In this chapter Grace will share her working experiences in detail - including recruitment, interviews, responsibilities and wages for readers who are interested in obtaining a job in England. Furthermore, there will be stories about hilarious accidents that happened at work (about which at the time it happened she couldn't really laugh, only later) and the unexpected and shocking experience of when she was asked to wipe the willy of one of her employers.
Can’t stand the difficulties
Normally, a Masters degree course has three terms; two terms for lectures and the final term for dissertation writing in which there isn’t teaching in classes but students have to write their dissertation autonomously under their supervisor’s advice and guidance. Students therefore are able to send their work to their supervisors to be checked via email and so most of the Thai students who arrived with Grace had gone home prior to the course actually finishing.
Grace assumed all of her Thai classmates had gone home not just because they missed home but also because they probably couldn’t stand the difficulty. From not having, in Thailand, to do grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and laundry to being in the UK, where they had to do all by themselves. Also they had to catch public transport and to think again and again before each journey when travelling because of the need to calculate the expense all the time as everything is so expensive. Different to living in Thailand where they can go places whenever they want to go and they can eat out whenever they want to most of the time without having to think so much. In England, it’s impossible to eat out all the time because a meal costs more than £5 per person, unless choosing to eat fast-food.
Product positioning
Having mentioned fast food, Grace can’t help laughing at herself. As when she was living in Thailand, Grace, her family and her friends often liked to go to fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s or Burger King for the sake of looking and feeling cool and well-off. That is because western products, specifically the brands from the USA and UK, are costly in Thailand, including food. As an example, some burgers from Burger King are priced at over half a days pay for a blue collar worker. Some Thais have never had a burger from these restaurants in their entire lives.
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| Burger King Photo: promotiontoyou.com |
Whilst in England, Grace noticed that fast food is the cheapest food compared to other types. Because they are cooked quickly, don’t have substantial nutrients and are mostly fat and carbohydrate and the reason why they are called “Fast food” which is the same as “Junk food”.
As Grace is a Marketing graduate, she understands that this is just a game of Marketing. McDonalds and Burger King are able to set a high price and to position themselves for the middle class and above because the Thais perceive products from developed countries as luxurious. Although they are expensive compared to their costs, people still buy them. In fact people are not really paying for the actual benefits of the products but rather for the image it allows them to project.
There was another incident that confused Grace, when she first saw the energy drink called Red Bull which is positioned for laborers with low income in Thailand but is positioned totally differently, for trendy youngsters and professionals in England. How many Thais would know that, Grace wondered.
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| Red Bull Photo: infobarrel.com |
Grace also saw that the price of a product doesn’t always signify its quality. Pricing is largely an invented belief, for instance, Diesel jeans, cost approx. £100 - £200, when they are just a pair of jeans. However, because of the company’s advertisements and positioning they build a belief in consumer's minds that it is a special pair of jeans - as if one would float to heaven just by wearing them. Then when people believe so much, they manage to make sales, even Grace’s British branding lecturer complained that it is ridiculously expensive for a pair of jeans.
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| Diesel Jeans Photo: en.item.rakuten.com |
Having been aware of all this, Grace felt it was such a waste that she used to stick with brands so much, particularly when she traded cheap, fresh, healthy, local Thai meals which are full of nutrients for unhealthy fast food burgers that she had to pay nearly three times as much for.
Distort and disclose facts selectively to show off
Other than the difficulty of the living style, looking for work in England isn’t easy either for non-native speakers. Most Thai students end up working as waiting staff in Thai restaurants and/or fast food restaurants. Although Thai students who have a chance to study aboard are relatively wealthy, once they face buying things in pounds, which is a lot stronger than Thai baht, they are no longer rich. The minimum living cost in England is about £500. That £500 can only pay for shared accommodation with 3-4 people where the bathroom is shared as well. If you had to live on less than £500 then you would have to live in such poor conditions and hardly go out and about. Or be one of those who work in Thai restaurants that offer free food and accommodation for staff. This is why most Thai students have to find part-time work to earn extra income. From having a maid, living at home comfortably in Thailand these students have to become their own and other's maids at the same time and as a result they can’t stay long in the UK because they find it very hard.
