We are not heroes!

People who are in the first line of support in hospitals, care homes and other roles in which they risk their health supporting or helping people to live, they are not heroes.

Most of them love their jobs, they have a duty of care and can't let the job done only 50%. They can't see them working any job in the office or shuffling paperwork. Each day when these people wake up, they will think how I can do my job better or how I can support person X better, and at the end of a shift I might receive a beautiful smile.

These are not heroes! They are examples of working with passion and dedication, they are examples of people who will go the extra mile even when they are not paid enough for saving lives, influence other people' lives and create good memories.

At the end of the day the heroes will be alone, they will have a label and people are clapping when they appear. Maybe other people will take pictures with them and use them as a marketing product.

They are not just that. They have names, lives and families. They know how to smile, how to enjoy their life and how to appreciate everything around them. These people have dreams which usually come at the end of their list because there is no time for them.

If you want to make them feel as heroes, support them, pay them as heroes, create environment for them to feel safe and listen to them when you want to create new procedures.

I am one of them and I feel everything from above. I am not in hospitals, but I influence other people's lives and in the end they might live the life they dreamed of, because I did my job properly.
I am working in this area because this is a gift I received and I like to give back. A label will not make me do my job better or worse. I know that I can use my skills for people who need support and I will offer them unconditionally.
The salary is something which helps me live and to enjoy my life. When I will start to work just for money, that will be the moment when I will look for a different role in a different area.

We are not heroes, we are people who love their jobs!

How about me?

      Many time I am thinking about my frustrations or about writing down what I am feeling in that moment. I did not do because, most of the times, my words will offend or will effect other people feelings. I hate people suffer because my decisions. Even I know very well, people around me cannot be pleased as much i try, I still trying this way.

      I am a complex person which is not enough to receive a information without to check it. Many times I criticize things around me(people, behaviors, trainings, activities and especially myself). This is a form of defending myself or to prevent another stressful situations. If I receive a news, the next step is to see who is involved, how many details I know who is involved, what can influence my self and straightaway find solutions.  Because of that I see another people involved, I am thinking how they are feeling and continue to find a better solution. This is not easy at all. 

     I don't know when I start feeling and thinking like that. What I know is I don't like situation win - lose situations. I can't say I hate losing because I learn how to lose. What I hate without limits is  when someone create an environment and somebody or a group of people are losing. Losing doesn't mean especially money or something material. The moment when somebody uses other people skills, good hearts and time, that's the moment when I can't keep my mouth shut. It is the moment when the anger came in my body and create me in something which I don't like myself. I was advised not to do that, to ignore that and to be a little bit selfish because this is normal in work environment and life.

     I can't do that because I like win-win situation. This win-win situation for me is when everybody is involved and treated fairly. Treat the same sometimes is not the best. We have all the same rights but if you treat the same a person which use the system to earn which other work a lot, that is not fair.
Here I am not speaking about people with learning disabilities, people with special needs or other issues. Here I am speaking about people who does that repetitive and are encouraged to do that because are actions taken.

     I love to work, to be active, I am even an workaholic because all the time I see something to be done around me. I can do something which is taking my free time but in the end I am very relaxed and pleased. I don't consider in that moment as work.
Watching TV, playing console, sleeping a lot and drinking most of the free time, for me is not a lifestyle which I consider healthy. I know here I will receive negative comments because is part of the majority culture and some business are survive in that way. I don't like consider healthy because for long term if anything change will not be options, will be suffer because each of us doing this will lose the reality.

     This crisis which we are living made people to suffer a lot. I am not speaking about the people who are affected by the virus, I am speaking about the people who doesn't know to replace some activities which they can't do now. Also I am not speaking about the people who work in these environment and is part of their job because they suffer by loosing their jobs without replacement.

    The recent frustrating for myself is that I worked too many hours over time. I know my salary will be bigger than normal but it is not about this. It is about sacrifice annual leave, time with family, relaxing time or opportunities to do new things because I needed to be at work. Is not just about me, it is about a team, it is about a system, which is complete wrong and encourage people to use it in their favor.
     To create an survey online which who ask to questions and if one of them is yes, you are advised to stay 14 days and after 7 days at home without nobody to check if that is true, this is a wrong system. This is why other will need to work a lot of hours because this is the job and will be burnout soon.
    
    Those people who are using this wrong system, when they will decide to come back at work, will not accept to work a little bit more and other people to go in annual leave just days off. They will do the minimum and when it is possible will do less than that and will find other excuses.

    With all my frustration and all my negative thoughts, I hope those people to recover and to remain optimistic if they were infected by this virus. More than that I wish them and to everyone which celebrate Easter  this weekend "Happy Easter!!!!".
   

why social care area?

      In the last 4 years and few months, I worked (paid or volunteer) thousands of hours in social care supporting adults with learning disability or different young adults but also other people which asked  for my support.

     I can say now,  it is not an easy role/job because everyday if it is a new challenge. Every day when I left the house for work is the moment when I need to forget my emotions, issues and any other business to prepare myself for the person which I need to support.
 
    I like or I don't like, my duty is to offer the best support without to judge the person's life. Sometimes I can be hurt(no physical) because I came with all my emotions, skills, time or resources for that person to live the life which dream it. The feedback from the person can be opposite of my efforts. In that time I need to continue to apply the best support or to find a different way to communicate.
    
