Human resources is getting me stressed out. Any advice?

Caregiving to dementia sufferer isn't the same as babysitting a small child. You can restrain a small child by putting in a playpen, etc, but with dementia you have to always be keeping an ear/eye out for them. There are a thousand other major differences, but I'm just saying that Caregiving Is Not Same As Babysitting a child, and all caregivers know this. You can tell a child what to do but you can't give direction to an unreasonable adult, etc., etc.

I don't know how you can make your HR dept more sympathetic if they're taking the position of "we all have responsibilities" and they don't understand the particular difficulties of caregiving to elderly/dementia. What's taking you in front of them, anyway? Do you need time off or are you coming in late due to caregiving?

That response from an HR representative is ignorant, not professional at all..and can get them in big trouble..

I second the questions above from Ali, what’s the problem? Do you need a family leave of absence? (FYI it’s your employers prerogative to pay you or not and they’ve to guarantee your job for a set period, I think 12 weeks). All this is for salaried employees, not sure for hourly.

If you’ve a better relationship with your direct supervisor I’d try to solve the problem with that person instead of HR. And a general good advice is to always write down what was said, date, who, why.

You know caring for a child isn’t the same as what you’re doing, that was just a silly comparison; so I would try to get over the anger and frustration and try to focus on what you’re trying to obtain and how to go about it. Don’t waste energy on stupid words from someone that has no clue what they’re talking about!
Good luck!!

While there are important differences - small children do not generally weigh over 100lbs, for a start, or break their hips if they fall over, or try to drive into town and turn the wrong way up the interstate - from HR's point of view the similarities are more relevant: you cannot leave either young children or older people with dementia alone in the house. So. Is the employee going to be at work? No. Why not? Overriding family commitments. What's to be done about them? Get a sitter. Or quit.

One day that HR professional, cough-cough, will have a parent or a grandparent on her hands and on that day she may blush to remember what she said to you. Meanwhile, you can't work full-time and care alone for two grandparents, one with dementia. What options are you looking at?

Dear Sal,

Direct HR to this site and have them read some of the threads. That is a highly insensitive comparison. Working graveyard is tough plus caring for your grandparents. It is a lot to take on. I hope you can get some additional supports.

The firm's number one priority is productivity. I worked full time and did night and weekend shifts for bedridden vegetative constant suctioning of the trache mom. My dad had the day shifts when I'm at work. I've learned the hard way fast and quick that there's only so much my employers were going to be sympathetic to my home situation. Basically, they allowed me some lee-way in the beginning. But when it became a constant situation, I was told that I needed to keep my home life separate from my work life. If I cannot handle work efficiently, perhaps it's time for me to quit. Or find a less stressful job. Or part-time position TEMPORARILY until I got the home situation taken care off. I needed this job. So, I learned real fast to keep my home life stress away from my work life.

Sal3rd, you need to figure out HOW you're going to handle both the home front and work. To me, it's obvious that a 60hrs a week job is too much. That's fine if you're single and no one's living with you. But you have 2 elderly people. Even a regular full time job of 40hrs/week is very stressful but 60 hrs? You're slowly killing yourself with these kinds of hours and then to go home and deal with the grandparents.

Have you reached that high stress level that it's now affecting your job? HR has given you the warning (just like my boss did to me). Now it's up to you to decide what to do. Cut your work hours? Find a 'companion' to be with your grandparents during the mornings to give you some real sleep/rest. I don't know.  Read several discussion threads here and learn how others coped, get ideas, etc...

Bookluvr made a good point regarding the firm's number one priority is productivity.

When I first started helping out my parents, I used up all my vacation/sick days, and zero paid days for doctor appointments, hair cuts, shopping, etc. as it hard to say "no" to my parents. My boss back then was "the Devil Wears Prada" type of personality.

Then I had to realize that some of this was my fault, and my fault alone. I had needed to set boundaries with my parents.... like telling them "sorry, I ran out of vacation/sick days to take them places". I suggested to my parents they hire a caregiver to help them out, or hire a cab. No way, never would they do that.... [sigh]. So I was stuck in the middle.

It got to a point that since I had taken so much time off that headquarters eliminated my position as other employees were able to keep the ball rolling when I wasn't available. There went my salary... my matching 401(k)... vacation and sick day pay... company profit share... excellent health insurance, etc. My parents had no idea how much I had lost by asking me to drive them places. It just fell onto deaf ears [pun intended].

