Temp Jobs

I've done stacks of 'temp' work over the years. When I was running my puppet company, Carousel Puppets, which initially toured schools in the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire education authority areas, I filled in with a variety of temporary work which I got through agencies, such as Blue Arrow and Manpower. I went into warehouses on some assignments, such as Zodiac Toys which I actually rather enjoyed. Picking and packing mostly, for their nationwide branches. You got to see all the latest toys when they came out, particularly in the build-up to Christmas. Also, generally a friendl people in the company's staff team. I don't know what happened to that particular company, as they seemed to be doing fairly well when I was there during the late 1970's. The work certainly kept me busy. I got quite fast at the actual 'picking' part of the work, taking a printed-out sheet with the various items on it, with a code which showed where the items were in the warehouse (for example A/12 would be aisle A and 12 as the number of the area where the item was stored.) Another company was Debenham's, who had their main warehouse in Bedford (and still do, as far as I know, out on the Elm's Farm Industrial Estate on the edge of the town at Goldington.) I don't know whether I liked their shift pattern. Most of these places ran on a shift system, the early shift being from about 7 a.m to 2 p.m, and the late shift from 2 p.m.-10 p.m. I'm not so sure I like going off to work at mid-day, because it messes up any social life you might have, but generally they did a sort of turn and turn about with the shift-pattern so you'd do the early one week and the next the late. I'm not sure they had a night shift. I know some companies did, especially when it was in the weeks leading up to Christmas. At least in those companies they just left you to get on with the work and didn't spend too much time looking over your shoulder, just so long as you were accurate with your work and were reasonably fast at it, it didn't seem to matter much. Some of the companies used temp staff and at the end of the busy periods, such as christmas, they let the temps go, but in other companies such as Debenham's, they sometimes took on staff permanently and used the fact that they were not on their payroll to trial them to see whether they were good at their jobs before offering them permanent positions.

I also worked in a lot of kitchens at one time. I think it was through Blue Arrow who seemed to specialise in all things catering. I was usually a kitchen porter or general assistant. Pot-wash in particular. I got the hang of using dishwashing machines and it's quite a trying job shoving those plastic trays in full of dirty plates, glasses and other bits and pieces. You'd arrive in a kitchen, at such companies as Granada Rental, National Freight or Unipath to be confronted by a huge pile of dirty pots and spend the entire afternoon scrubbing them. I got myself into some sort of a system doing the job and soon got it completed. One of the advantages of catering work was that you always got something to eat. Well, kitchens are full of food aren't they? This was usually at the end of the shift, once all the staff had been fed and things had been tidied up. As a result of going to work at Charles Wells brewery in Bedford I worked there permanently for about two years. I never had to go out and buy food as there was always food left over for the staff to eat. A good perk, to say the least.

From working in the staff canteen at Unipath, I also worked on the production-line for that company. When I first went to work there I was unaware that they made, amongst other things, pregnancy-testing kits. They originally had their factory on Elms Farm Industrial Estate but after a few years they built a brand new factory at Priory Business Park, which used to be my grandfather and later my uncle Michael's farm, Mill Farm, which was demolished and then built over. A bit odd going there to work, knowing that it had been so closely associated with my family. I had never had any experience of working in a factory. Why would I? Anyway, it was working on a production line packing these pregnancy testing kits. The things were made elsewhere and we had to feed them into this machine which made up the boxes (quite ingenious, this, as the thing folded the flattened packages and glued them closed after the devices were put inside.) We came in as 'temps' to sit on the production line and keep feeding the things, which were sealed in air-tight and supposedly, sterile, packages, rather in the same way a chocolate bar or other confectionary item would be packaged and sealed. Apparently this was supposed to be done automatically, but for some reason the machinery wouldn't work so they had to bring in temp staff to feed them in by hand. Then, once the devices were packaged they had to be collated and over-wrapped in cellophane and at the end of the line put into larger boxes and stacked on pallets. The machinery was constantly getting stopped for some reason, jammed up with whatever, the boxes not being glued closed properly, the cellophane wrap getting broken or one hundred and one other reasons and we spent a good deal of our time just waiting for things to be rectified. At one point they had discovered that some of the sterile wrap on the devices had developed holes, however this was happening they didn't seem to have discovered, but it was necessary to go through a whole batch of the things, probably several thousand of the things, possibly a million or so. I don't know how many of the things would be in quite a large cardboard box, and then there were quite a few pallet-loads and I'm not sure how many on each pallet. So we had to sit at a table and go through every single item in those boxes and pick out any of them which had holes in. So, you can imagine how long it took to go through every single box. A long time. I think it must have been a couple of weeks. At the time I worked at Unipath I didn't have a car, so the only way to get there from the centre of Bedford was to cadge a lift off someone who was already working there, perhaps another 'temp' or I could catch a bus. I eventually decided to walk, although it must be a 3-4 mile journey along the Embankment and along the riverside tow-path out towards the Priory Business Park where the company was situated. I actually enjoyed it and luckily the weather was pleasant and sunny, although I think on a couple of occasions it did rain. It is a rather pleasant walk and, early in the morning, just as the sun is coming up and there's a mist drifting on the water, I can think of nothing nice on a summer's day. It was certainly a good way to start off the day and a good form of exercise.

