Speaker 1: This is on the Job. This season, we're speaking with
Speaker 1: folks who are finding their professional stride in a tumultuous
Speaker 1: job market and learning how to double down on their
Speaker 1: skills and their experience to overcome challenges. We'll bring you
Speaker 1: inspiring stories of people making themselves essential, an important skill
Speaker 1: set in any economy. For a lot of people, working
Speaker 1: in nursing homes or elderly care is a calling. It's
Speaker 1: a tough job that makes a huge difference to a
Speaker 1: population that often feels pushed to the side, and as
Speaker 1: the elderly have been put at higher risk with COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: essential workers continue to be by their sides, helping them
Speaker 1: live fulfilling lives in old age. This past May, I
Speaker 1: met up with Josh Wynn for a socially distanced glass
Speaker 1: of wine on his porch after one of his many
Speaker 1: twelve hour days. You must be exhausted, right, Yes, the
Speaker 1: wine helps. He kind of has a unique position. He
Speaker 1: over these three residential care facilities here in Vermont, owned
Speaker 1: by the same company, the Scuttny House the Davis Home
Speaker 1: in the Brookwood Estate. So my official title is the
Speaker 1: general manager, which is a fairly vague title for my position.
Speaker 1: To manage three facilities can be complicated. I wake up
Speaker 1: earlier than I should and I come home later than
Speaker 1: I should. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1: Right now, I just feel more comfortable being as hands
Speaker 1: on as I can. Each of the houses has between
Speaker 1: fourteen to sixteen residents, ranging from ages fifty to a
Speaker 1: d and the way he describes the residential care facilities
Speaker 1: is like something between a nursing home where residents get
Speaker 1: seven care and assisted living communities where older folks live
Speaker 1: within the gated communities that have amenities but are very independent.
Speaker 1: So we're smacked ab in the middle. We are three
Speaker 1: old Vermont farmhouses. We function a lot like a bed
Speaker 1: and breakfast, except the guests never leave. These are old
Speaker 1: Vermont country homes with beauty, full creaky staircases and wide
Speaker 1: playing floors. There's a lot of charm and character. They
Speaker 1: definitely offer that home vibe, which is I think why
Speaker 1: a lot of families gravitate towards us to bring their families,
Speaker 1: because they walk in and they feel like they're walking
Speaker 1: into a friend's house and not into a facility. Josh
Speaker 1: oversees about thirty staff members between the houses, but He's
Speaker 1: responsible for making sure that their only running order and
Speaker 1: the residents have everything they need. My days never look
Speaker 1: the same. In different days, I have different responsibilities. I'm
Speaker 1: responsible for placing all of our catering orders for the
Speaker 1: week's menus. The houses serve three meals a day and
Speaker 1: snacks that Josh collaborates with the house cooks on designing,
Speaker 1: so he essentially oversees an entire catering operation. He helps
Speaker 1: everyone get their medical supplies like oxygen tanks and certain
Speaker 1: narcotic medications and stuff that require hard scripts in hand
Speaker 1: upon delivery. I'm responsible for those. He helps ins with
Speaker 1: their bills and finances, making sure they don't get behind
Speaker 1: on anything. He files all their medical records and speaks
Speaker 1: with their doctors, and then I do all of their
Speaker 1: transportation Monday through Friday. Anytime they have a doctor's appointment,
Speaker 1: I'm driving them home and back. The hospitals he drives
Speaker 1: them too, are sometimes an hour away, and each of
Speaker 1: the houses are about fifteen minutes away from each other,
Speaker 1: and I'm at each house every single day, multiple times
Speaker 1: a day. Yeah, that's just kind of a cliffs notes
Speaker 1: version of what happens. So basically, your job is to
Speaker 1: cater to the unique needs of about forty five individuals. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem like there's enough hours in the day.
Speaker 1: There isn't. There literally isn't, regardless of the workload. Josh
Speaker 1: says that the characters he gets to spend his waking
Speaker 1: hours with is something he looks forward to every morning.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. So we've got Dolores, who I called
Speaker 1: Miss Long Island, and you know immediately when you meet her,
Speaker 1: because she'll never let you forget it, and she commands
Speaker 1: that household. And then we have who I call the Princess.
