My years in the field of learning disabilities were emotional, daunting, rewarding, frustrating ... and most significantly ... entertaining! So many mistakes to learn from ... and most of them seemed to be mine!
Bobby, was a very lovely little man. He stood at a full 4ft 10 in his cuban heels, he had no teeth and gurned like a true west country Farmer. Butter wouldnt melt in his mouth. He was, without doubt, a cuddly steriotypical innocently contented man with downs syndrome....
That is ... until food was served. Part of bobbys condition was his inability to identify when he was full up. When i first was told this, i have to admit that I didnt think much of it; after all I am pretty confident I have the same condition when it comes to cadbury's Fruit and Nut Chocolate! I am not sure i have ever located my "stop" button ... there has never been enough chocolate available for me to know if i have a maximun consumption limit.
So, as much as knew that the golden rule was never to offer Bobby seconds or he would think that there was a never ending supply of food and become agitated, i didn't really comprehend quite how significant this golden rule was until the fateful day that i broke the rule...
Anyone old enough to remember the film Gremlins will fully sympathise with the error of my lackadaisical ways .... When you are in the company of a cute cuddly gremlin you cannot comprehend how important it is that they don't eat after midnight!
Well, as a special treat, i decided to take Bobby and 3 other residents from the care home i worked in, to an 'All you can eat Buffet lunch' at a well known Pizza chain. I had a first year student nurse with me .... Apparently i was a skilled professional she could acquire new skills and knowledge from! Well BOY did she get an education!
Hindsight is a fabulous thing ... If only i had piled Bobby's plate high on the first visit to the buffet, he would have relished the experience and wolfed down the plateful and accepted that the meal was over. But no, i gave hime just two slices and then the Gremlin changing phrase left my lips
"Bobby, would you like some more?"
I don't think that particular food chain had any comprehension of quite how financially crippling the term 'all you can eat' can be...
Bobby took on the identity of that famous football legend and between each mouthful he shouted "BOBBY MORE??"
I have to confess that for the first 13 platefuls i was winging it, acting casual in front of the student nurse and praying that Bobby would locate his FULL button.... Nope. All other diners had finished and departed ... The staff clearly wanted to close up...
Knowing it was all going to go horribly wrong, i then disbanded the student nurse with the other 3 residents back to the house to send reinforcements.
By the time by lovely assistant arrived the whole of the interior of the Pizza place looked as though it had been through a food blender! On the suggestion that the meal was over Bobby had made a slow -mo -action -movie dive for the buffet bar. As i attempted in vain to restrict his access to all the Margaritas and meat feast the carnage ensued - Pizzas were hurled like missiles at anyone attempting to restrict him as he repeatedly shouted BOBBY MOORE like some kind of demented sports fan.
Finally exhaustion got the better of him and in the absence of anything identifiable as food remaining, he lethargically took my hand and we both left dripping in tomato paste and pepperoni.
"So sorry" didn't really cover it as the staff resurfaced (they had all made a run for the kitchen at the height of Bobbys outburst) but at the tender age of 21 that was as much of a recompense they got from me ... But i did leave a decent tip!!!
Another life lesson learnt .... If you are given guideline ... Always best to not think you know better. Learning from those that have been there before you is always a good starting point.
Luckily with Elsie i have had lots of lovely ice cream knowledable folk who have helped me learn from their mistakes . Since having Elsie the ice cream van i have developed a network of us eccentric vintage ice cream folk who all help each other out now. So wherever you are in the country - if its too far for Elsie, she has plenty of friends we can recommend.
Thursday 14 February 2013
From entrepreneur to carer - the poorly paid epiphany
My next career move was somewhat lacking in any entrepreneurial qualities as it decidedly lacked any earning capacity. But what it lacked in wages it certainly made up for life's rich experience.
I decided to do voluntary work at a summer play-scheme for children with learning disabilities.
This was one thunder buster of a speedy education into how different life could be AND how beautifully positive some individuals are when they have not been dealt the easiest hand.
Fourteen year old children are innately walking ego's. The whole world is against them, especially their parents. Everyone hates them, leaves them out, forces them to do stuff, treats them unfairly, doesn't understand them.... Life is cruel and everyone else's parents are SOOOO much cooler...
