Tales from Aged Care

A couple of weeks ago, the phones at work were not able to transfer calls from the main reception number to us in admin. It was frustrating and the receptionist started telling people they would be best to email us.

One man, let's call him Joe, became slightly unhinged and word has it he phoned reception twenty times in an effort to speak to us about a room for his mum.

When I arrived the next day, there was an email from him and so I responded. He wanted to come in for a tour so we booked a time for the same day and I showed him around. 

I did my usual spiel, designed to be friendly but also point out that there are many steps to admission and most people will never be offered a place, simply because we get about thirty enquiries for every vacancy.

Joe started asking if he could present his case to the manager, the head of nursing or the board of directors and I laughed him away.

A couple of days later he came in with a floral arrangement "for a resident"

The same day he came back asking if we had a volunteer program.

Next came a request for an introduction to the manager.

I had, of course, talked with the boss about Joe and she was aware of his goings on.

Then we were having a casual lunch for a colleague's farewell and in all of the chatter, Joe was mentioned. The area manager piped up and said that Joe had so many red flags, he could surround the place in flowers and still never get a place.

Joe's behaviour is all very stalker-ish and the flowers are unethical as well. Joe isn't frightening yet but it's only a matter of time.

When another email came from Joe I knew I needed to be firm and chilly. I even  ran my response through chatGPT and asked for it to check the tone. ChatGPT told me my email was cold.

haha, Bingo!!

Hopefully that's the end of that story.