A Fly on the Wall

As part of our Happy Care Days series, in which our carers share stories of their care career, experience, what made them join the care sector and much more, you will find out from Kate Ball what it means to be part of a care team, and what it would be like to be a fly on the wall for the day in the Bradford-on-Avon office! 

A Fly on the Wall! – Kate Ball

I am really lucky to have a role in Abicare that gives me such variety in my work. Nothing is better than being of service to my clients, but coming from an administrative background,  I also feel very comfortable in an office environment.  I look forward to it very much. 

Today I had my care calls,  I undertook a supervision with one of my colleagues and spent the remainder of my afternoon filling in paperwork in the office.

It’s true that in my branch we are undergoing difficulties with lack of staff, but it was interesting to me today to hear the buzz of gentle conversations around me. Their comradeship, their confidence in what they were doing, and yet there is so much frustration there that honestly the most dedicated person could easily throw in the towel, but they don’t. They could, but they don’t. They wobble sometimes but they still don’t give up.  They have a passion to make things better, and their comradeship is what drives them on together. One bounces off the other, together they are determined to make us better as a team.  

We work with cooperation and respect for each other.  I am only part of this fierce cooperative for a few hours a week, but together we are achieving. It’s a lonely place to be though. A thankless task for most of the time, ensuring carers are where they are meant to be at the time they are meant to be there. If one drops out, chaos could ensue but it never does. Our driving force remains calm and focused. The phones start, the messages go out; all the work completed beforehand has to be redone to move calls around to allocate our clients. It’s a flurry of anxious activity until everyone is allocated. Often this means another evening/longer evening working for our management and staff.

I really hope that my colleagues realise and appreciate the dedication that goes into mapping out their days, coordinating training,  reaching targets and taking on additional pressure in order to relieve their pressure.

These ladies enable our branch to be the best it can be with their dedication and drive, and they strive to keep us improving. They try to enable our staff to be the best they can be in their very important roles, with their continued support and solid work ethic.

In any job it is so easy to criticise those who organise our day. We each think we are their only consideration.  That’s human nature.  In our work the team is what is important and we are only as strong as the team.  Our clients depend on that, and they depend on us.

So I listened to the ideas, the reassurances they direct to each other, the sheer determination and all the frustrations that ping ponged around the room, and it made me feel lucky. It also made me want to do better. It made me proud to be part of it.

It should be inspiring to people to know they have so much determination pushing things along every single day.

Our team is good but it could be better. We should never settle, we should always strive to be better, to be more than we are today.  If we strive for more we will grow, and then more people in our community will benefit from the excellent service we provide every day.

If you could be a fly on the wall you would see what I saw, you would hear what I heard, and I hope that you would then realise how valued you are. I also hope it would make you value the people who direct us every day and appreciate the challenges they face every day to ensure our clients are all supported.

Together we are strong, together there is nothing we can’t achieve, as long as we appreciate each other.