Well I am pretty confident that I was no exception to this teen hell zone and embraced this delightful phase with the sulky sullen face it warranted. That was until I walked into that play-scheme. This should almost be made a compulsory activity for all hard done by, self absorbed teenagers. There is nothing more grounding than facing a room full of children of a similar age to yourself, who really do have a right to feel that life hasn't treated them fairly.
Obviously lots of the kids were blissfully oblivious to their limitations, but equally so there were plenty who could look at me, with my life, and identify that they would never have the same opportunities that I would. Did they complain? Did they moan and sulk about it? Did they blame their parents? Did they heck!!! I know I am making sweeping generalisations but my life changing epiphany came from the view, through my 14 year old eyes, of a room full of happy kids who were ready to make the most of what they had got rather than moan about what they hadn't.
My mind was made up by about 11am on day one ... I would be skipping the entrepreneurial money making future I had mapped out and would be following a career working with people with learning disabilities.
As usual I hit the ground running... Later that same day I over heard the leaders saying that there was a lad with cerebral palsy who could not attend the play scheme because he was epileptic and the bus assistant couldn't administer rectal medication if he had a seizure in transit. By 4 pm on day one I had volunteered to visit the family, be taught how to give the rectal med and take over as the bus assistant because I couldn't bear the thought of this lad missing out over something so simple to fix...
Using my own initiative and enthusiasm may not have been a winner with the gardening career but seeing how thrilled that mum was when I visited; and seeing that lads face light up each day at the play scheme was a bigger buzz than earning a billion in business...
My entrepreneurial days were over and my learning disability nursing days begun.
So looking forward to attending PACE family day in Elsie this summer... Elsie and I love nothing more than being able to attend any events to raise money for charities and services for people with disabilities and their carers and families.
I decided to do voluntary work at a summer play-scheme for children with learning disabilities.
This was one thunder buster of a speedy education into how different life could be AND how beautifully positive some individuals are when they have not been dealt the easiest hand.
Fourteen year old children are innately walking ego's. The whole world is against them, especially their parents. Everyone hates them, leaves them out, forces them to do stuff, treats them unfairly, doesn't understand them.... Life is cruel and everyone else's parents are SOOOO much cooler...
Well I am pretty confident that I was no exception to this teen hell zone and embraced this delightful phase with the sulky sullen face it warranted. That was until I walked into that play-scheme. This should almost be made a compulsory activity for all hard done by, self absorbed teenagers. There is nothing more grounding than facing a room full of children of a similar age to yourself, who really do have a right to feel that life hasn't treated them fairly.
Obviously lots of the kids were blissfully oblivious to their limitations, but equally so there were plenty who could look at me, with my life, and identify that they would never have the same opportunities that I would. Did they complain? Did they moan and sulk about it? Did they blame their parents? Did they heck!!! I know I am making sweeping generalisations but my life changing epiphany came from the view, through my 14 year old eyes, of a room full of happy kids who were ready to make the most of what they had got rather than moan about what they hadn't.
My mind was made up by about 11am on day one ... I would be skipping the entrepreneurial money making future I had mapped out and would be following a career working with people with learning disabilities.
As usual I hit the ground running... Later that same day I over heard the leaders saying that there was a lad with cerebral palsy who could not attend the play scheme because he was epileptic and the bus assistant couldn't administer rectal medication if he had a seizure in transit. By 4 pm on day one I had volunteered to visit the family, be taught how to give the rectal med and take over as the bus assistant because I couldn't bear the thought of this lad missing out over something so simple to fix...
Using my own initiative and enthusiasm may not have been a winner with the gardening career but seeing how thrilled that mum was when I visited; and seeing that lads face light up each day at the play scheme was a bigger buzz than earning a billion in business...
My entrepreneurial days were over and my learning disability nursing days begun.
So looking forward to attending PACE family day in Elsie this summer... Elsie and I love nothing more than being able to attend any events to raise money for charities and services for people with disabilities and their carers and families.
Monday 4 February 2013
Business 2 - one day we'll be miwyunairs!!!