I worked for another agency which got me quite a lot of work. Only problem was they could never tell you whether you'd be used or not. They had a habit of sending people to companies well out of Bedford, such as Milton Keynes and when you got there the company would say that they didn't ned so many people to work that particular shift, so you'd be sent home. A bit mean of the agency to use people like that. You had to turn up really early in the morning, around 5.30- 5.00 a.m. (so you can imagine it could be quite an effort to get out of bed, particularly during the winter months when it was very cold and dark.) and get to their offices in Bedford High Street to just sit and wait. Then you might (or might not) be told that there was work at such-and-such a company, and if you were lucky you might be taken by mini-bus to wherever. The man who was in charge of this agency was incapable of telling you where you were being taken. I went to somewhere, and was expecting to go somewhere else and wasn't told where it was and it was a surprise to be sent to work in a warehouse packing candles. Another place was near Sandy, packing flowers for a supermarket. Actually I was developing a nasty bout of 'flu on that particular morning and we had to stand all shift putting flowers on a conveyor belt for at least ten hours. We had to stay longer to finish this particular batch and the line-leader wouldn't let us go until the job was completed. Meanwhile, I was developing quite  high temperature and was finding it quite difficult to stand upright with the conveyor belt moving past and making me feel quite giddy (as you would imagine as it was moving.) That agency were really mean. If you happened to be sent home for any reason and they had to send a bus out to collect you, they charged you something like £10 for the privilege, which was a bit mean of them I thought.

There were also a number of assignments in Milton Keynes. So, in order to reach those places we were sent, we had to go by mini-bus from Bedford, and a good 30-40 minute journey early in the morning was required in order to get to whatever factory we were working in for a 7 a.m. start. One place was called Geest, and the company made chilled foods for a variety of well-know supermarket chains. The line I was working on made lasagnes and I was really surprised how many people were needed to staff the production line. You tend to take for granted when you buy your weekly shop, whether it's clothing, food or whatever, the amount of effort that must have been made to make whatever it is, and, having stood for eight hours putting sheets of lasagne in metal trays on a production line and now know how it was made, I can sympathise with the staff having to work in such cold conditions. Generally we were treated well enough and the management were pleasant enough as well as all the staff on the different lines, but it's not actually an area of work I would want to have worked on full-time. They also had or have a factory near the A1 at Biggleswade, making similar ready meals. You had to work quite hard as these things came down the line and you had to put whatever part of the product into these aluminium foil bowls and make sure they were the correct weight and as they move past quite fast it was important to know what your were doing and been quite nimble-fingered, particularly as you had rubber gloves on and the atmosphere was extremely cold.