Sal, I think it is time to somehow convince your Grandparents that they need to hire someone to help YOU, as you could lose your job over this situation, and you cannot afford to do that. Would one of your grandparents understand that. I see from your profile that you have always lived with them. Would they be able to budget this cost?

Bookluvr and Freqflyer, as I read your comments I appreciated the commonality I found with your situations, because many people cannot even phathom the degree of difficulties that caring for a loved one generates when it comes to work.

I also had a really good job, six figures plus bonus, great matching 401k, very good health benefits..the only thing I didn’t have was pension. And although they didn’t let me go, I STRUGGLED SO MUCH to keep up!! because as good as the salary was, the requirements and hours were crazy and a lot of traveling local and overseas was involved..plus it’s the type of company where SEEING you there was important, no matter if you worked from home at nigh and weekends to stay efficient. Now, try that juggling a mom in bad shape physically and mentally/emotionally and extremely difficult..narcissistic.

And the worse so you can laugh, this was even when my mom was overseas! Miles away. Between nights that I didn’t know where she was because she didn’t feel like answering the phone, so I went to bed at around 3 or 4 am, because after “finding” her -calling her neighbors to ask them to please go knock on her door until she opened- then she felt like using me as the recipient of all the frustration she has and were two or more hours on the phone, just her talking ..
And forget about when she was there with me in my house, I still remember an entire night up with her because she thought she had tetanus because my dog bit her (it was an scratch) when I had an important meeting at 7am..but she refused to see a doctor or leave my house! So I couldn’t go to the meeting because in the morning my mom still felt ‘ill’ and couldn’t leave her alone..etc, etc, etc...

Companies are businesses, and our personal lives are not exactly their business! I noticed my superiors’ dislike of my situation and I realized the “same story” was boring, inexcusable and unprofessional to them..so I had to do something; I had to choose: I quit, I moved overseas to take care of my mom; here I am living what many times feels like a Chinese torture..but at the end of the day I know I’m doing the right thing...and I feel much better knowing that no body, no organization, no boss has any reason nor right to complain!

GM, you can get Family Medical Leave, it will protect your job and allow you to take time off, with or without paid leave. Just get the forms and have the Doctor complete the forms and give a copy to your HR Dept. 12 weeks/480 hrs a year!! FMLA

As a spouse I took care of my wife until she died of Alzheimer's. Her kids would have made her a ward of the state and the state could care for her. So I ask, What are your deepest reasons for careing for them???

Companies are not sympathetic anymore. You can be replaced easily. I understand where ur coming from but we r talking about your future earnings. This is the time u need to pay into SS so you get a decent retirement. What u owe GMom is to be safe, clean and fed. Her Alz/Dementia is only going to worsen and she won't be able to be alone. You need to find alternatives. Call ur office of aging and see what services u recommend. Medicaid also has home services. You may want to consider an Assisted Living. If u can't afford that check out NHs and see if Medicaid will pay for it. Do it now, because Medicaid will be getting less. Ask HR if the company has information that can help. Both places I and my husband worked had programs to help people in ur position. Yes, it will be hard to place her but you can't do it all. But u can be there for her. Good Luck.

FMLA....get the forms from HR and have your grandparents Dr/s fill it out..It will provide a small and helpful safety-net to keep your job..

Be careful about using FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act ] unless you know for sure the home situation will get better at the end of those allotted hours.

Do not use all the hours for your parent or whomever you are caring, save half for yourself, as caregiving can do major damage to your own health. Many of us here can relate to that !! Professional caregivers from Agencies work 8-10 hours and they go home, kick off their shoes, be with family and friends, and are rested for the next day. How many of us family caregivers actually get 8 hours of sleep? How about 6 hours? Maybe lucky to get 4 hours.

I am afraid if you use the full hours from FMLA, then the parent is going to expect this to be the norm after the hours are used up. Then what? So plan ahead.

While I sympathize with you, you will have to make a decision regarding your priorities. Although I shared caregiving responsibilities of my father with my siblings, it was still difficult. I had a responsibility to my employer: I was hired to do a job, which required me to be there. It would not have been fair to routinely distribute my share of work to my co-workers. In my later position as a nurse manager, I also had to take the difficult position of discussing with employees their absenteeism. If our nurses are absent, either others have to work overtime, or we may be short-staffed. Unfortunately, you will have to find resources for your grandparents or decide whether you can fulfill the responsibilities of the job.

Get somebody to look after your mother and bag that joint you work for!

In no way, can ANY comparison be made to caring for a child vs. caring for an elder.