Speaker 1: I will not mention her by name. During breakfast time,
Speaker 1: she does this thing that drives me up the wall.
Speaker 1: She asks for like five different drinks Janet. She's just
Speaker 1: the sweetest, most loving smile for days. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: a do you know she wants her warm milk which
Speaker 1: is in a small cup, not a medium cup, not
Speaker 1: a large cup, the extra small cup microwaved for thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: not one note, better be thirty. And she will know
Speaker 1: Joanne kind hearted but extremely blunt. She will never eat
Speaker 1: the breakfast that we have on the menu. She always
Speaker 1: asks for something completely different that takes an entire afternoon
Speaker 1: to prepare the night before. Joanne will let her get
Speaker 1: away with murder because she's Joanne Um, only to not
Speaker 1: eat it when we finally serve it, and she walks
Speaker 1: up with her walker and waddles off to her room
Speaker 1: and sits down and eats a couple of crack in
Speaker 1: every single day. And that is the Princess. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of love from how you talk about everyone,
Speaker 1: even the Princess. I'm sure it's impossible not to get
Speaker 1: really close with everyone. Absolutely, the residents feel like a
Speaker 1: second family, you know. I look at a lot of
Speaker 1: them like extra sets of grandparents. I could listen to
Speaker 1: them all day. I mean, if I didn't have actual
Speaker 1: work to do, I could just listen to them tell
Speaker 1: me stories all day because I'm just fascinated by them.
Speaker 1: I just love them. Long before he spent the entirety
Speaker 1: of his days dealing with people, Josh was an introverted
Speaker 1: kid growing up in southern California. I was very quiet
Speaker 1: and shy and and secure. Not much has changed and
Speaker 1: I'm thirty one and I had a very wonderful home life,
Speaker 1: but a horrible life at school. I was just bullied
Speaker 1: and picked on and just abused at school like crazy,
Speaker 1: and I never said anything about it for years for
Speaker 1: some reason, and I just ended up being a target.
Speaker 1: When Josh was in seventh grade, his family moved across
Speaker 1: the country to New Hampshire. He was hoping his new
Speaker 1: school life would be different, but he says middle school
Speaker 1: was the toughest two years of his life. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until he got to high school that he started making
Speaker 1: new connections and saw doors open for him. Once high
Speaker 1: school started to come to an end, I knew that
Speaker 1: the rest of my life was really going to matter,
Speaker 1: because I was just extremely optimistic that I would be
Speaker 1: a completely different person when I left high school. And
Speaker 1: it was exactly that. Josh's life pretty quickly started to
Speaker 1: veer in the direction of elderly care. He said the
Speaker 1: seeds were kind of planted by his extremely close relationship
Speaker 1: with his grandparents. My parents, in some ways are probably
Speaker 1: a little jealous that I have such a close relationship
Speaker 1: with my grandparents, but they're my closest friends. I was
Speaker 1: always told at a young age that I was an
Speaker 1: old soul and that I was too mature for my age,
Speaker 1: and at the time I thought that was kind of
Speaker 1: an insult being a kid. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: older than I was, but it actually worked out for me.
Speaker 1: Anyone who knew Josh knew this was a big part
Speaker 1: of his personality. So while he took other jobs after
Speaker 1: high school, like working in a print shop, people would
Speaker 1: just naturally ask him if he was interested in working
Speaker 1: with their older family members. They would say something like, oh,
Speaker 1: my mother has liver disease and she's living at home,
Speaker 1: but we can't afford a nursing facility. Would you be
Speaker 1: open to being a caregiver with the right training or whatever?
Speaker 1: And it really did happen like that. The first time
Speaker 1: it happened, I was nineteen. So he started being a
Speaker 1: caregiver on referral, and he was a natural. He got
Speaker 1: out of it for a while and started doing wedding
Speaker 1: and event planning, which he also loved. They gave him
Speaker 1: a chance to get really creative in making experiences for people.