However, most Thai students who have gone to study aboard often garble the truth of how hard their life is aboard. They hardly tell others in Thailand how their difficult their life is, but instead they post/show off to their friends in photos, acting posh, as if their life is so luxurious. One of Grace’s friends secretly told her that she felt so poor, because England drained her money, but the photos that Grace's friend had posted and showed to others on Facebook gave the opposite impression to the complaint that Grace heard. Even Grace’s father, who was an ex-international student in the US, he too said his student life wasn’t as comfy as life back home in Thailand. Just like all Grace’s Thai classmates, who had leapt at the chance to go home, before even the course literally finished. Correspondingly, if living aboard was so genuinely comfy then we would have seen many of the rich in Thailand have all moved to live aboard already.
Easy comes easy goes
Before Grace came to the UK, she hardly worked. Her first job was a summer job working as a personnel clerk for a massive private public partnership organisation where her mum and a couple of her maternal relatives work. She got in because of the connections her mum had, whereas some people had to go through a recruitment process. Hence Grace only worked there for just a month as she didn’t appreciate it enough and was young, so what she cared about was just partying and having a boyfriend.
Again Grace's second job was working as an Administrator in an SME where her uncle had a share and just gave her the job. Here, even worse, she got her own office and so ended up sleeping while she was supposed to be working. It was not long until her uncle’s partner told her that the company wasn’t doing well as it was before 1998, because of the stockmarket crash in Asia, and told her to leave. Grace still doesn’t know whether that was the real reason or if it because she didn't work as hard? She always thinks it must have been the latter.
There were also other jobs she got because of connections that weren’t appreciated, until she arrived in England. As in England, work experience is essential, as mentioned in Chapter 3 most jobs do not require much education at all but instead require years of experience. Grace then complained with her mother later that she felt regret she didn’t endure work in Thailand longer, because then she would have been able to use such work experience to apply for jobs in the UK. That’s just like what they say - “easy comes easy goes”.
Grace's first job in England as a waitress and she got scammed; a popular job for Thai students
Working life in the UK can be very challenging. The job that many of us tend to do when we go to study aboard is waiter/waitress in Thai restaurants. It’s easy for us to get a job in Thai restaurants as we don’t have to use so much of the English language skills and because people expect a lower level English usage in comparison to working for British owned companies. Some others will go to work in fast food restaurants such as Mc Donald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and etc.
Working life in the UK can be very challenging. The job that many of us tend to do when we go to study aboard is waiter/waitress in Thai restaurants. It’s easy for us to get a job in Thai restaurants as we don’t have to use so much of the English language skills and because people expect a lower level English usage in comparison to working for British owned companies. Some others will go to work in fast food restaurants such as Mc Donald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and etc.
Grace started her first job in the UK at a Thai restaurant. How she got the job was very old fashioned, she just walked in with her CV. She didn’t have much experience as a waitress before, yet she had seen people do it and thought to herself it was just an easy job, everyone could do it. The first day she finished work she just went straight to bed, as it was very tiring, mainly due to standing and rushing around on her feet for long hours. Still she enjoyed herself initially, as it was something new and moreover she felt proud to be working and earning her own money. However, despite these feelings, she still couldn’t manage to last even a month. A couple of incidents stand out in Grace's memory. Grace is allergic to alcohol and so she was not an experienced drinker or drinks server. She was asked one day to serve a beer to a customer who came with his wife and two beautiful children. She started to pour the beer from the bottle to the glass as normal, as she would do when she was pouring drinking water into a glass. The two kids were looking at her with frightened eyes but she still kept pouring as she didn’t know what was coming. The next minute she looked at the bubbles that kept floating up and over the top of the glass. She felt very embarrassed but again the only thing she could do was say sorry and clean it all up.
Another accident was when she was asked to serve a couple of beers to a flirty customer. This time the customer wanted their beer served in a bottle and Grace put them ready to be served on the tray. Now Grace had learnt that to look professional she had to carry the tray on one hand. She had managed to do it previously with a couple of light things on the tray and hence she thought this time she would be just fine. She was OK until the customer tried to speak Thai to her, then she got nervous and dropped his bottle of beer all over him.
