A lot of people have a moment. You’re at your desk. Behind a counter. Driving to work for the umpteenth time. And then it hits you. What you’re doing doesn’t feel like it matters any longer. Maybe it never did. The checks come. Other than that? Nothing much.
If this is resonating with you, you’re not alone. Lots of people go from job to job just to make ends meet. What shouldn’t feel like a surprise is that it isn’t a shock you want more from your job. What do you do about it?
Why “Stuck” Doesn’t Mean Stuck
What most people don’t understand about feeling stuck in a job you don’t like is that you’re probably not imagining what else you could do. If you know what else you could do, it’s much easier to feel stuck. Most people think they can change careers if they go back to school for years or they get a job in the middle of some major life transition.
While those kinds of options do exist, there are a lot of jobs that don’t require anything nearly that extreme. Many allow you to switch gears fairly quickly and easily. No living on ramen noodles while you figure it all out.
What feels like meaningful work to people differs, but there are a lot of similar qualities in the lists people create. Generally, it’s work that feels meaningful because it’s meaningful to someone. You have some control over how your day unfolds instead of being one of hundreds of cogs in a wheel.
It also helps if people feel like the individuals they work with actually notice when they come in, and seem appreciative, instead of treating them like they don’t exist. When people think of healthcare jobs, they think about hospitals and scrubs and years worth of schooling.
The reality is that the healthcare industry is much broader than most people imagine. Most only think about healthcare workers when they’re experiencing their own healthcare crisis. There’s one important area people don’t tend to think about until they (or someone they love) needs it, though: home healthcare.
This encompasses a lot of what people consider to be meaningful work.
What Home Care Actually Looks Like
In-home healthcare allows people to stay at home instead of ending up in facilities. You assist them in doing daily tasks that are mundane but necessary for them. These can be anything from cooking for them, cleaning their homes, getting their medications, getting them to the doctor, or just being with them so they don’t have to spend the day alone.
It sounds easy. The impact is huge.
The difference between this work and other positions like retail or food service isn’t just what you do when you’re there. It’s how it feels when you go home at the end of the day. You’re not going to be burned out from angry customers or dumb corporate rules. Instead, you’re going home knowing you made someone’s day better.
Maybe you helped someone who struggled to shower feel clean again. Maybe you spent an hour in a room with someone who doesn’t get many visitors and you shared enough memories that it made their day. These things resonate differently than just remembering how many burgers you flipped or returns you rang up. If you want a job that respects you and values what you bring, Jobs at New Century can give you a sense of what these positions actually look like beyond the basic job description.
What This Work Actually Requires of You
One of the myths of in-home healthcare is that you need a significant background in healthcare in order to help care for patients. You don’t. The agencies looking for help want reliable, patient individuals who want to help people.
Yes, there’s training involved. However, this training generally takes weeks or months, not years before individuals ever get to work with patients.
What’s truly important is your personality, more than your credentials. Can you keep a cool head when things don’t go exactly as they were meant to? Are you able to spend time with one other individual who’s having a bad day and not make it worse? Do you notice when things aren’t right even if you can’t place what’s off?
These are not things you learn from teachers. These are things either in your toolbox or developed in other areas of your life so far. If you’ve watched kids, dealt with a dysfunctional family, or been there for friends when they needed help with something, there’s a good chance you already have what it takes for this work.
Yes, it’s physically demanding so be prepared for that! You’ll be on your feet a lot. In many situations, you’ll have to help patients in and out of bed or chairs so expect to lift some weight and learn how to do this safely for everyone involved (without getting yourself injured).
For the most part, however, agencies need people who can just be there and alert when patients need them.
The Flexibility That Changes Everything
If home care is different from other healthcare jobs, it’s in its flexibility when it comes to schedule practices. There are many agencies that allow employees to indicate what days they’re available to work and what hours so they can assign them to patients accordingly.
More than most people realize who have been stuck in other types of jobs with inflexible schedules, this flexibility makes a world of difference.
If you need to pick your kids up from school every day? There are options in home care for that.
If the child in question gets sick often? No problem.
If you prefer working certain days because there’s usually more business?
If you’d rather work every day because you need the job more than another?
If you’re looking for something part time because you’re transitioning from one career to another?
All are possibilities.
What the Pay Actually Looks Like
One of the first questions people have when they think about switching jobs often relates to money. Home care is not going to make you rich by any means. It does however pay somewhat relatively well compared to other positions that don’t require this kind of education or experience.
This varies by area and experience level but we’re usually talking about an hourly wage that at least beats average food service wages or retail positions and often falls around the level of entry jobs in offices.
The real financial aspect looks better when people factor in things like mileage reimbursement if you drive patients around instead of just standing in an office all day waiting for time to pass until it’s time to go home.
Many agencies offer benefits after a certain amount of time on the job. Many people start on part time positions but really only have to work a certain amount of time before they are offered benefits.
People usually transition seamlessly into these types of jobs and often end up working full time instead of part time once they realize how much better their jobs feel and how much less effort they take to generate income than other positions they’ve held in the past.
Here’s where it looks different again depending on how business is done:
Because this type of work is always in demand (there are way more patients who need help than there are caregivers) home care agencies offer great rewards for caregivers who show up and do a good job like more hours, better patient matches, and even assignments where they can specialize in niches that make more money within the agency as compared with other jobs where they would be lucky to make a dime extra for putting in extra work.
What Nobody Says Until You’re Already Doing It
People will get emotional doing this work, so it’s best to prepare yourself ahead of time that this will be the case. People will become attached to their patients.
For some individuals (not all), this is what makes it worthwhile to do this work as opposed to any other job they could think about doing instead. People also have hard days where their patients may be struggling emotionally or physically and caregivers are not always able to help them with everything they experience in their lives every single day; however these moments are also those that humble them, leading them back to realize why they chose this type of work over every other potential career path.
Making the Switch Without Blowing Up Your Life
If you’re considering leaving your job for one like this, transitioning from one career to another doesn’t have to be a huge deal if that’s what you want. Most caregivers who end up in these industries transition easily from one job to another relatively part time by picking up shifts while they’re still working at their previous jobs until they get fully transitioned and phased into their new careers.
In some cases the application process is relatively straightforward. In other cases it’s a real pain that takes a long time. In some situations there’s an interview that’s mostly agency staff trying to figure out how reliable an employee will be and how good they will be at working with them; however most background checks tend to only focus on prior criminal behavior (even when financial related) rather than on how reliable and trustworthy someone will be overall.
Training periods differ depending on the agency caregivers choose to work for; however they are most commonly between one month and six months before people are able to work with patients without others there with them who need their assistance.
What You’re Trading and What You’re Gaining
If you’re transitioning into a new career, there will be things you miss from the job(s) you’ve had before. Maybe you miss the familiarity; the co-workers you’ve met throughout the years who you like; benefits you’ve earned throughout your years working at your current job that required little effort (other than showing up) over time.
However, these aren’t the main elements that people feel when transitioning into this type of work during middle or later stages of their lives. What caregivers often report after switching over into this type of work is that it feels good getting paid for work that means something again (for lack of anything else meaningful within their personal lives).
Instead of spending time wondering why their days drag on endlessly due to mundane activities where there is no point behind them showing up other than generating income for others, and instead just spending time counting down until they can leave, their time means something again because of the direct impact doing so causes when they show up.
For those who switch over and stick with this type of work, the number one thing they usually say when asked about switching into this type of work versus whatever they’ve done previously is that they wish they’d done it sooner!
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