Caregiver Politics

I've always said... taking care of the patient is the easy part. Dealing with the families is the hard part and that includes other care givers. I was recently taking care of a funny woman who had a team of private care givers marching around on her behalf. They weren't part of an agency, just a group of woman, managed by one, who were hired to take care of her. They have been with her for a couple of years and were very territorial. What happens when a group bans together, unofficially and without formal organization there is rarely any order or professionality to the team. Unfortunately as a caregiver you are expected to do your part and to get along with the other members of the team. The agency that I work through very carefully screens it's members and has no problem getting rid of someone if they don't measure up. The idea is that there are plenty of people behind you waiting for the job. They can afford to be picky. When the group is small and un-uniformed they can afford to be less picky and more clicky. My agency was called to fill in some shifts that the smaller group couldn't assign due to lack of members so now part of the job is to get along with a motley crew of back biting women. One of whom did not like me for whatever reason. It's a shame because her lack of professional demeanor was exhibited through various behaviours such as smoking and bad language, none of which would have been accepted by my agency. Though none of this was performed in front of the patient it was obvious she lacked polish for the job. Despite all of this she was one of the core people and so maintained her job. Unfortunately for me when it was determined that I was of no use to them I got canned through some trumped up charges. None of this would have ever occurred through my very professional agency. If you do something wrong you are spoken to and expected to learn from your mistakes and if you don't then eventually you are canned. I don't take it personally. This is all a personality game and I suppose as in every office... there are politics. Thank goodness I have a job that I have held onto for the past four years. You win some, you loose some.