Then Grace started thinking surely waiting wasn’t for her as she started to get bored as well, so she decided to leave. When Grace left the owner asked her why and thought that she was treated badly by the other staff. Still, such a pain, apart from the first week that she was paid, they have never paid Grace for the rest of the time she was working there, but she wasn’t surprised as she was told by some colleagues that they had had problems with payment too. Grace tried to ring up the company many times to get her payment, however the only thing she heard was bullying words from one of the staff who was also her former colleague. At the end, Grace just felt too tired to try to get her money back (and later Grace discovered that the restaurant had gone out of business). Specifically, there was nothing much she could do since she agreed to receive wages in cash.
Illegal cash in hand
The manager told Grace that she had to be on a trial period first for a month and she would be paid in cash £4 per hour, not the £5.35 minimum wage according to UK law because if not, the payment pass would pass through the tax system and if it did Grace would have been paid even less after tax was deducted. Grace didn’t mind as she didn't realise that she was being taken advantage of and didn't know that in England, it is illegal to receive cash in hand like this. In Thailand, there are shops everywhere and most of them pay their employees cash in hand. However it was because Grace received cash that she had no protection and she couldn’t demand her wages as she didn’t have any proof.
The manager told Grace that she had to be on a trial period first for a month and she would be paid in cash £4 per hour, not the £5.35 minimum wage according to UK law because if not, the payment pass would pass through the tax system and if it did Grace would have been paid even less after tax was deducted. Grace didn’t mind as she didn't realise that she was being taken advantage of and didn't know that in England, it is illegal to receive cash in hand like this. In Thailand, there are shops everywhere and most of them pay their employees cash in hand. However it was because Grace received cash that she had no protection and she couldn’t demand her wages as she didn’t have any proof.
Taxes that seem unfair in England
Later Grace understood the concept of why in England it is illegal to pay wages in cash. It is considered one of the ways to dodge taxes because the cash doesn’t go through the tax system. In England, practically all workers’ salaries are taxed. The more one earns the more they are taxed and vice versa. When Grace knew from one of her friends that her friend’s husband was taxed nearly £800 from his £3,000 a month salary whereas someone who earns £1,000 a month is taxed only £125, she couldn’t accept it. As she only looked at the difference between £800 and £125 and felt it differed by quite a lot. She felt it was unjust. She forgot to examine the truism that her friend’s husband still has got £2,200 left whilst someone that earns £1,000 has only got £875 left which is still a signficant difference.
Concisely, if A had got THB1000 and B had got THB100 and were both taxed equally at THB50. Then A would have THB950 left and B would have only THB50 left. So A would have much more money left than B, who had only THB50 that would quickly disappear paying for their water and electricity bills. For A, not only would there be a lot money left for shopping, but A could use the spare money to invest in a new business and/or pay for a maid to cook and clean to buy more time, so A would be free to do some other things. If there was a system like this anywhere, then whoever earned more would stay rich. That is why they have a progressive tax system, you pay more as you earn more, in countries like England, America, Australia, France, Spain and Canada. That system exists so that they can use taxes to truly develop their countries and communities at large and to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor as well.
Simultaneously in England, whoever wants to set up a business, they have to register (excluding temp business such as car boots sales and markets). As opposed to in Thailand where everyone can just get up one day and set up a shop. Logically, so that the government can collect taxes and use them to advance the country.
As a care assistant for a 90s year old lady with Dementia
After realising that a waiting job wasn’t for her, Grace changed direction to work as a care assistant, looking after a 90s year old lady with Dementia. This was the job she loved and Grace never wondered why, as a little girl, Grace had lived with her paternal grandpa. They looked after each other. Grace was trained by her aunts to make him coffee when he came home and do a bit of house cleaning and clothes washing. She also looked after her cousin when he was a baby and Grace was only about 7-8 years old. Grace always felt that her family must see her as very trustworthy, that they sometimes left her with her cousin at home, just two of them.
After realising that a waiting job wasn’t for her, Grace changed direction to work as a care assistant, looking after a 90s year old lady with Dementia. This was the job she loved and Grace never wondered why, as a little girl, Grace had lived with her paternal grandpa. They looked after each other. Grace was trained by her aunts to make him coffee when he came home and do a bit of house cleaning and clothes washing. She also looked after her cousin when he was a baby and Grace was only about 7-8 years old. Grace always felt that her family must see her as very trustworthy, that they sometimes left her with her cousin at home, just two of them.