   Social care or social work can have massive satisfaction because:
- I can make a difference in someone's life:
- I can be a role model and people to wish to be like me.
- I discover new skills which I never think I have
- I can be creative and find new ways to communicate with people
- Study in time of working
- Make connections
- Learning about my rights in community
- Learning new things from people I support.
- Find valuable people
- I can have more holiday than other people
- I can work flexible if I manage better my time
- Full training in the area and opportunity to grow
- Many jobs and opportunity for over time
- Opportunity to learn about counseling, mentoring and coaching
- I will be challenge every single day  when I work
- I can have good salary when I do over time without to sell, having targets, looking at organization account if it is grow or not.

    The list can continue more and more. Some of the points from my list and I experimented already, someone of them I will but I can say it is a area where NOT everyone can work.

     I heard so many time people saying, everyone can work in social care. If ten years ago, I will say yes, now I am not agreed with this phrase. Everyone can try to work but in the end they will do as a job, get paid and enjoy the money but not the job. In my experience, many people tried but many left after a while because was not the job which they were looking for.

     Sometimes I am tempted to search other areas and not because I do not like the job but I can do more. An advantage of social-care area is diversity of the jobs you can work. If the organization offer a good support, they need people to take care of the employees and that create more jobs. In that way you can still work in the area changing the journey a little bit.

   It is true and I felt on my skin, social care it is a journey. With a lot of obstacles, with a lot of nice landscapes, with a lot of good people, with a lot of satisfaction when I see a person which I support happy, smile and live the life which desire.

  Social care it is a team work even you a lone worker. My work will influence people's day and my colleagues shifts. My work influence organization imagine and I can say, even people from my community.

 Human put labels, social care fights against them!!!!!!   

 

A part of me in a huge and massive world!

I cannot say many thing about me but I know that I like to dream for something better everyday.
Since I was young I liked to discover the world and I start with my home town and after more and more. I have a lot of things still to discover but I one thing I know for sure: I like to work and to be active.

To dream and to live it,  I need to go out from my house, from my home town, to meet know people(valuable people or rude people), to be involved in my community and to learn from others.
I was not the best student but I was curious to know information about everything. For that I was involved in different projects or different activities to help me to grow.

In time I learned that I need to leave my comfort zone because in this way I will be challenged. I did it and in time my comfort zone was growing and again I needed to leave that.

Few years ago I decided to leave my country and to follow a person that I care. Was not my dream to do that but I decided to leave a new challenge. It is not easy to leave your family, friends and your project and to take everything from zero.

This was not easy but what it is easy in our life? If you have a dream and wants to achieve, that you need to stand up from your bed every morning, to open the door and to be prepared to meet people, to meet behaviors, to find a way to be different. To live every day for as you start again. To learn from everyday something even that's the hardest point of the day. Also you need find something to enjoy.

I arrived in a totally different country, with different culture, different way of working and living. It is normal to feel I am strange, weird or people around me are too different because until that you lived after some principle and values.  I choose to respect the country where I came but to keep my principle and values because they are mine and nobody can take them as much they want. Also I decided to not let me dreams away and still to dream it.

First three days was to discover my new town (after few year I feel is my second new home town because I get used with). I walked from one side to another with my back pack taking pictures, looking to people around me, shops, churches, monuments, markets, parks and everything which can help in the future.  The results of that three days was I hate the place even it is a nice town to live but totally different from where I came from.

The next few weeks I attend to NINO interview and start to find jobs because I have someone to support me financial. If I need something to buy, I will save or work extra until I have that amount of money.  I created a CV about my experience and I applied online in my interested areas(IT and social). Unfortunately no results and I start to go to print my CV (or to save it in my email draft-ready to be send) and I enter in every single agency to search for a job. 

In the first 4 weeks not chances and more than that I received comments and feedback which was not very hard to accept them(but I needed because I am not in my home country), sorry we are not looking for people at the moment, sorry you don't have experience for these roles, sorry these roles are not public. More than that in the street or ever the phone I received comments as f.... immigrants, gypsy, you stink, come back in your country and go and work in warehouse as everyone from your country. I couldn't accepts and sometimes I call the police and other time I answer back but I little bit different than I received.

My first job I found after 8 weeks and I stayed for 6 weeks and I left because they employer in that moment didn't keep the promised and didn't make me to feel safe at work. I will not give any name because as I know after I left they had issues with authorities.

I started again looking for new job but also for volunteer. Being December was extremely hard to find a job, even temporary  but I refused to go in warehouses. I knew I can do more than that and my skills can be used in other areas.

I searched for all the voluntary roles in the area but unfortunately no chances just comment "let us your number and we will call you", "sorry  we don't need volunteers" and the worst one was "We don't accept volunteer from East Europe". Even in that moment I knew this is discrimination but I chose to leave and let them to do their activities with people they want to know. At the moment after almost 5 years, I am visiting 3 places from those one and they are happy to chat with me or ask me if I want to be volunteer. Unfortunately I needed to refuse and with the people who were very rude with me I felt to give them a feedback" In 2015 I came to do volunteer and you chose not to work with East Europe people, what it changed now?". After this comment and question I left.

This period of time was very hard but I was lucky that I was supported by an amazing person and encouraged me everyday. I applied an average 200 jobs daily because I was desperate to work something. Most like I applied for the same jobs maybe 50/60 times but who cared about it?

One think I learnt from this period and changed my way to search jobs or opportunities. Be different and insist because in the end they don't want to see you every day in their offices to ask if they have a job for you. This part I will say I extended my comfort zone and develop some communication and strategic skills. Every day I was attention with their feedback come back did in totally new way.

January and February I was lucky to go in 4 interviews in IT and 3 interviews in Social Care.
I chose a job in IT and one part time in social care.
With the one in social care I had an very interesting experience but I will write another time about that.