Housekeeping During a Pandemic

From mid-July to early December 2020, I worked as a housekeeper at a nursing home close to my house. I lost my last job, and I had seen an opening for this housekeeping position online. So I thought, Great! I have experience in housekeeping! After submitting my application I had gotten a call just a day later. I was overcome with relief. Being unemployed has always given me the worst feeling, and I was over-eager to get employment. So rather than think about what I actually wanted in terms of work, I said yes to the first place that gave me an offer. So started the worst few months of my life.

My first impression of the place was actually quite nice. It looked well taken care of, the lobby had high ceilings with a big beautiful chandelier. The receptionist then led me down to the basement where a few other applicants waited for orientation to start. After waiting about an hour, the head of HR showed up and introduced himself. It went well once it actually started. We were given our paperwork and he informed us about online classes we were required to take... which definitely caught me off-guard. Every employee from nursing down to office work was required to do daily online lessons to help us be better employees. What struck me as most bizarre was when I tried to ask questions I was told to wait until the end. But he refused to take any questions at all, got up, and left when the orientation concluded.

It was very strange, to say the least. But the strangeness of my first few days on the job was not the reason I quit. The work was easy enough, so I wasn't too bothered when I only had two days total of training. The girl who trained me the first two days had planned on me replacing her... or so I was told by the head of the department. She quit after the second shift over email.

Something I didn't expect to happen so quickly for me was developing attachments to the residents. I knew I'd be cleaning for them... I had also assumed they'd want me out of there as soon as possible. I'm not sure why I thought that because one thing about the older generations is they absolutely love to talk. I know my grandparents do, and so did the residents. A woman wanted to read the bible in the drawer but she couldn't get it out because it seemed someone had spilled something and it was stuck. She was worried about damaging it, so I had worked a little longer in her room so she could read that bible, undamaged. She was only there temporarily because of a fall but she was scared of getting sick from the other residents and she said the bible made her feel protected.

Another resident was ex-air-force, and she was a very anxious woman who absolutely loved coffee. Whenever I got to her room she would always ask me to bring her a hot cup of coffee and then tell me I was an angel when I came back to bring it to her. She always had a scowl on her face but never seemed to be angry. She was sad, definitely. But in a place like that who wouldn't be?

Everything changed for these people a few months earlier. They were confined to their rooms and told that they couldn't have any visitors, only allowed to see their loved ones through a closed window. I was willing to lend a sympathetic ear whenever they were in the mood to vent. About anything they wanted, their family members that they rarely get to see, the pandemic that only seemed to be getting worse and scarier.

Not four weeks into the job, we had gotten hit pretty bad with an outbreak of the virus. Everyone in the building had to be tested twice a week and many of the residents had tested positive and about a fourth of those that did were asymptomatic. The staff had doubled down on PPE and most of us were wearing double masks. The worst part was when the administrator had us stop wearing washable protective gowns and start wearing plastic disposable gowns. I understand why they had us switch, and I agree it was safer... but it made it so much more difficult to work. The residents got the chills very easily, so their heaters were always on at ninety degrees. The plastic acted like a sauna, and very often I had to rush to the bathroom just to take the gown off and splash my face with cold water. This was NOT worth ten dollars an hour.

Many of the staff were complaining, rightfully so, about being underpaid in dangerous and uncomfortable conditions. There was a group of us that were even talking about unionizing. The higher-ups had heard about this and called a meeting for everyone excluding the office staff. The administrator heard the whispers of some kind of "workers strike" as she called it and was quick to respond with a solution. She had informed everyone that we would be paid an additional three dollars an hour on top of our regular wages. It seemed everyone was satisfied.

For the next few weeks, it felt as though the outbreak in the building was going to wipe out half of the residents. It was a devastating blow and most of us had a really hard time holding it together. An unreasonable amount of the nurses decided to take out their frustrations on the residents. They'd never lay a hand on them but the number of times I had to step in and tell certain staff members to stop verbally abusing the residents, I can't even count on one hand. I became very unpopular very fast. On top of that, many of them wouldn't answer the call lights. One on-call nurse was fired because she neglected to answer the call light of a man that had fallen in between the bed and the wall. Seeing these people being harassed and ignored took a pretty big toll on me. I wasn't allowed to help the residents in any way. In fact, I'd be fired if I even helped them to the bathroom. I understand, I was just a housekeeper. I still wanted to help, so I just let them vent to me. Whatever they needed to say, they could say to me.

Honestly, the extra pay didn't hurt, but it also wasn't that big a change at the end of the day. Just a temporary incentive for the staff to not go on strike. Even worse is when they took away the extra pay in the middle of the outbreak because [insert big evil corporation here that I will not name] said they couldn't afford to pay us more than our regular wages any longer. Many people started yelling when it was announced, and many of them quit. I stayed until my next paycheck came in. I was struggling enough with bills and student debt even with the extra pay but when I got my first paycheck after the pay was cut I knew I could no longer work there.

I put in my two weeks notice a day later, much to the dismay of the head housekeeper. Over the course of my remaining days at the home, I was asked constantly if I was sure, or if I would reconsider. Their only case for me staying was that I'd be missed, and I'm so good with the residents. It got so suffocating that by the end I was emotionally and physically drained. I felt dead on my feet. After I punched in the last four of my social for the last time and those doors closed behind me, I took the most satisfying deep breath I had taken in a long time. On my walk home I remember going through a rollercoaster of emotions. I was crying, and smiling at the same time. Feeling guilty and relieved. I think I slept ten hours that night.

I don't know if I could say if this experience did anything positive for me at all... well, maybe it made me appreciate retail a little better. I know is that I have never had a job that took as much out of me as this one did. I am grateful for the work experience, I truly am. I'd be lying if I said I missed the place. That being said, I do miss some of the people. I miss the ones who treated me like a granddaughter, and I miss the ones who told me stupid jokes, the same ones a hundred times... I truly hope they are all doing well, and I wish [some of] the staff all the best.