Initially, Grace didn’t know anything about care assistant work, she had never heard of it and didn’t think there was such role in Thailand. The closest career to care assistant in Thailand would be a nurse's assistant and normally qualification are required to do such a job. Grace therefore had never thought of working in that field, until one day when she was told from her friend to look for a job online, so she did and found several interesting jobs, including a care job for an elderly lady aged in her 90’s who had memory loss (Dementia). She applied for the job and was very excited waiting for the reply, which arrived and the lady’s family invited her for an interview. The day she went for the interview Grace was very nervous, even though the interview was held informally at their house. As English wasn’t her first language she wasn’t sure if she would be good enough for the role. Grace arrived early and went searching for the given address, once she found the address, she just walked around and explored the area, waiting until her interview arrived. At the appointed interview time Grace walked to the given address and met the elderly lady. She looked very lovely in her very British dress. Her hair was silver, short but full and she had very kind brown eyes. Grace could tell the lady was very healthy from her energy levels and healthy skin. Grace enjoyed her interview that day, it was just like a small chit chat, but still she didn’t know whether she would be offered the job. She waited for several weeks until she received a call informing her that she had been offered the job.
The condition of the lady, dementia, meant that as she’s very aged, she was unable to remember everything. Grace noticed that she could remember regular routines, such as chopping veggies and washing up. As a bit of a wake-up call to the old arrogant Grace from Thailand, she began to realise there is nothing in life that lasts forever really. This role was live-in and Grace had to move in and stay at the employer’s house. The hours were fabulous as, not only was the job shared with another carer, but the carers were also allowed to go out on the working days. The regular routine was:-
(The following times are just approximate).
08:00 – 09:00 Get up, shower and dressing. Sometimes get up later depending when the lady gets up. Showering was easy as the lady was healthy and strong so carers basically just stood there, to ensure her safety, so she didn’t slip.
09:00 – 10:00 Breakfast, and breakfast was so easy as the lady just has toast.
10:00 – 16:00 The carer go do whatsoever she wishes.
16:00 – 17:00 The carer has to come back home to prepare dinner. Dinner was easy as the lady preferred easily made meals such as fish fingers or quiche which were prepared by just putting into the microwave to cook. The lady also liked cooking and so she was always there to assist with chopping and washing up.
17:00 – 21:00 The carer and the lady would just watch T.V and have tea and biscuits. Sometimes they would go out for a walk, just around the house.
This doesn't include the cleaning rota that the carers did every week, but since the job was shared each carer only had to do the rota every other week. Grace found it very enjoyable, as it wasn't at all like a job, it was just like when she was staying with her grandpa. As the lady was very healthy and so she could do nearly everything by herself, there wasn't a task that she found hard or awkward to do. She also go to learn how to cook her first British dish called "Cauliflower cheese" from the lady's daughter. It was such a lovely, delicious, simple to make dish.
Grace felt she loved this job very much because she had made a difference in people's lives. She even considered enrolling in a nursing course. But often she thought that it would be a waste because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her work career. As mentioned in CH2, Grace came to England to pursue a Masters degree in business but now she had emerged in to work as a carer and if she was going to continue she would have to drop what she had learnt. However, because she felt so good with the job, she told herself to just stay on this job for now and just change to work in the area she studied later. She also thought, well at least she got to practice her English and to learn authentic British culture.
As a personal care assistant for a young businessman with Spinal Cord Injury (C4)
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| Cauliflower cheese |
Grace felt she loved this job very much because she had made a difference in people's lives. She even considered enrolling in a nursing course. But often she thought that it would be a waste because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her work career. As mentioned in CH2, Grace came to England to pursue a Masters degree in business but now she had emerged in to work as a carer and if she was going to continue she would have to drop what she had learnt. However, because she felt so good with the job, she told herself to just stay on this job for now and just change to work in the area she studied later. She also thought, well at least she got to practice her English and to learn authentic British culture.
