So what do you do when your employer calls you into a meeting and tells you the job you have been doing for the last 6 years will have a totally different scope in a couple of months?
I don’t know. Never thought about it. ….. will have to start thinking about though it since that is exactly what happened to me just yesterday.
I am a project manager for a non-profit providing housing for low income seniors. I manage three properties, about 150 units, financial stuff, facilities stuff, social stuff, and am there to just chat. I love what I do. It is a job that, while underpaid, pays back by giving me the feeling I make a difference in a person’s live. Many times, I am the only person these seniors see on a regular basis. Heck, sometimes I am the only person they see at all. My properties and the rent subsidies we provide are the only way they can afford to live in their own independent world, have an apartment door to close behind them and a key to lock it.
And while my main function is to make sure that all of my properties are in compliance with the myriad of rules put upon us by State and Federal government, the most rewarding part is when I receive a thank you card from one of ‘my’seniors because I remembered their birthday. Or someone will stop by with candy to give to my boys.
But I also love the regulartory part of my job. Auditing files, certifying residents to be eligible for federal aid, generating budgets, managing spending, dealing with HUD, etc. etc. That is a part of my job that, though sometimes agitating due to red tape and bureoucracy, I love and, don’t mind saying, am really really good at.
And now, all of a sudden, they want to take that part of my job away. Corporate decided, to keep up with the competition, we need to turn into a service provider, case managers. Centralize all of the regulatory and financial aspects of my job and turn me into a social worker. Take our mission of providing housing and make it play second fiddle to providing case management and social services.
When we met yesterday and heard the news, my colleagues and I (there are 8 of us) were stunned. Not sure what to say. We all see the need for more on site care for our residents. Medicaid and HUD cuts courtesy of the Bush government have made “aging in place” the norm and often times only option for our low income seniors. Residents on Medicaid who used to be guaranteed a nursing home bed if the need arises are now told to stay put and arrange for care at home.
But, while that is certainly the perferable route from a social and touchy feely aspect, it is like telling a 1st grader to write a thesis on Moby Dick. Impossible.
Let me back up a bit. When the government last year implemented the change in Medicaid administration they thought, to save money, we will tell seniors that THEY are in charge of their care, they can chose (Hence the Choices for Care motto …..hahaha) whether they want to go to a nursing home or assisted living to receive care when they need it OR whether they want to stay in their homes and get the care there. Well, who would chose option 1? I wouldn’t. But, the dear government failed to tell seniors that when they meant ‘you are in charge of your choices’ they also mean ‘ you have to figure out how to get that care ….”
How does my 85 year old resident with early onset dementia navigate through the jungle of available options? Who makes sure she gets groceries, has her medication refilled, checks in on her housekeeping and personal hygiene?? How does she know where to call to get qualified for nurse visits??? The Agencies on Aging and Visiting Nurse Associations are supposed to ‘case manage’ and help with that. They have the State mandate for that. But they are so understaffed, they have a 100 to 1 client/staff ratio.
So now my company thinks, we need to turn into case managers even though, by State law, we are not allowed to. And, to bring it down to my level, I am supposed to turn from a Project Manager into a Case Manager. My responsibilities go from making sure the bills are paid and the budget is balanced to Mrs. Smith pills are refilled and someone gives her a bath once a week.
Don’t get me wrong. Someone has to. I am frustrated on a daily basis when I see how little help my seniors have. I often do their laundry, get groceries, change their lightbulbs, call the phone company because they don’t understand the bill, wade through the piles of junk mail that say “send me $100 and you will win a a prize!!!!” But I do it because I can, because I volunteer. I am not QUALIFIED to take it on as a full time job. And neither are my colleagues. We are, when it comes down to it, paper pushers. Regulatory geniuses. Account balancers. NOT social workers.
So, our dilemma is, what to do? Do you say, as a group “sorry, that won’t work for us?” And risk being told “well, then we will find someone else”. Would they say that to their entire staff all at once? I don’t know.
And the other dilemma is, am I just afraid of change? Is this the chance I have been waiting for to make a change in my career? Would the social work field be something I could be good at?
Argh, I just don’t know. Right now, all I know is, I understand my seniors much better. How often do I come to them with a new brilliant idea and they are skeptical, unwilling to try it. Afraid of change.
And what do I usually tell them? Change is good, people! Try something new.
Take that, know-it-all. Crow tastes disgusting.
Mar. 29th 2008 
3 Comments »
Ah, Mickey. Ich krieg immer noch so ein schoenes Disney gefuehl im Magen, wenn ich mir die Fotos anschaue. Die von Disney wissen schon, wie man Urlaub machen soll…..
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