I had something similar happen at work. I had my Mother for 5 years with a caregiver. There were times I would have to leave work for Doctors Appointments, or maybe take off because the caregiver could not make it that day. At first they were very understanding. I want to stress that this did not happen a lot and I understand what you are saying, in a sense it was kind of like people that I work with that have children, always having to take off for one thing or another but my situation was not even as bad as what I saw parents going through. Believe me being single all my life and no children it use to sometimes annoy me that some people would constantly call in sick or take time off due to there children. The single people use to have a joke and say well I will need to be off tomorrow I think my Cat is coming down with something.

When I got Mom I started to understand what they went through. After about one year the attitude totally changed. I had my Mother and I also got married, my Husband had a special needs young adult that would have seizures so there were times that I would be ready to go to work and he would have a seizure so I would run a little late, of course I would wait until the seizure was over before I left the house this was something that upset the caregiver (meaning the Seizures). I do have a very demanding job but at one point my supervisor came to me and actually told me that she though I should place my Mother in a home. They actually told me that there was no way that I could take care of a Mother with Alzheimer's, a special needs son and hold down my job. I was so insulted that they would think that they had the right to say something like that. My work was always done on time, and my job was not suffering at all. I refused!!! I did learn that when someone ask me how my mom and son were doing to just smile and say they are fine. I had Mom for 5 years and it was a very hard 5 years, the step son has a mother but I guess she felt that she had her out since I had the caregiver, she travels on her job so she would lie to me and say she was on a trip when in all actuality she would be in town or on vacation with a friend. My husband also travels for his job. We eventually had to place Mom in a home but I guess in a way it becomes harder at that point. She was in a very nice home but at that point I would get off work and run to the home to spend time with her if not every day, every other day. At this point I would not get home until about 8:00pm just in time to get something to eat and go to bed in most cases because I was so tired. My family told me that it was all on me, they refused to help.

We lost mom just a few months after entering the Home. You think your prepared but it does not work that way. Again my HR department was not kind at all, My husbands company and my sisters company were stand up. Mine not so much. I had worked there for 9 years. It took me about 2 months to come to my senses you know the blank empty feeling that you have inside when you loose someone close? Well after realizing how badly they had treated me through this whole time I realized this was not the place for me. I would never treat anyone the way that I was treated!!! In my case I though long and hard and decided to turn in my notice, I was fortunate that I could take a few months off and I desperately needed time to find myself. I did however request a meeting with the CO of the company. He seemed to be a very nice person. When I told him what I had gone through the last 5 years and the comments that had been made he became quite upset. He knew that I had home issues but he had no idea what I had been going through. I told him everything and I also made the comment that although they insisted that I could not take care of everyone and hold down my job I had done it, There were days that I may have not been 100% but really who is 100% all the time. I showed him how in all actuality my property's had improved 10 fold, laid it out right in front of him. I was surprised he actually looked at me and said wow, I'm guessing you used your job as an escape. Which I had. They shock of it all was my one supervisor had both parents in a home with Alzheimer's at the same time but chose not to take care of them. The HR director is in the beginning of her long journey with her Mother but although I learned and I will stress to you, I learned not to say a word when they ask about my situation. You are entitled to FMLA all that does is keep your job, but most important it will keep your benefits in place, I believe you will have to pay for them. In my case at the end I just realized these are not people that I want to work for or be around. People can be so cruel. I'm sorry you are being treated this way I'm sure this is one of the most difficult times of your life and to have issues like this on top of it is just an awful thing. Praying for you.

i am someone who has a coworker with mom at home. At the times she "runs late" or has to take mom to the dr or can't come in etc - I am the one who has to cover the phone and undone work - and still do all of my work. While you are under stress with your parents, and i understand, don't underestimate the frustration that your coworkers feel if this goes on and on. The work has to get done by someone - and if you are not there - your coworkers have to do extra duty. So - get your home stuff together. And if your coworkers are having to pull up the slack - bringing in treats and saying thank you go a long ways.

Also - be careful what you are dumping on your coworkers. We all have three to four weeks of travel spread over the year. My co-worker wouldn't travel so i had to for her - stressing MY husband and child for the three years i did it. Finally i said "NO MORE" i would do my own travel and no one else's. She blew her stack and raised a stink - but HEY! i have a family too. I have really lost respect or her - she is shirty every time she has to do her JOB (Travel for a few days) because it is expensive and a problem with mom.

If you can do the job - make sure home crises take as little work time as possible - in other words - you know the usual crises - plan for coverage. If you cannot - face reality and find a job that you can balance work and family.

