The retirement center where we spent the past nine months advertises that it provides "independent living" for seniors. I assumed, before first hand experience, this meant residents were physically and mentally in good shape. This proved not to be true. A few there have lost it mentally. Others have severe mobility issues. The line between independent living and assisted living is fuzzy.
The place also advertised how everything was provided for you. Not quite true. A number of chores depend on volunteers among the residents, which wasn't in the advertising. Our facility is part of a large, national network, and it made a few typical bonehead corporate decisions. Two come quickly to mind. First, they gave the servers new black uniforms, making them look like Mussolini's Italian thugs, not too cool in an environment filled with WWII veterans. And they raised the rent on a woman who spent countless hours keeping a large number of rose bushes and flowers in tip top shape, forcing her to move. No reward for her free labor, maybe 15 hours a week.
This kind of place works best, I think, for those with children and grandchildren in the area. But others are there involuntary, put there by children with powers of attorney after a stroke or other health crisis. I met a number of very unhappy residents, who felt like prisoners.
We were pretty bored. Activities amounted to bingo, card games, beanbag baseball, with very little mental stimulation. And now and again I felt like I was in elementary school again, being directed to do this or that and please stay in line. The experience definitely was not for me.
But I met some great characters. One, a toothless woman in her 90s with a thick Texas accent, "a sharecropper's daughter," took me aside and said, They call this independent living. Don't you believe it. People come here to die.
Which was true enough for one or two residents every month.
The place also advertised how everything was provided for you. Not quite true. A number of chores depend on volunteers among the residents, which wasn't in the advertising. Our facility is part of a large, national network, and it made a few typical bonehead corporate decisions. Two come quickly to mind. First, they gave the servers new black uniforms, making them look like Mussolini's Italian thugs, not too cool in an environment filled with WWII veterans. And they raised the rent on a woman who spent countless hours keeping a large number of rose bushes and flowers in tip top shape, forcing her to move. No reward for her free labor, maybe 15 hours a week.
This kind of place works best, I think, for those with children and grandchildren in the area. But others are there involuntary, put there by children with powers of attorney after a stroke or other health crisis. I met a number of very unhappy residents, who felt like prisoners.
We were pretty bored. Activities amounted to bingo, card games, beanbag baseball, with very little mental stimulation. And now and again I felt like I was in elementary school again, being directed to do this or that and please stay in line. The experience definitely was not for me.
But I met some great characters. One, a toothless woman in her 90s with a thick Texas accent, "a sharecropper's daughter," took me aside and said, They call this independent living. Don't you believe it. People come here to die.
Which was true enough for one or two residents every month.
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