I work as a caregiver for an Assisted Living/Memory Care facility. I work the nightshift and memory care keeps us pretty busy. There are 2 of us. Myself, and the med aid. There are 25 residents to take care of and I work 6 pm to 6 am. Corporate feels 2 people are enough to take care of 25 people even though they call all night for various things. In memory care they can be awake all night wandering. The residents keep us very busy! I have worked there 4 years now.
I do basic care duties such as changing their briefs, getting them ready for bed..those types of things. But we also do laundry, stock the mini kitchens, sweep, and mop all while making sure no one is up to mischief. The management keeps adding things for us to do. Like wipe down the legs of the tables and chairs in the dining room, clean the lobby nightly, clean the public bathrooms, Clean the breakroom, dust the facility. Basically, clean the place while being a caregiver. Not the residents rooms, the rest of the facility. We have housekeepers who are under the Maintenance staff. Management keeps taking housekeeping duties and giving them to us to do. With no pay raise. Just adding duties to our job with no benefits at all. We are suppose to have a Nightshift staff meeting with management coming up and apparently they have added to that list again. That's what they want to discuss. More things they want us to do in the way of housekeeping. The other 3 coworkers refuse to do ANY of the housekeeping which means it is on me to do it all. 2 are med aids and feel it is not in their job description and myself and one other are caregivers. I don't work with her (We work opposite nights) but she has told the Med aids she will not do housekeeping at all and that includes sweeping and mopping. She will stock and do laundry. That's it.
Management feels that keeping a clean facility is part of caregiving because it is their home. Indeed, it is. But we have housekeeping staff for that. I'm just feeling unsure what to say at the meeting. Am I wrong? None of this was in my job description. It has just been added on thru the years. Do I have a right to say no?