As a personal care assistant for a young businessman with Spinal Cord Injury (C4)
This role was intriguing to Grace as the post was described as “Personal Care Assistant” and since she had always fancied working as a PA/Secretary she was very interested. Also, because Grace's potential employer would own a business, she felt she might get the chance to use the skills and knowledge she had learned in her classes. Another thing that she liked was that it mentioned animals – Chinchillas, and as Grace had grown up with animals and was an animal lover she wanted the job even more.
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| Chinchilla rat Photo: luigicochinchillas.webs.com |
Grace applied by sending a cover letter and CV to apply for this job via email, received a reply back and had a quick call to arrange an interview. The employer sounded very friendly, the questions Grace was asked were just general questions, such as What were your duties in previous role? Grace just replied with a brief description of what she did normally, even though she was very nervous as she couldn’t cook and felt this was a weakness. She tried to ask what this employer liked to eat, for example, what he had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Grace could do fried eggs very well and so she asked if the employer was keen on eggs. The employer was funny and answered to Grace that “I don’t like eating too much eggs, it makes me fart”. Grace found that very amusing. After she had worked there for a while she noticed when her employer interviewed another candidate on the phone that he tried to inject a bit of fun into the conversation. The candidate didn’t really join in so Grace’s employer turned to Grace and mentioned that the candidate wasn’t laughing at his joke. Grace then started thinking that it might be one of his tactics to select the right candidates, as it shows how much the candidate understands English. If the interviewee can’t understand much and/or is unable to listen and interpret quick enough then they wouldn't laugh. In addition, domiciliary care is on a one to one basis and as a result the employer has to be close to the employees, hence having friendly chitchat helps to reduce the awkwardness when starting the job by quite a lot.
The job was in Manchester and Grace remembers having to catch a train from London to go to the client’s house for the interview. Public transport in the UK is very costly and it would cost her £58, but only if she didn’t get the job, since the client gave her a great offer to pay for the travel expenses as long as he offered her a job. Grace found out afterwards that there are significant discounts for public transport which can save quite a lot, particularly if you make an advance reservation. When Grace discovered the discounts, she felt it was such a shame as prior to her finding out, she had already paid full fares lot of times. The link below will take the reader to information on many of the discounts offered, just in case when the reader comes to England they have to use public transport.
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Photo: timetable.co.uk
The interview day was in summer, some time in August, and Grace was wearing a long summery dress, but when she arrived in Manchester it was raining and also cold. She didn’t have an umbrella with her and together with the thin dress she was wearing it wasn’t at all helping! She got both cold and wet. She didn’t think she would have to prepare her journey before travelling, as when she was living in Thailand she lived in Bangkok and was used to every route. She had hardly travelled to different towns on public transport and so she didn’t know she had to look at the map to check where the place was. When she arrived in Manchester at the main train station, which was called Manchester Piccadilly, she ran out to look for her employer’s house as she didn’t realise she had to catch another train. She thought she could just walk to get to her employer’s house until she rang her employer and was told she had to catch another train. As she was out of the train station already, she thought it wasn’t so far, but she got lost and kept walking around getting wet, asking people where the train station was. She walked, walked and walked until she came back to the same train station that she had originally come out from, but just a different entrance. At that point, she thought to herself how silly she was and didn’t understand herself why she had first walked out of the main station. All in all, it taught her that when going to a new place, the roads are different not like home where she came from and so from then on she would need to learn to study the map in advance. Even though she now looks at the map sometimes, she is still often lost whenever she goes to a new area where she’s never been, the same as her British husband, as the roads can be very complex.
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| Manchester Piccadilly station Photo: en.wikipedia.org |
Grace ended up being late for her interview but Grace kept calling her boss to tell him where she was and so he understood. Later, Grace found out that Manchester has rain very regularly, which isn’t different from some other provinces in Thailand. So she learnt from this scenario that she should have done some research about what a city is like and its weather prior to applying for work and/or moving to that town. When Grace walked in to this employer’s house, she didn’t feel as nervous because she was exhausted with the journey. Also, this employer had got a huge lovely dog. As she missed her home, that always had pets, she was just automatically playing with the dog and didn’t feel as shy.