I did one day working in the Amazon warehouse at Ridgmont. When you get on the M1 at Junction 13 or go towards either Bedford or Ampthill coming from Milton Keynes as we do on quite a few occasions when we are driving wherever, you can't avoid this vast aircraft-hanger sized building. It takes up quite  large part of the landscape and can be seen from quite a distance and has the Amazon logo clearly emblazoned on it. One day working there was enough for me. I use this company a great deal and it's so easy to order virtually anything you could possibly imagine from their website and it can be delivered in most cases within 24-hours. But from experience you are expected to stand for most or if not, all, of the shift (I can't remember, it may have been 10 hours, but it's quite a few years ago.) I was actually packing books and other items such as CDs and DVDs. The items come down a sort of conveyor belt, along with the paperwork inside which has the address label attached and you have to decided very quickly what size packaging you will need and then you pack the items inside the cardboard packaging and you have to make sure that it is securely fastened and also that the items within the packaging will not move about inside, so you may have to use padding to prevent this. You are expected to be able to pack so many items within a set time, such as a minute and when I was there sometimes a member of staff will be standing behind you checking how fast and efficiently you are working. That in itself was enough to put me off, but it was certainly not an environment i would ever want to work in, but it was an interesting experience and now gives me some idea how they work and what goes on to get what I order processed and dispatched.

Working In Care- Part 8

You know, I had really very few problems with the people I actually cared for. I enjoyed the work. It did give me a sense of actually doing something worthwhile. So why were the problems that I did encounter have to do with members of staff? I think it might be that some people are under the impression that care work is easy. It might be if you are working with the elderly and infirm, but when it is those with learning disabilities and especially challenging behaviours it can be quite difficult and to be honest it takes a special sort of person to deal with the challenges that do reveal themselves. As a temp you are expected to fit in almost from the first time you appear at a home or unit. I think some of the permanent staff can be somewhat off-hand, for whatever reason, maybe because you are on a different hourly rate or come from an agency. It takes a while to build up any sort of relationship with the residents/client group, and in some cases you need to read the careplans that have been written for the residents before you can go 'onto the floor' and actually do any caring.

I worked for another agency in Bedford, whose name I shall not reveal here as it might be traced back to those members of staff involved.

I did shifts at a home in Bedford and another in Biggleswade. Generally the work there was fairly straightforward, but to get to Biggleswade did mean quite a bit of driving as it's a good 15 miles out to Biggleswade from Bedford. I used to have to take a minibus load of the residents to Bedford and deliver them to a number of places in and around Bedford, Kempston and out to Sharnbrook, a village to the north of the town and just off the A6. The first time I went I was taken by another member of staff, to show me the way. She turned out to be quite an awkward person, and constantly criticized  my driving and other things, much to my annoyance. One particular resident who had autism and needed particularly special care went out to a unit in Sharnbrook. As I was coming out I had to have help reversing into the road, mostly because I had not got used to driving the minibus. This woman, the member of staff who had come to help me find the various places, jumped down my throat and told me I didn't need help. Not a very helpful person at all. She was generally not very pleasant to work with and at one point during one shift which she worked with me on was annoyed and somewhat rude that I didn't want to  cover a another shift she was scheduled to work because she wanted to be somewhere else that particular day. I must say I was glad that I didn't do too many shifts in that house with her.

One afternoon I had to pick up some of the residents from Barnfield College in Queen's Park in Bedford. This day seemed to go as easily as any and I was just driving away from the college when I was about to turn out into Bromham Road and towards the centre of Bedford on the way back to Biggleswade. That turning is quite difficult as you can't see very clearly in both directions to make sure it is safe before making the turn as it is a very busy road at the best of times. As I bought the vehicle to a halt and applied the hand-break to make sure it was stationary and then was about to release the clutch in order to make the turn out, I couldn't get the vehicle into gear. I shifted the gear-shift several times, but with no success and then the vehicle came to a halt. It is quite a stressful operation on your own, but with a bus-load of people with varying degrees of learning disability, even more so on this occasion. I tried a few times more, but still no success. I then realised that I wasn't going to get the vehicle out of this situation and certainly not going to get the residents home safely. I thought that I was going to have to get assistance from some form of breakdown service. I eventually remembered that the was serviced by a company in Kempston and managed to ring the company and they eventually sent out a breakdown truck to pick us up and take us to their workshop to have the vehicle repaired. They had to put it on a low-loader and it took some persuasion to get all the residents into the bus (along with another agency staff member, I seem to recall.) We eventually got to the workshop and the vehicle unloaded.) Then there was the problem of us all getting back to Kempston. I called a taxi firm and the whole groups of residents, myself and the agency staff member were transported back to the house in Biggleswade. 