At some point, your grandparents are going to be too much for you to cope with. Please plan now for what that point looks like. Write the plan down. Write down what you will do at that time. Right now you can't see the forest for the trees. It's up to you if you want bad performance reviews and a firing on your record. Your boss would doubtless love to hear "I'm arranging other care for my grandparents and will be available 100% for my job from now on." But if you want to go further down the rabbit hole with the grandparents, just remember to pick the point now where you will implement additional/total help for them. Their behaviors are not going to get better, only worse. At some point they will accuse you of theft. Keep an eye out for that one, too. (sorry so negative, but it's experience speaking).

@Aveeno,
Quite a journey. Hugs to you! I can emphasize. Some people you find in life, more so through working life, are more understanding than others, but the truth is that answering “she/he/they are fine” seems to be the best way when it comes to work.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, she was overseas while I lived -and worked- in the US. Being an only child and feeling terrible knowing what my mom was going to have to go through, I decided that I would come every time she had to receive a chemo treatment, and that was every month. I’d stay with her 5 days each time, leave, and come back for the next round. That’s not including the month I was with my mom during and after her mastectomy. After all that I came to be with my mom as often as I could, and that journey was/is most definitely the hardest thing I’ve gone through in life.

At the beginning I made the mistake of sharing my ups and downs with my mom and our situation with my boss, who was a female. She always asked me about my mom, she was nice and I felt she was emphatic. Yet, what I didn’t know was that she was also a gossiper and when I turned around she’d share what we had talked about with my coworkers and her boss..and everybody else. I noticed how some coworkers would ask about my mom with a condescending attitude, some more genuinely. And my boss’ boss started to dislike my situation until he finally talked to me and got HR involved. I was a dedicated worker, but he just didn’t like not seeing me everyday if I was traveling (just using vacation time or taking unpaid time off).

I don’t deny they did show patience for a while, some people more than others like I said, but my situation got prolonged and worse. I realized something had to give...it was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make. Such a hard place to be, when you basically give up your life to care for someone you love.

But although it’s hurtful to feel that your very sad, hard, human situation is not understood, it’s actually undermined and it bothers people to whom you’ve given a lot of your life, making work a priority even over yourself sometimes!...The truth of the matter is that work is work, it will never be anything different. Period. People that seem friendly cannot always be trusted. Reality is reality and we, caregivers need to realize that. Our situation is OURS, we just can pray for clarity as to what to do and how to do it to balance life out, or choose, even when the choice breaks our life, as we know it!

that was an ignorant and disrespectful response from an inexperienced, probably young unprofessional! They need educating... and a new job! Disgusting.

Great question! Great answers. Some random thoughts from someone who has been there.

1. Where I worked, lots of people had kids and situations where they had to pick up a sick child from school, run a kid to the dentist, etc. It was a fairly family friendly environment, so I had no hesitation about coming in late if my mom had a doctor's appointment, etc. No difference here IMO between caregiving an adult and a child.
2. When there was drama and wacky situations relating to my mom, I made sure no one at work knew about it. I felt if people knew some of the things I was having to handle, it would color their perception of my work performance. In other words all of a sudden, a simple mistake would be Jan has too much to handle with her mom and is making mistakes. THIS is the difference between caregiving an adult and a child.
3. I agree with everyone that you have way too much going on. I don't know how you are managing it all, so I'm sure it has to be showing up somehow in the workplace. When it gets to the point that coworkers are having to pick up the slack more than once or twice, something has to give. This is a life choice, but like everyone, I strongly encourage you to put yourself, your earning potential, and YOUR future first.
4. I believe FMLA applies to companies with more than 50 employees. My former company was below this threshold, so I was not able to take advantage of this.
5. I was "laid off' from my job in August and am interviewing for different positions. As I interview I am really torn myself between appealing positions with "future earning power" and my mom's needs and hitting the right balance. I feel your pain!

Tornadojan, speaking from experience, if I had the opportunity to care for my mother and still keep a job, I’d most definitely choose one that allowed me to be a caregiver as a key priority. So, that means probably less salary, less opportunities to grow...at least for the time being.
There’s a time for everything. When you are caring for a loved one and you still work I don’t think you can realistically be shooting for the stars when it comes to work.  The job would have a very practical role: 1) provide income, 2) give you the opportunity to get a “break” from your caregiving role; meet and talk to other people, have something else on your mind.

To me, being able to have a job and still be a caregiver is a lot, and a blessing. Just some food for thought as you are on your job hunting journey, and only you know how demanding your caregiving role is and therefore how much of a demanding job you could potentially handle.