My Summer Job Experience

As a student like I am, three months of summer holidays can be quite a long time. You probably scream out now that you can never get tired of lying by the pool, slurping iced smoothies, reading the latest fashion magazine and letting yourself tan in the summer sun. Well, you can. Or at least I can. As I am a person that simply cannot do nothing at all and always have to be productive, I decided to apply for a job at or local nursing home (plus I need the money. Students are incredibly poor human beings, who always have to think twice before spending).

Our local nursing home has just been recently built and was opened last September, which means that the furnishings are absolutely new and modern. The home in general seems like a really friendly and welcoming place to live - even more when compared to the rather dark and very old nursing home that had been in use before the new one was built. The new nursing home consists of four floors: on the first one the kitchen, administration and personnel rooms can be found, the second one is reserved exclusively for people with very advanced dementia who show behavioral problems, and on the third and fourth floor all the other residents live. Every floor is named after hills in our area e.g. Kreuzberg or Heiligenstein, so that the residents find their way easier around the nursing home.

I was assigned to the third floor, called Heiligenstein, which filled me with euphoria because two good friends of mine were working on that floor as well. All the nurses, without exeption, were incredibly likeable and helpful, showed me around, explained everything and were really fun to work together with.

My tasks at the nursing home included preparing breakfast for the residents, making their beds, distributing lunch, loading and emptying the dishwasher after meals and keeping the residents company, for example going on short walks, playing board games and simply chatting with them.

My favorite task was preparing breakfast because you could listen to the morning program on the radio the whole morning while buttering bread, making coffee and cutting fruit in the small kitchen that every floor was equipped with. Each resident had individual food preferences, which were listed on a sheet of paper and had to be respected with care. Some residents had their breakfast in the dining room beneath the kitchen while others prefered to eat breakfast in their rooms. Another reason why I liked that task was that by serving every resident their breakfast, you could whish everyone a good morning and ask them if they had slept well or what their plans for the current day would be. Never was there such a cozy atmosphere on the floor than in the morning, when everyone was getting up and ready for the day.

Not only the mornings but also the afternoons were quite relaxed. After lunch and the residents's afternoon nap, I usually went on a little walk with one of the people. Hardly any of them could walk without a walker; most of them sat in a wheelchair but that didn't keep us from going outside. Beneath the building there was a little garden with benches, where the old people could sit when they were exhausted from walking.

Baking bread in the afternoon

Although nearly every resident on the third floor was really sweet, I had three absolute favorites: Mr E, Mrs S and Mrs R (no, dear NSA, you will definitely not find out who they really are!!).

Mr E was a mid 70-year old man that was one of the only residents without walking problems and probably one of the mentally and physically fittest people on the floor. To me, he seemed more like a 9-year-old boy being trapped in the body of an old man. The whole day he was walking around, high-fiving the staff, singing songs about dead fish (Schau hiiiii, do liegt a tota Fisch im Wossa! Den moch ma hiii!/Looooook, there's a dead fish in the water. We'll kill it!) and telling jokes. He was truly hilarious and really fun to chat with as we always teased each other. One day, one of the male nurses told me that once Mr E had put all his chairs in his room in a line, put on a baseball cap, took a seat on the chair in the front and pretended to be a train conductor. I bursted into laughter when I imagend the situation in my head.

Mrs S was an extremely tiny lady, sitting in a wheelchair as she was one-legged. Together with Mr E, she was probably the mentally most fittest person. Mrs S was absolutely cute when she spoke, as she had difficulties enunciating her words clearly due to the stroke she had had some years ago. That way her speaking sounded adorable, making me want to hug her everytime she opened her mouth to say something. Unfortunately - and despite her remarkable condition (that lady had just turned 91!) - she was quite depressed about life and did not see any more sense in living. Most of the time she stayed inside her room, staring outside the window looking at the mountains in the distance. She sighed a lot and hardly ever wanted to go outside, except to meet and chat with her friend from the fourth floor (a corpulent woman with no feet - quite a matching couple, the two of them, I guess). At first, I could not retrace her never-disapperaing sadness, but then I discovered the obituary of her husband in her room - he had been dead for nearly 20 years! Suddenly a heavy weight seemed to be pressing on my chest, forcing tears out of my eyes. Swallowing hardly, I finally understood her suffering. I could never ever imagine how it would feel to have a husband that had died 20 years ago. I guess she was still missing him, even after this long time without him. What is more, she hardly got any visit from her relatives. I came to realize that she was an extremely lonely woman, despite all the other people on the floor. From then on, I tried to keep her even more company, but she often shut herself out from any person. Seeing or even making her laugh filled me with such great joy that tiny bubbles of happiness began to sparkle in my chest. When I had to say goodbye to her on my last day in the nursing home, tears appeared in the corners of her eyes, making me to swallow the lump that suddenly had appeared in my throat. As I was shaking her hand for the last time, she wished me a happy and fulfilling life. I think she liked me - such as I liked her.

Mr R was perhaps the cutest old lady I have ever met in my life. Despite her 94 years, she was a beautiful lady with very little wrinkles (well, at least for her age) and gorgeous, white, shoulder-long hair. All the time she was in the need of affection, gently grabbing my hand and stroking it. Despite having quite advanced Alzheimer's, her eyes sparkled brightly, making her appear that she knew exactly what was going on around her, although she definitely did not. Whenever I stepped into her field of vision, she began to smile, which filled me with great warmth. Very frequently she was confused and talking nonsense, being afraid of robbers breaking into her room or asking about her breakfast although she already had had hers. When I said goodbye to her, she took both my hands and kissed my cheek, telling me to stay the way I am. I would really like to visit her again. However, due to her dementia, she wouldn't recognize me. I think I will try it anyway.

The wonderful Mrs R

Working in the nursing home was a great experience. Although working with the people was sometimes challenging and very emotional, it generally was a fulfilling job that taught me to use my time on earth and my youth wisely. Because you do get only one chance in life. If you don't use it, you'll be bitter for the rest of your life. However, if you make memories, travel a lot, raise children and have a beloved family, you can look back on those times in you life - and say that you had a life that was truly worth living.