The next day I was again on shift at the Biggleswade house and I was given an ear-bashing by the manageress who told me that I'd taken the bus to the wrong place to have it repaired. As it turned out there wasn't much wrong with it and she told me I'd have to get a bus to Kempston and bring the vehicle back. No 'thank you' or 'you used your initiative' or 'you looked after the client-group.' Just one load of negatives which didn't exactly endear me to the woman, as you can imagine. Yes, I know I might have taken the bus to the wrong place, but how was I to know where the CORRECT place was, as I wasn't a permanent member of staff? My main concern was the safety of the residents, which I think I managed to maintain throughout the whole ordeal.
Several of the residents in that house could be quite challenging in various ways. I mentioned the young lady who I took to the centre in Sharnbrook. She was autistic and when she got up in the morning had a routine which you didn't dare to disrupt. She could be quite violent if provoked, so when she was taken anywhere in the bus it was advisable for her to be at the back and as far as possible away from the driver. In some cases she had to be transported with another carer to act as escort, but generally she was very good and I didn't see too many incidents.

Another male resident could also become quite challenging, which I saw one particular evening when I was on shift. We were on the point of serving up their evening meal and I was sent to his room to tell him that the meal was ready. I knocked on the door and I was then confronted by his with waving fists. I moved rapidly out of the way, as you can imagine, and he proceeded to run after me down stairs. I had to spend the rest of the shift hiding from him in the room provided for sleep-in staff and had to go home without him being aware, but the next time I was on shift with the manager of the house I was berated by her for not being on the 'floor' of the home for the remainder of the shift, but I wasn't putting myself in danger from being injured by this gentleman, regardless of what this woman had to say on the matter. How would she like to be injured, possibly permanently, but not keeping out of his way? I don't think she actually did any caring of any sort and managed to stay in her nice warm and comfortable office, cleverly avoiding the actual realities of caring for people with learning disabilities.
Another incident is brought to mind in the run-up to Christmas around 2003 or so. I was scheduled again for a shift at the Biggleswade house at a time when some of the residents were involved in a show that they had been rehearsing during some drama classes they had gone to at Oakley village hall. Several new members of staff had been taken on, including a young man who was supposed to be a senior support staff member. I was scheduled to drive the mini bus once more and this young man was supposed to be escort, as there was the distinct possibility of some sort of 'incident' between the residents during the journey across Bedfordshire. This young man arrived at the beginning of the shift and I was introduced to me, but on one exchange we had he was quite rude to me. There was something distinctly no quite right about him, his speech was slurred and he had a look of not being exactly engaged. He then sat down on an armchair at a bottle of vodka fell out from under his coat and onto the floor and rolled across the carpet. It was quite obvious that he was very much drunk, from drinking the aforementioned vodka. It was then that the rest of the staff and myself decided that he wasn't going to be a suitable escort on the journey to Oakley village hall. I think it may have been in his contract, as with most companies not just those in care, that the drinking of alcohol on duty was a sackable offence. The shift-leader decided that the situation was so serious that the area manager should be informed so a phone call was made  and very quickly this young man appeared in the house and to keep the Christmas show from being put into total disarray without the attendance of the Biggleswade house residents, he came with us on the minibus as escort, but looking back I don't recall what happened to the drunk support worker, whether he came with us to Oakley, but I know he didn't survive as an employee at that home as he was sacked immediately. You need to have all your wits about you in care and the thought of him not being in complete control during that journey was not something I would wish to go through.
On arriving back in Biggleswade my problems didn't end, because where I had managed to park my car, in a carpark which belonged to some sort of hall, I soon discovered that I was blocked in. No amount of enquiries would discover whose cars were responsible, so I had to return to the house and spent the night sleeping on he lounge floor. Things were made worse still because it was a very stormy night with howling wind and rain pouring down. By the morning the weather had improved and I was able to drive home because the cars that had blocked mine in had gone, thank goodness. But the last day had certainly been an eventful one, not exactly helped by not being able to drive home as planned at the end of the shift.