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| RIP Ruby Thank you for everything, we love you. |
There was a little chitchat regarding her work history and some demonstrations of how some tasks were to be performed from a senior member of his staff. Since the employer had suffered an accident that injured his spine, he had to use a wheel chair because he couldn’t move his body from the shoulders down. The care assistant as a result had to provide care from the time the employer woke up until he went to bed. Grace arrived at the time when her future employer had to get up from his bed and got a sense of "wow" when she saw the machines and technology that were used to help move the client. An example would be the machine that helps with moving the client from the bed to the wheelchair which is called a hoist, which comes in both a manual and electronic version - which is such an energy-saver!
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| Electric Hoist Photo: Southerncare.co.uk |
While a senior staff member was demonstrating handling and moving, Grace just burst out laughing because she had never seen it before and so she thought it was hilarious because her employer looked not much different from a big baby in a cradle. Grace thought at that moment she probably was not going to be offered the job because of her loud laugh. However, once she was in the job and had worked for a while her boss told her that he gave her the job because she was laughing! As, with the nature of this type of work, the assistant has to be with the client all the time and so has to get along well with the client. Since this boss was a funny person he, as normal human behaviour, would want to have employees who’re funny as well. If on that day Grace had been interviewed by a more serious client, surely she wouldn’t have been offered the job. On the interview day Grace was also wearing shoes with little bells attached and when she walked in to her client's house, the employer as well as her senior colleague were wondering what the jingling sound was until they saw Grace's shoes! They thought that was hilarious and are still talking about it for a laugh even today.
For domiciliary care, the timetable for each client is not at all the same as it depends on the employers’ lifestyle. Irregular daily tasks are changeable according to the employers’ desires. PAs therefore have to be able to adapt themselves easily to the different situations that occur each day. As opposed to a care assistant in a care home, where the responsibilities are similar everyday.
The working timetable for this employer was similar on week days Monday – Friday. The timetable was packed as this boss was running his own business. Saturday and Sunday, however, were more relaxing. Employees could have a lie in, and get up late at the same time as the boss woke up. The brief timetable for working Monday – Friday is as follows:
(The following times are just approximate).
08:30 – 09:00 Open the door let the nurse in to do toileting and take the dog out for a 15 - 20 mins walk.
09:00 – 10:00 Shower (every other day). On the days that the employer doesn't have a shower, the care assistant will have to give physiotherapy. Physiotherapy is an exercise provided for clients because the client is unable to move his body and thus the care assistant has to move the client's body as if the client was exercising.
10:00 – 11:00 Get dressed then move the client from the bed to a wheelchair, then brush client's teeth, wash his face and do his hair.
11:00 – 17:00 Set the client in front of his PCs in the office, so he's ready to do his work. Make and feed him a cup of tea (through the day as well), feed him breakfast normally cereal, clean up the bed and all previous used areas such as in the toilet and client's bedroom, then clean the house, washing, ironing, dish washing and being called all day by the client depending on what he wants the care assistant to do such as dialing calls, typing emails, shopping, watering plants, lawn mowing, cleaning bird cages, cleaning fish tanks and etc. Though some of the tasks are not performed daily, for instance the later three are done weekly.
17:00 – 21:00 Start cooking dinner, serve and feed dinner, then wash up the dishes and later take the dog out for an even walk. Also continue the unfinished tasks from the afternoon.
21:00 – 24:00 Move the client from the wheelchair to bed, give physio and arrange in the correct sleeping position.
24:00 – 08:30 Care assistant can go to bed, however, in the middle of the night if the client's sleeping position changed the client will have to call the assistant to adjust his position. Some nights there might be one or two or more calls but some night there are not calls at all.
There are a lot of details in the routine timetable above, for instance, beginning from showering the client, the care assistant has to turn the client on his back first. Before turning the client on his back, the assistant has to take catheter bag out first. The care assistant has to always be very careful with the catheter bag at all times. This catheter bag looks similar to a medical drip used in hospitals and is attached to client’s sexual organ. In the daytime, the client will use small bag which is attached to his leg. The assistant has to keep checking that the bag isn’t too full, otherwise the client will get a headache. Also the assistant has to be careful to shut the valve otherwise the urine will leak, like a bag with a big hole. At night, the client has to use both a large and a small bag. The small bag will be pinned to the side of the client’s bed and is connected with the bigger bag which is put in a bucket on the floor.