After the demise of the pony rides business and a lifetime ban from the National Trust, my next business, I felt sure,was hazard free... And this time I took a partner on board...
Business 2 - MacKenzie and Green's Gardening services - age 13
The name wasn't as catchy admittedly. I wanted to just use my surname and have a play on words with Green and Gardening (if I had know at the time that I would marry someone with the surname Gardener at a later date, I would have really gone to town on the business name) However, my friend and business partner Elaine, quite justifiably, felt that her surname should also be in the title and lets face it, the surname MacKenzie does not give much scope for puns or alliteration!
We placed a well scrawled advert in the village shop window which cost us the mighty sum of 20p per week... But as all entrepreneurs know - you have to speculate to accumulate, and so we agreed to take the gamble of 2 weeks advertising, costing us 20p each. At the time that amount could have bought us a return bus fair to 'hang out' in Tring ... So it was quite a commitment to our business venture!
When the advert yielded no customers we decided, in true gypsy with spare Tarmac style, to go door to door cold calling to offer our gardening expertise (expertise = Elaine had helped her dad weed his veggie bed the week before and I had once used a mower)
Our tenacity paid off and one desperate / stupid lady agreed for us to weed her flower boarders and trim the edges. Her garden, rather Unimaginatively,had 2 long straight flower boarders, one going up each side of the garden, and the centre was laid to lawn. She agreed to pay us £5 ( between us) if we did the job well and then she made 2 catastrophic mistakes:
1. She gave us a lawn edger spade
2. She went out.
I appreciate that most teenagers have a 'money for as little as possible' mentality and I am certain she anticipated returning to a game of 'spot the difference' and some harsh negotiations over pay reductions.... How wrong she was.
Clearly she hadn't accounted for the fact that she had employed some over enthusiastic, under skilled entrepreneurs. Once we had discovered just how sharp and effective the blade was on the edging spade we got to work on those flower bed boarders. Ground Force eat your heart out... MacKenzie and Green required no architectural drawings and a team talk by Alan Titchmarsh... We had vision in our souls and this garden needed our help. In no time at all we had turned those dull straight boarders into wonderful wavey edged full sized flower beds and as our piste de resistance we had made a substantial 'circular' flower bed right in the centre of the garden .... Well - just slightly off centre as we didn't have a tape measure and when I say circular I mean as near to round as is possible with a straight edged blade and no marking out.
All in all we reduced the lawn by about 30% in total and rearranged all her plants into the new flower beds (although we didn't have a decent spade to get their root balls out so they may not have survived the move)
I can still vividly remember how proud we both were of all our hard work and had an air of certainty that we would have our wages doubled at the very least!
Luckily we weren't present for the 'ground force' unveiling ... But judging by her reaction when we later went to get our pay, I fear our efforts did not trigger the usual tears of joy and total elation that we get to witness on TV. Had Charlie Dimmock leapt out from behind a tree I think she would have had her bra-less chest stabbed with the offending edging spade.
Bless her, she looked somewhat defeated and numb when we knocked for our pay later that evening. clearly she had realised that she only had her self to blame for making that fateful error of employing teenagers with ample enthusiasm and zero experience or knowledge. she could see from our smiling, proud faces that there was no point in even attempting to highlight where we had gone wrong.... It would be the equivalent to kicking a puppy for wagging its tail!
She displayed all the signs of a traumatised victim, numbed by the shock of her pain and loss. she opened her door, handed over the £5, making no eye contacted, saying no words and quietly closed the door behind her.
We may not have been the sharpest chicks ... But we did manage to work out that all the signs would indicate that she had possibly not embraced our garden make-over with the enthusiasm we had hoped for.
It turned out that her shocked silence was short lived and within a week she had managed to share with the whole village a detailed account of her traumatic encounter with the business 'MacKenzie and Green Gardeneing Services'
And so another business met an early end and another lesson was learnt in the development of an entrepreneur - word of mouth is the best form of advertising when you are good. But It is a guaranteed cause of the demise of your business if you are not so good....
Thankfully Elsie is so beautiful she is her very own advertising campaign and all our lovely customers last year have spread the word so well we are already destined for a FAB fun filled summer 2013 .... Lets just hope it's a sunny one for all those weddings we are going to.