Working In Care- Part 6

The residents of the house in Everton had a good life. They went out and about, not only going to daycare, but some went shopping with staff, not just food shopping (although most of this was done using the internet, which saved time and effort as it would be delivered by the supermarket, Tesco, just the same as  for any other customer.) but also to shop for their own things, such as clothes. The lady I supported at the daycare centre in Biggleswade also went to a lunch club which was held several days a week in a church in Brickhill in Bedford, St Mark's. They not only got a meal, served by volunteers, but could play games, such as bingo.  As the homes that the residents had been moved into when Bromham Hospital was closed in the late 1990's had many friends which they had made in the time they had lived at Bromham, it was felt that they would want to continue seeing their friends, if they had for example been moved to a home some distance away from where they lived. Everton is some way from Bedford, perhaps the furthest out from the centre of Bedford, so these lunch clubs were set up so that residents could keep in touch with their friends. There was another one in Harrold, a village the other side of Bedford, which had the same sort of remit as the one in St Marks. 

Now this lady, who was in her 80's, was a keen player of bingo, but if she didn't win she would become very upset. You try telling her that she couldn't always win,  she would get very annoyed, but we are talking about someone with a learning disability. She had an extremely strong personality and was quite wilful if she didn't get her own way, which was quite often. She was obsessed by television soaps, and watched all the regular ones such as EastEnders, Coronation Street and Neighbours. I think she more or less lived her life through these shows and would talk endlessly about the various plots and the exploits of the characters, to the point that I think she thought it was real. We had to time her bed-time to the soap's schedules, and she had to be ready for bed so she could sit and watch one or other of these programmes. I didn't actually have any interest in any soap at that time, so, in order to be able to talk about them I began to watch some of them, which was something I did so that I could interact better with her.

Each year the residents went on holiday. Not always all together as some of them had holidays on a one-to-one ratio with staff as some needed more individual attention. Another lady who lived in the house and well into her 80's, could be extremely stubborn. Well, I suppose if you had reached her age you had every right to be stubborn and difficult. She didn't like going out much and whenever she was asked she would refuse point blank. Although there was one thing that would get her to go out and that was a cream cake and a cup of tea, generally consumed at Willington Garden Centre which is not that far from Everton. Even when it was baking hot in the middle of summer she would insist on wearing her vest and a really thick coat and wooly hat! Try and prise them off her and she would get quite aggitated. When the rest of the residents were told they were going on holiday (to somewhere on the east coast, Cromer I think, but I'm not sure.) she wasn't told and was got ready on the day the mini bus was going to depart. It was quite an ordeal loading all the wheelchairs into the minibus as they had to be put in so that each could be locked using a special device which hooked over the axels and then into a sort of grooved track in the mini bus floor. This meant that the wheelchairs were firmly anchored and wouldn't move about as the mini bus moved along. It could take a good 45 minutes to get all the wheelchairs into the vehicle and loaded using a hydraulic lift on the back of the vehicle.