Speaker 1: But I still felt that pole even then, that it
Speaker 1: wasn't enough. You're getting to know these couples and these
Speaker 1: families for a certain amount of time, and then this
Speaker 1: event happens and then you never see them again, And
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted work to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more personal than that. So eventually he and his husband
Speaker 1: Ben moved around while Josh went back to working as
Speaker 1: a private caregiver. They'd always wanted to live in Vermont,
Speaker 1: so when they landed there, Josh connected with the woman
Speaker 1: that runs these three residential facilities and it was a
Speaker 1: no brainer. Josh has been working at these three houses
Speaker 1: for over a year now, and what surprised me talking
Speaker 1: to him is how accessible of a job it really is. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the best part about it. You know,
Speaker 1: we have people that come to us and we are
Speaker 1: either their first job. Sometimes we are their job after
Speaker 1: a retirement, he says. If you're someone that really wants
Speaker 1: to help people, this is work where you don't need
Speaker 1: a ton of training to at least get your foot
Speaker 1: in the door. And there's lots of different jobs within
Speaker 1: these facilities. You could specialize in one on one care.
Speaker 1: You could even be a cook for the residents. And
Speaker 1: then we have sleepers who do exactly that. They come
Speaker 1: and they sleep and they get paid a flat rate
Speaker 1: and it's the best job ever sleepers just to be
Speaker 1: on call, just to sleep in case of an emergency. Wow,
Speaker 1: So maybe besides being a sleeper. The precursor of being
Speaker 1: good at this job is just being good. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: hands down. If we could get good people to apply,
Speaker 1: they're hired going into it. There's definitely no sugarcoating that
Speaker 1: it's hard work. You have to be able to think
Speaker 1: about someone else for the entirety that you're there. You
Speaker 1: just have to be compassionate, and these people would be
Speaker 1: so grateful to have someone with that capability. I just
Speaker 1: look at them like how I would want to see
Speaker 1: my family and my grandparents specifically treated if they were
Speaker 1: in a facility like that. Josh says that you can
Speaker 1: learn tons of invaluable hard skills on the job, but
Speaker 1: the first priority is always making sure that everyone feels
Speaker 1: deep comfortable in their environment and completely cared for beyond expectations.
Speaker 1: That's why I say we function a lot like a
Speaker 1: bed and breakfast, because it really does feel that way.
Speaker 1: They're living their life as if they were living at
Speaker 1: at home. We just happened to feed them. So while
Speaker 1: the limit to Josh's task has no real boundaries, he's
Speaker 1: taken pride in his ultimate job of creating a safe
Speaker 1: place for people to simply be happy in. But In
Speaker 1: the wake of COVID nineteen, the job confronted a whole
Speaker 1: new set of challenges. Elderly care professionals around the country,
Speaker 1: like Josh, began to defend the havens that they've created
Speaker 1: for their residence as older people became more at risk
Speaker 1: than any other population. Absolutely, they are as high risk
Speaker 1: as you can be, and that really got put into
Speaker 1: perspective very quick. More on Josh's story after the break.
Speaker 1: A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is the kind of person
Speaker 1: you need. Express employment professionals can help. Finding the best
Speaker 1: people requires more than sorting through applications. You need to
Speaker 1: conduct a thorough surge. Express understands what it takes to
Speaker 1: hire the right person. It takes real people, real interviews,
Speaker 1: discovering the talents you need. We find good people matching
Speaker 1: their skills with the right jobs that Express We find
Speaker 1: people for jobs and companies of all sizes and industries,
Speaker 1: from the production floor to the front office. Sometimes finding
Speaker 1: the best new employee really is about who you know.
