Dietary Worker

So I finally got my first "real" job. This means that my paycheck now gets raided by the government. I work at the local nursing home (or convalescent center as it is really called). I work the dinner shift so I have most of the day to do with what I will and then a wee bit o' evening to fool around in before going to bed to rest up for the paper route, yippee!

My job is fairly simple. I start out by pouring juice (grape, apple, orange, cranberry, prune, and some random drink for one of the lady residents). I then put that in the fridge and proceed to gather milk. Eleven 2%, three whole, and two skim. I put that in the fridge. I then prepare a bowl of mandarin oranges for one lady and a bowl of cottage cheese for her husband...now two other male residents want CC so I do that too. I get the snack drinks out and when those come back I refill and clean the pitchers up and put that in the fridge. (As you can see, I spend a great deal of time with the fridge. We getting to know each other quite well.) Now there is nothing to do for an hour until I have to pour the ice water, ice tea, put out the juices, milks, and special oranges and cottage cheese. I also dish up the fruit or dessert and puree that for the four people who need it pureed. Then we serve up dinner (usually some pre-frozen/pre-made meat dish or soup and a side dish or sorts, all of which is from low quality food, it can't be good). Then once the dishes start coming in I wash them and run them through the dishwasher. The dishwasher uses all sorts of chemicals which are hard on my hands. As Sarah so lovingly said the other day, my right hand looks like "old lady's hands." I am now attempting to wear gloves. I hope it helps to relieve the allergic reaction. Of course, how could any one's skin not be affected, apparently there is a corrosive mixed in with the water!

Then I reset the trays for morning shift.

If you are still awake and reading this then you can plainly see that my job takes no special skills and is relatively easy. So why they wanted me to train for eight days I'll never know. Luckily I got it cut back to only six days. I have had this job now for about three weeks now. Probably the best thing about this job is that I have gotten my TB shot for free which I need to have in order to go to college, so that worked out great.

So really I am a dishwasher, but nowadays they always give such fancy names to "lowly" jobs.