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| Catheter bag Photo: manfredsauer.co.uk |
The care assistant must not to forget to detach the big bag from the small bag and, importantly, take the pins that tie the small bag to the side of the bed off. Otherwise when turning the client, the catheter bag cord will pull the client’s sexual organ. This is a serious problem as the patient can’t feel and so he will not scream to let people know. That cord might pull his sexual organ for hours and hours until the someone notices, the client might be very seriously injured and get infected. Staff need to always keep in mind that the client is unable to feel some parts of his body and so he can’t tell when he’s in pain and thus there is great need for extra caution.
Grace heard a story from one of her friends, who had an older friend who had an accident and became paralysed as well. There was a time when this senior friend’s mother had to look after her son and so she went out to buy some noodles to take home (Noodles in Thailand are sold with hot soup and are put in a clear plastic bag and can be very hot, especially the soup).
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| Noodles sold in plastic bag in Thailand Photo: annaontour.com |
When his mother got home, she heard the telephone ringing and so she put the noodles on her son’s lap and hurried to pick up the call. After the call she continued to do something else for a while and then she started to remember about the noodles and saw the noodles on her son’s lap, she got very petrified. For the son couldn’t feel and so didn’t know any pain, they only knew when he saw his lap was all red.
Paralysis patients not only can’t feel, but they also can’t control their bodies. Their bodies move uncontrollably sometimes which is called a spasm. After Grace learnt about all these things because of this role, she felt sad as she used to be a type of person who never got enough of material things. She started to appreciate to her existence, being able to walk, to see and to feel. When Grace’s boss saw she looked sad because she sympathised with him, her boss, as a positive thinker, said to her that it was also an advantage, because he didn’t have to feel any torturing pain in his body.
After the catheter bags are taken off, the care assistant can turn the patient who is lying on their side until they are lying on their back. The reason why patients often have to sleep on their side is because patients are unable to move their body and so if they sleep on their back for hours and hours at night time, they will get bruises on their body.
Next, in order to give him a shower, the care assistant has to move the patient from their sleeping bed to the shower bed. Then the assistant pushes the shower bed into the bathroom to wash the patient. After washing, the care assistant has to dry the patient completely, then move the patient back to bed to get dressed. The dressing is quite a good fun as Grace felt it was not much different from dressing up a giant Barbie doll (no offense intended boss!).
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| Shower bed Photo: ilcaustralia |
Later, Grace had worked with clients and obtained a couple more years working in the office as she always dreamed of but that is a lot to talk about so let's us skip to the new chapter of her life in the route to becoming a nurse!
NURSING ASSISTANT
After giving birth to her son, Grace became a full-time mother. To her it was the most tiring job but also most rewarding. Then after nearly two years as a full-time mum, she decided it was about time to go back to work. First thing first, she thought about any work that she could do at home while she could spend time with her little one. Since Grace's cousin had got jewellery business so she first thought about that. Meanwhile, she also started looking for a job and again it had been a struggling and tedious task from the beginning to scrub up the CV til the end to go to interviews... just to be rejected time after time. Imagine how tiring it is for native English speakers to try to get a job but for Grace as a non-native English speaker, it would be very exhausting both physically and mentally for her. When she had just given up and tried to concentrate on the jewellery business, one day, out of no where she was invited for an interview with a reputable hospital. She was contemplating whether to go or not to go. As though she wanted the job so bad but she felt she couldn't go on the job hunting process any longer. And because the interview was a full day which conclused numeracy and literacy tests in the morning and interview in the afternoon, so Grace thought no way she would get through it. But at the end, she decided to go.
THE INTERVIEW
The interview was called the Assessment Day Programme / Presentation which were expected to finish before lunch time. Then successful candidates would then be advised and allocated an interview time. Since these took place on the same day therefore candidates had to ensure to be available until 15:00 pm. Below was the timetable for the Assessment Day Programme.