Speaker 1: Express Nose Jobs. Get to know Express. Go to Express
Speaker 1: pros dot com to find a location near you. When
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen hit Josh and his staff, we're dealing with
Speaker 1: a new normal. Just like the US the world complications
Speaker 1: and how they operate in their daily lives in an
Speaker 1: uncertain atmosphere, but the complications with the residents is a
Speaker 1: different world. That I had to educate myself really quick
Speaker 1: on how this was all going to pan out, and
Speaker 1: I certainly haven't done it alone. The staff have really
Speaker 1: gone beyond what we've ever required of them, and it's
Speaker 1: kept us that much more kind of vigilant in how
Speaker 1: we handle this whole situation. Everyone at the homes Josh
Speaker 1: Overseas has medical complications that prevent them from living on
Speaker 1: their own. So it's in the job description that Josh
Speaker 1: is going to help out with these health issues, but
Speaker 1: now it's those issues that make them immunocompromised and most
Speaker 1: at risk with this new virus. Many of our residents
Speaker 1: are oxygen dependent, so respiratory illness is an understatement, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them have existing heart conditions and all
Speaker 1: sorts of medical conditions that could easily kill them. Josh
Speaker 1: and his staff took tons of precautions. They followed all
Speaker 1: the state guidelines as they came out. If a staff
Speaker 1: member had so much as a cough, they were sent home,
Speaker 1: leaving them perpetually short staff. Residents were quarantined to their rooms,
Speaker 1: where the staff catered to them. If someone is quarantined
Speaker 1: in the room and you have to serve them lunch,
Speaker 1: you have to fully regown face mask, face shield gloves, everything.
Speaker 1: Have two people do so, one in the room and
Speaker 1: one out of the room to collect the empty tray,
Speaker 1: to take any laundry. And you're doing this a dozen
Speaker 1: times or more a day. Each time, they'd be throwing
Speaker 1: all of this equipment away as a sanitary procedure, and
Speaker 1: like many medical facilities, they began to run out. We
Speaker 1: couldn't get it fast enough, and we were using it
Speaker 1: quicker than we could receive it. We've had some close
Speaker 1: calls where we've had residents who presented symptoms of COVID,
Speaker 1: and the problem in the beginning was that it was
Speaker 1: taking roughly about a week to get results back. We
Speaker 1: would go and get them tested and then still have
Speaker 1: to quarantine them in the house with the other residents
Speaker 1: still present. They took every precaution they possibly could in
Speaker 1: isolating everyone. A handful of facilities within a few miles
Speaker 1: of them had positive cases between residents and staff. But
Speaker 1: when I spoke to Josh three months after they first
Speaker 1: started quarantine, his residencies had not had a single case.
Speaker 1: When I say that I'm grateful that we have had
Speaker 1: zero cases, I can't even describe. The hard work has
Speaker 1: paid off. And so it goes to show that if
Speaker 1: you follow really simple guidelines and you keep a sanitary environment,
Speaker 1: and you really care for these people as if they're
Speaker 1: your family, you know, you can really be in goochaped
Speaker 1: for sure. Josh's connection with the residents is what makes
Speaker 1: him such a good caregiver. He becomes an intimate part
Speaker 1: of their lives and they become a part of his.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of the residents very personally. A
Speaker 1: lot of that is because of the car rides from
Speaker 1: their house to a doctor's appointment. You know, you get
Speaker 1: to know people pretty intimately in the car ride while
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton is playing on the radio. It's so great
Speaker 1: and so fun to kind of get to know them
Speaker 1: and put the puzzle pieces together and how they got
Speaker 1: to where they are. The other side of the job
Speaker 1: is that you care a lot for people who are
Speaker 1: at the end of their lives. A week before I
Speaker 1: spoke to Josh. A resident he was close with named Abbott,
Speaker 1: passed away peacefully in a nearby hospital. He was a
Speaker 1: Vietnam Vet, and Josh says he never felt more patriotic
Speaker 1: than when he was listening to Abbot stories. He reminded
Speaker 1: me so much of my own grandfather. He just had
Speaker 1: so much pride and being a U. S. Soldier, and
Speaker 1: did he embart any words of wisdom that stuck with you. Ironically,
Speaker 1: he told me to find a good wife. I told
Speaker 1: him I was settled. He told me that coffee ice
Speaker 1: cream was the best flavor on the planet, and I
Speaker 1: kind of agree. The one thing that he and my
Speaker 1: grandfather have probably the most in common, is their sense
Speaker 1: of family to otherness, and that was the thing he
Speaker 1: promoted the most. You know, since I've been there, I
Speaker 1: think I've seen for residents pass away. I thought for
Speaker 1: sure it would get harder. It actually has gotten easier.
