the list, as pending lawsuits against staffing mandates attest.
All of this made me reconsider what the word “asset” means.
When the world shut down for COVID my coworkers asked for hazard pay. We asked to be fully staffed. One of us hung up flyers about unionizing. He was fired.
Instead, we got: cupcakes, footlong subs, chicken wings, donuts, $25 Target gift cards, a tote bag, and an umbrella. And the policy that employees pay for food the kitchen prepares for residents, even if there are leftovers, was never changed.
The morning after I got scratched I dressed with hands still shaking. It was my day off but the new CEO was visiting different sites on a listening tour.
My lips buzzed with the words I wanted to say. The main two: minimum and wage.
We gathered in one of the activity rooms. Department managers weren’t allowed, so we could be honest.
The man was like a puppy. New, eager to please, curious, lacking awareness. He thanked us for being heroes. Spitting the angry words in my mouth felt inappropriate. So, I spoke to him like a puppy. I suggested more staff would be fun. He nodded. So, I went on. Residents would be safer! Better pay would attract more staff! Who’s a good boy?
He yipped with glee: fact finding, focus groups, best practices.
Someone mentioned morale.
“I’ve heard this at every facility.” His head tilted in curiosity.
I like my immediate boss. I trust she wants working conditions to be good for her staff. But the thing about minimum wage is it’s a state-imposed floor. While at work I’m aware that if this national company in a growth industry could, it might choose to pay me less.
There are a lot of rewarding aspects to working in this industry, which make it hard to think about abandoning the residents I love for a different job. Conversations are always interesting, even when repetitive. I like helping. I’m happy to phone someone’s son or daughter when they’re lonely, or remind someone of their room number several times a shift, or hunt around someone’s room for a phone that’s been wrapped in paper towels and tucked away in a drawer.
Not much changed after the listening tour. A newer, more modern facility opened in New York, I assume with money that might have gone toward raises or hiring more staff. At the older sites, we became heroes on a quest to fill empty rooms.
The marketing team introduced a program with the catchy title of Careen Toward Capacity, with weekly emails ranking locations by leases signed. Each filled room brought a bonus for facility management. And more work for those earning minimum wage.
Workloads increased with new residents rushed through intake evaluations. We experienced more disruptive behavior. Caregivers had to do more lifting. We didn’t always have the staff necessary for residents with limited mobility, but our bosses ushered them into empty rooms anyways. We grew even more bitter.
One new resident, who shares a name with a princess, approached me one evening, certain someone had been in her room. She was missing money. She was missing jewels. They had been under her pillow. Or maybe under her bed. She wasn’t sure. She called her son. He recognized her confusion and tried to calm her, but he hung up when she started yelling.
“You need to call the police,” she said to me.
Accusations of theft are common for a person with dementia. I know not to discount it, but at the same time, my reception desk was busy. Phones were ringing and the door buzzer chiming with families arriving for afternoon visits. Each person had to be screened for COVID, their temperatures recorded.
“I’ll call in a few minutes,” I said.
She slammed her walker into my desk.
“What kind of place is this?” she yelled.
“Do you know who I am?” she yelled. “I used to work in an embassy.”
Bang, bang, bang went her walker against my desk.
“Everyone here is so stupid!” she yelled.
“I would like you to stop screaming at me,” I said, trying to remain patient.
Bang, bang, bang went her walker against my desk.
Until my voice wasn’t calm. Until I shouted at her to please stop shouting at me.
The thing people love about superheroes is that one might show up when no one expects it. She might even be a limping ninety-four-year-old.
A resident named for a queen approached the resident named for a princess.
“You can’t talk to her like that.” my hero said. “She works here. It’s abuse.”
After three layoffs, Lori Barrett has worked as a dog walker, in a flower shop, and in a senior living residence. Her work has appeared in Salon, Citron Review, Laurel Review, Peatsmoke Journal, New World Writing Quarterly, and Identity Theory. She’s an assistant fiction editor at Pithead Chapel and a prison writing mentor. Find more of her work at LoriBarrettwrites.com.