09:30 am Registration
09:45 am Numeracy / Literacy / Multiple Choice Tests
10:30 am Presentation
11:15 am Candidates advised if successful and allocated and interview time
12:00 pm Interviews Commence
About a week before the interview, Grace practised her maths lots of time and she was very down because she was not good with maths but thankfully her husband was, so she practised again and again. And when the interview day arrived, she got somewhat confident and thus did okay. After doing the numeracy test until the time was out, all candidates were called to gather in another room and some of us were called out. Grace at first thought she didn't pass the numeracy test because her name had not been called. But later, one of the staff members came in and said that we (everyone that was left in the room) passed the test! Then we were allocated the time slot for the interview and Grace's interview was nearly 3pm so she decided to arrange to grab some lunch with her husband and her son. Since it was a long day so by the time her interview arrived, she was all exhausted and just wanting to finish it and go home, So when she got into the interview she just rushed in to answer the questions. When she finished her interview, she thought that she didn't do well comparing to other interviews she had just gone to previously, so she was not sure whether she would get the job. Until a couple of days later, she received a call that she had been waiting for and she thought it would end up like most calls that she received from the employers with those things when they said "Oh, you have done so well BUT unfortunately ... blah blah blah nothing wrong with you blah blah blah BUT blah blah blah". But this time, what she heard was "You did very well and we would like to offer you the job". Then it was continued with a discussion about the 24 hours of work out of 36 hours that Grace requested. Because Grace was not confident so when she hung up the phone, she thought twice whether the hospital rang the right person but because of the discussion about the specific 24 hours, Grace thought yes that must be her.
AS A MEMBER OF STAFF
After Grace was offered the job then there were many appointments for uniform tailoring, blood tests and last but not least for the Disclosure Barring Service (previously CRB). It was very exciting with the uniform tailoring but not the blood tests and DBS. Still everything went through okay and so Grace was allowed to commend her training.
The first week of training was from Mon - Fri and most days started early from 8.30am and finished around 4ish. The timetable was fully packed with both theories and practices, so it was like going back to uni once again after over five years - so it was a lot to take in. But Grace enjoyed every minute of it and wished she had gone into care in the hospital since. Though she loved care work since when she first got a chance to do it, but because in her mind she felt that being a carer was a less respectable job. Once Grace told her friend about the care work she did, her friend made fun of her and to Grace she said "Staying at home (where Grace is from) is nice and comfy you do not like it, but you like to go wipe people's poo... hahaha". It was funny but also hurtful to hear for Grace. And hence, Grace tended not to tell her friends back home when she did care work. By this point, though Grace had not started working yet but she had felt so good and so fit in so she said to herself that she would not care any more what her others would say about her job. Grace's father was very proud of her and even supported her on being a nursing assistant then running the jewellery business. Her father's said "Though being a nursing assistant is not glamorous but it will stay with you forever".
On the first day of training, everyone got to know which wards they were going to be working. When Grace found out that she was sent to Fertility, she didn't know what to feel because she didn't know much about Fertility and she got slightly confused because on the interview day when she was asked where she wanted to work she said Theatre or any challenging areas but then she got Fertility Unit. But when she discussed this with her new colleagues who all said that it was a nice and interesting ward to work in and in particular there might not be night shift then Grace was very happy because she would get to be home sleeping with her Family.
The first week of training included both theoretical and practical practises such as resuscitation, handling and moving, clinical observations and etc. After the first week training finished and before the second week when all trainees would be working on their assigned wards, Grace prepared herself by searching and learning about Fertility as much as she could but when she turned up on her second week training working on the ward, she was taken by surprise.
The second week of training, all trainees were shadowing staff members. Grace found out on that day that although she was assigned to work in Fertility but she would be working in Gynaecology ward. And she was taken by surprise (or rather shock!) in her first shift in the morning as she was sent to work in Urogynaecology unit. Since Grace had never worked in the hospital before, so she prepared herself by learning but about Fertility not Gynaecology so she was not familiar with the terms and hence she was pretty much lost that morning. There were a lot of medical terms as well as equipments that were being utilised. However, Grace always had a small notebook with her so she jotted all the words and terms down from the machine and came back home to search for them. Example of the machine is from the link below:
Then in the afternoon as well as the rest of the week, she was working in the Gynae clinic. Grace learned that nursing assistants had to work with many consultants/doctors and other staff from different departments as well as serving the patients (customers) at the same time and more importantly all the time. Therefore, there is a lot of interpersonal (face to face/ human touch) skill involved.
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