I enjoyed the days when, instead of merely staying in the house with the residents we took them out and about, for example, to the daycare at St Marks or to the college in Biggleswade. One Sunday when I was on shift we took some of them to Whipsnade Zoo. I have always loved Whipsnade from my childhood, so to have a free day out there, even if I was officially working was something of a bonus. Not that it was an easy day, far from it, as not only did we have to load and unload the client group in their wheelchairs, but we had to push them around all day, which was extremely hard work. We had made up a picnic so that the group could have their meal out but we also had to take all their medication with us as most of the residents were on quite a lot of medication and we had to make sure they were given this at the correct time. This also meant taking their administration charts to make sure it was all given properly and marked off correctly.
Anyway, we arrived at Whipsnade (I seem to recall I drove in my car with another agency carer, so I wasn't in the mini bus on this occasion. Perhaps it was for lack of room or something.) We unloaded the residents and then discovered that we were a wheelchair missing. The gentleman responsible (I'm not mentioning his name. I have not mentioned names on here as it might infringe confidentiality.) was a Senior Support Worker and he should really have checked before they had left Everton to make sure they had everything for an afternoon out with the client group, including wheelchairs. So while we sat in the bus, he went into the zoo to fetch a wheelchair that could presumably be hired for those customers who had a need for one. He returned a few minutes later and it turned out this wheelchair had no straps and the brakes didn't work properly. And who was it had to push this wonky wheelchair for the rest of the afternoon? You've guessed it, yours truly! And it was something of an effort as Whipsnade is not all flat surfaces. There was the possibility that the client who used the wheelchair which I was pushing might fall out without the required straps to hold him in, or the wheelchair might run away down a steep slope and he could have come out in quite a nasty accident. But fortunately nothing of that sort happened. The afternoon was unfortunately cut short when it began to rain, so it was a rather wasted afternoon, and quite a long journey from Everton to Whipsnade then back again.

Working In Care- Part 5

As I mentioned in the last post I did quite a few shifts at the house at Everton. I think I seemed to fit in with the other members of staff.  As a result I was booked there almost on a permanent basis, which meant that I knew I had a good run of work. The risk with doing any sort of temp work, whether it be industrial or care, is that you can never guarantee you will have enough work, but I was fortunate in that I had obviously made a good impression on the other permanent members of staff to be constantly re-booked for  shifts at Everton.   I also got to know the client group well which made the work a good deal easier. It had been my intention to get back to doing 'Walk-On' and 'Supporting Artiste' television work, and I was intending to get back to that sort of work eventually, and filling in with care work in between times. There were no major issues with such things as challenging behaviour, not to say that some members of the client group couldn't become quite challenging, but not of the violent type,  it was more verbal. It was nice that you could do a 12-hour day, starting as I said in the last post, at 7 a.m. and working through until 7 p.m. and going home.  This meant that I could do enough hours in a few days rather than over a seven-day period to make it financially viable. Most days were broken up into three shifts, starting at 7 and ending at around 2- 2.30, and the late shift coming on at that time and finishing at around 9-10 p.m. This was the sort of shift pattern all the N.H.S. homes throughout Bedfordshire used. At Vincent House we had to do night shifts, and these were for around a month. I don't like working nights as I'm a day sort of person and find it extremely difficult to keep awake and then to have to go home and try to sleep when it's light outside is extremely difficult. 

Not only did we have the general care tasks to perform in the home, but we had to do the shopping and cooking for the residents and part of your job you could expect to get a meal which you ate with the residents, so that was something of a perk of the job. I seemed to always get the job of preparing this evening meal and when I started my shift I would find myself in the kitchen peeling potatoes and other vegetables and making whatever was on the menu, such as cottage pie, sausage and chips or whatever.

We had to take some of the residents to daycare. I seemed to be attached to one particular client, a lady who went to Biggleswade and to a daycare centre run by Barnfield College, a sort of 'outreach' from the Luton college and a centre in Queen's Park in Bedford. She was in a wheelchair and another member of staff drove us there early in the morning and she was involved in such things as basic money-handling, personal care and drama. I was in my element with the drama part of the classes, with my background in stage management and puppetry really being put to good use. Every year the clients did a play, and it was quite amazing that people who in general had real issues regarding speech and communication could stand up on a stage and put on a show. There was a real sense that they were overcoming their problems by doing these shows. I helped with such things as scene painting and general running of the shows. These shows were watched by quite a lot of their friends and relatives and they were assessed by teachers and tutors and from this the clients were awarded certificates which were presented at a ceremony at the end of the year.