There's a reason Sir MixaLot didn't sing about liking BARE butts

We've lost a couple of employees these past two weeks, and although their leaving has been an overall positive thing for our team, it still presents a difficulty in covering shifts until someone new can be trained. In the interim, Assistant and I have been chipping in with meal service and resident care. While I am proud to be the type of administrator who would never ask a WorkerBee to do something I wouldn't do myself, I've decided during the challenge of the past two weeks that just because I will do something, doesn't mean I want to do it.

I can serve lunch every day for a year and really not mind it one bit. But helping someone pull their pants down and putting my hands on their bare hips to guide their exposed derriere to the john? Standing in the bathroom until they've finished "producing" (as one sweetheart resident would say) only to hand them toilet paper, help them get up off the john, and pull their pants back up? Or even worse, helping them into a dry Depends? Yeah. Not loving it.

The thing is, though, that it is worse for the residents! Being in the role of caregiver changes the dynamic of my relationship with the them. I'm the person they come to with concerns or ideas for the betterment of Rock Ridge. I'm the person to whom they can express their opinions and feel like they are having an intelligent and productive problem-solving conversation. We talk about things that make them feel like they still have value as a human being. It makes them feel important and useful. When they hold their Resident Council Meetings and ask me to give the Administrative Report, not one of them wants to watch me talk and have to think "she's seen my naked butt." I hate that for them.

And being totally truthful here, I hate it for me.

Because I now know exactly what my ass is going to look like in 60 years.

Yeah. Not loving it.