Speaker 1: Knowing how well they're cared for and how much the
Speaker 1: staff cares for them. It's um a sense of closure
Speaker 1: almost in a lot of ways. Josh's it's especially comforting
Speaker 1: knowing that they were in his staff's care because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: funding for elderly care facilities is often far more scarce
Speaker 1: than it should be, which makes it hard to give
Speaker 1: residents all across the country the resources that they need
Speaker 1: to be happy. These are people who have had an
Speaker 1: entire lifetime full of stories and experiences, and they have
Speaker 1: so much to offer, I feel, to society. But because
Speaker 1: they can't contribute in other ways to society, people often
Speaker 1: write them off, and that's just no way to live.
Speaker 1: Do you think part of your desire to care for
Speaker 1: people who might not have as many defenses as others
Speaker 1: goes back to you not having as many defenses when
Speaker 1: you were a kid. That's probably true. I even now
Speaker 1: don't defend myself. I don't stick off for myself, and
Speaker 1: there is a part of me that I feel definitely
Speaker 1: shows up more for other people than I do for myself.
Speaker 1: But I I just feel like we live in a
Speaker 1: world that already people are in it for themselves, and
Speaker 1: when you have people that literally can't fight for themselves,
Speaker 1: you need people who can fight for them. And if
Speaker 1: someone wants to fight for me, call me. But I'll
Speaker 1: fight for other people as long as I can. Well.
Speaker 1: Josh knew he wanted to work as a caregiver. When
Speaker 1: he moved to Vermont, his long term plan was to
Speaker 1: get back into event and wedding planning. It's funny, I
Speaker 1: you know, my priorities have changed in a year. The
Speaker 1: more that I immersed myself into this job, the more
Speaker 1: I want to continue immersing myself into this and expand
Speaker 1: it in a lot of ways. He gets to create
Speaker 1: those same experiences he's always wanted to within these homes,
Speaker 1: going out of his way to do new things for
Speaker 1: the residents, like bring musicians in every week to play
Speaker 1: for them, do animal therapy where he brings in golden
Speaker 1: retrievers and baby goats to hang out with him. One
Speaker 1: of the things that we did during Easter, you know,
Speaker 1: we had set up in each house a little photo booth,
Speaker 1: and I had made all these props for a photo
Speaker 1: booth like you would see at a wedding, except it
Speaker 1: was all old people wearing bunny ears and fake noses
Speaker 1: and holding Easter eggs and daffodils, and they ate it up.
Speaker 1: It was so great, and I love that the families
Speaker 1: love that and the staff love doing it. I want
Speaker 1: to do so much more of that, even though Josh
Speaker 1: says there really aren't enough hours in the day to
Speaker 1: do everything he'd like. It's a perfect job for those
Speaker 1: who want to go above and beyond with the hours
Speaker 1: that they have, making life better for people who would
Speaker 1: appreciate it more than anyone. It's the most rewarding work
Speaker 1: I've ever done. I to this day get emotional thinking
Speaker 1: of some of the weddings that I've done over the
Speaker 1: years as a professional event planner. I cried at every
Speaker 1: single wedding I ever did. And this is that times
Speaker 1: a hundred elderly care facilities in America may not be
Speaker 1: as appreciated as they should. But the byproduct of that
Speaker 1: is a field of work that is right for innovation
Speaker 1: and young minds like Josh who want to create truly
Speaker 1: special experiences for people that more than deserve them. It's
Speaker 1: not only a job that will always be essential. It's
Speaker 1: a job where you can work creatively and compassionately while
Speaker 1: becoming a huge part of someone's life. And the saying
Speaker 1: goes that you know, when you reach older years, it's
Speaker 1: like having a second childhood. And it's exactly like that,
Speaker 1: and we are the parents and the aunts and uncles
Speaker 1: and the cousins who watched over them. How can that
Speaker 1: not be rewarding for On the Job. I'm Otus Gray.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you
Speaker 1: by Express Employment Professionals. This season of On the Job
Speaker 1: is produced by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. The episodes
Speaker 1: are written and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt
Speaker 1: Noble for Audiation Studios at the Loft in Bronxville, New York.
Speaker 1: Music by Blue Dost Sessions. Find us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For
Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you discover
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