A Rant by a Special Snowflake.

I wish I could like this a million times. So true.

I never understood it!

The difference between making a mistake with a donut and making a mistake with a fragile patient is worlds apart!

And now you have me wondering just what a Major Donut Mistake would be, exactly...

But yes, it's ridiculous. How about the minimum wage going to $15/hour for a person whose greatest responsibility is giving correct change (which the cash register calculates anyway).....and the LPN going rate of $19-20? Four or five bucks is the difference in skills?? Yeesh.

....because we continue to work as hard as we do for the little wage we get.

THAT'S why we get paid what we do.

There is always another CNA around the corner waiting to do your job when your back, legs, & soul can no longer take it.

AND just as "OCNRN3" said above, the frail elderly are NOT valued in our society. We all know how many sit in nursing homes forgotten by family.

~and we do it because WE DO value these people!

People value a good cup of coffee and a pastry more than the elderly.

At my facility the people who work in the cafeteria get paid more than the CNAs. CNAs get minimum wage.

At my facility the people who work in the cafeteria get paid more than the CNAs. CNAs get minimum wage.

That is completely insane.

I took a very large pay cut and benefit slash to start out as a nurse (coming from skilled trades after my plant closed). I left nursing to return to the skilled trades for an even larger raise and benefit package.

Before nursing school, I was working at a gas station. I took a $3/hr cut to be an ER Tech. It still makes no sense to me because working as an ER Tech was more strenuous and required much more skill.

I have tried to explain this exact thing to so many people, so many times. People working as cashiers or drive-thru people at McDonalds or wherever should not be making $15 an hour. There should have been an even bigger protest against those people who think that unskilled labor jobs should be brought up to $15/hr when people who go to school and get certifications and are actually responsible for more than whether or not they want salt on their fries. Everybody else's wages are going to have to come way up now to even make this make sense. Then the cost of everything goes way up and inflation occurs and when the price of everything goes up, they are going to be complaining that they can't live on $15/hr.

I'm sorry Walmart doesn't pay people more. But working at Walmart should not be your plan to support yourself and your family unless you are going into management at some point. If a person enjoys working there and think it's the bomb, great. Just don't expect it to feed your family of 5. You will need other means of income. Whether it is your significant other or you take on another job. Then again, most people don't have a clue on how our economy works.

And there is nothing wrong with the SAHM who decides she wants to cashier at the local grocery store while her kids are in school. Many of these jobs are designed for the SAHM who just needs a part time job to stay busy, or first jobs for teenagers. My first full time job out of high school was in retail and I made $6/hr. I was a great stepping stone for me to start out and learn how to transition into adulthood. I knew full well though I was never going to be able to move out of my parents house and support me much less a family on it. I kicked my butt into to gear to work hard and get promoted and in less than a year, I made enough to move out and have supported myself ever since. It's going to throw our economy into another downspin if many places start instituting the $15/hr min wage thing. And nursing homes really need to up their game to attract and retain good CNAs. I personally hate the way nursing homes are run and if I was at all into politics, I would pass some legislation on how they should be efficiently run.

LTC should not be one of those typical businesses that should be run strictly for profit. You've got elderly people who cannot take care of themselves anymore and are much like children being treated like a dollar sign and nothing more. We need to take care of our elderly and treat them well. Living your life and making it to 80, then put away in home that can be worse than prison is unthinkable to me. Most states won't let you have the right to die with dignity and instead want you to be abused in these homes and end up with bed sores that get infected and you die some horrible death.

I've already told my boyfriend to never put me in one of those places, no matter what. I know not all nursing homes are like that. The one I did my clinical at last fall was great to their people. Every one of them told me they were happy there. But is was a locally run home and the couple that owned it lived in town. They knew how they want these people taken care of and they were. That's how it should be and not these corporations that only think about the bottom line. And that's how I feel at least in the LTC setting it should be.