Business 2 - MacKenzie and Green's Gardening services - age 13
The name wasn't as catchy admittedly. I wanted to just use my surname and have a play on words with Green and Gardening (if I had know at the time that I would marry someone with the surname Gardener at a later date, I would have really gone to town on the business name) However, my friend and business partner Elaine, quite justifiably, felt that her surname should also be in the title and lets face it, the surname MacKenzie does not give much scope for puns or alliteration!
We placed a well scrawled advert in the village shop window which cost us the mighty sum of 20p per week... But as all entrepreneurs know - you have to speculate to accumulate, and so we agreed to take the gamble of 2 weeks advertising, costing us 20p each. At the time that amount could have bought us a return bus fair to 'hang out' in Tring ... So it was quite a commitment to our business venture!
When the advert yielded no customers we decided, in true gypsy with spare Tarmac style, to go door to door cold calling to offer our gardening expertise (expertise = Elaine had helped her dad weed his veggie bed the week before and I had once used a mower)
Our tenacity paid off and one desperate / stupid lady agreed for us to weed her flower boarders and trim the edges. Her garden, rather Unimaginatively,had 2 long straight flower boarders, one going up each side of the garden, and the centre was laid to lawn. She agreed to pay us £5 ( between us) if we did the job well and then she made 2 catastrophic mistakes:
1. She gave us a lawn edger spade
2. She went out.
I appreciate that most teenagers have a 'money for as little as possible' mentality and I am certain she anticipated returning to a game of 'spot the difference' and some harsh negotiations over pay reductions.... How wrong she was.
Clearly she hadn't accounted for the fact that she had employed some over enthusiastic, under skilled entrepreneurs. Once we had discovered just how sharp and effective the blade was on the edging spade we got to work on those flower bed boarders. Ground Force eat your heart out... MacKenzie and Green required no architectural drawings and a team talk by Alan Titchmarsh... We had vision in our souls and this garden needed our help. In no time at all we had turned those dull straight boarders into wonderful wavey edged full sized flower beds and as our piste de resistance we had made a substantial 'circular' flower bed right in the centre of the garden .... Well - just slightly off centre as we didn't have a tape measure and when I say circular I mean as near to round as is possible with a straight edged blade and no marking out.
All in all we reduced the lawn by about 30% in total and rearranged all her plants into the new flower beds (although we didn't have a decent spade to get their root balls out so they may not have survived the move)
I can still vividly remember how proud we both were of all our hard work and had an air of certainty that we would have our wages doubled at the very least!
Luckily we weren't present for the 'ground force' unveiling ... But judging by her reaction when we later went to get our pay, I fear our efforts did not trigger the usual tears of joy and total elation that we get to witness on TV. Had Charlie Dimmock leapt out from behind a tree I think she would have had her bra-less chest stabbed with the offending edging spade.
Bless her, she looked somewhat defeated and numb when we knocked for our pay later that evening. clearly she had realised that she only had her self to blame for making that fateful error of employing teenagers with ample enthusiasm and zero experience or knowledge. she could see from our smiling, proud faces that there was no point in even attempting to highlight where we had gone wrong.... It would be the equivalent to kicking a puppy for wagging its tail!
She displayed all the signs of a traumatised victim, numbed by the shock of her pain and loss. she opened her door, handed over the £5, making no eye contacted, saying no words and quietly closed the door behind her.
We may not have been the sharpest chicks ... But we did manage to work out that all the signs would indicate that she had possibly not embraced our garden make-over with the enthusiasm we had hoped for.
It turned out that her shocked silence was short lived and within a week she had managed to share with the whole village a detailed account of her traumatic encounter with the business 'MacKenzie and Green Gardeneing Services'
And so another business met an early end and another lesson was learnt in the development of an entrepreneur - word of mouth is the best form of advertising when you are good. But It is a guaranteed cause of the demise of your business if you are not so good....
Thankfully Elsie is so beautiful she is her very own advertising campaign and all our lovely customers last year have spread the word so well we are already destined for a FAB fun filled summer 2013 .... Lets just hope it's a sunny one for all those weddings we are going to.
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