EXCLUSIVE The raw and beautiful truth about being a care home worker - where the emotions come thick and fast. A heart-warming tale from the coalface of human experience By Kathryn Faulke Published: 21:04 EDT, 7 October 2024 | Updated: 21:05 EDT, 7 October 2024 e-mail View comments The interviewer had been surprised to see me. 'You're not our typical applicant, you know? I mean, you've got a degree.
' 'I'm sure I can do it though,' I replied. 'Oh, I don't doubt that,' she said, 'but, really, why would you want to?' My last job had been a senior role as a hospital dietitian. But after it became completely untenable – thanks to endless bureaucracy and intense mental overload – I was looking for work.
Any work. The last time I'd looked for casual employment had been so long ago the employer had tested my typing skills on a typewriter. Now I was in my early 50s, married and with three children – aged 19, 20 and 22 – getting even the most basic of jobs appeared to require complex negotiations, applicant packs and questionnaires.
Kathryn Faulke works up to 14 hours a day visiting up to a dozen housebound elderly and vulnerable people in their homes through her job as an agency care worker Then I'd seen the advertisement placed by Maggs, my interviewer: Agency care workers required. In exchange for honesty, patience, compassion and reliability, Maggs said she would forgo experience and long application forms, and give me training – and pay £9.50 an hour.
For th.