We're not a senior daycare! (An Open Letter)

The BBQ Pit
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Okay, so I work in a public library. I’m used to people with developmental disabilities, mental disorders, a lack of facilities in which to clean themselves, and plain ol’ latchkey kids in the library at all hours of the day. I don’t have a problem with most of them, as they behave themselves. I don’t have a problem with helping people, even when they’re crabby entitlement whores (it just means I’m not going to be as lenient with the few rules we do have) or the screaming kids. Well, actually, my only problem with the screaming kids is that I can’t hear so well after they scream and I’d rather they didn’t or that their parents would do something, but that’s out of my control so I don’t worry about it. Today, I’m not complaining about any one particular patron, but the caretakers of a patron.

Yesterday, I had a second encounter with a very nice old man. He’s obviously had a stroke at some point in his life, as he’s got movement issues on one half of his body, including a tendency to drool. No big deal. He’s very soft spoken, and he’s no longer able to enunciate very well, so it’s tough to really help him because I can barely hear him and his words sound like the ocean rushing by rather than words most of the time. He’s been here before; I recall helping him find some stuff on Alzheimer’s and him having to wait for his grandchildren to pick him up so he could check out the books. Well, yesterday he came in with one of our DVDs on Alzheimer’s and asked about how it works. I explained how a DVD works, and he mentioned that he didn’t have anything in which to play it. Our computers (as far as I know) don’t play DVDs, and it was peak hours for computer usage; there was no way on earth I was going to be able to get him a computer right then and there and set him up with it. I felt really bad, and helped him find a new book on the topic. Two hours later, he’s still wandering around the library, looking lost and confused and without his caretakers. Two hours after that, he was still there, but was gone before we started doing closing procedures.

Dear lazy, careless grandchildren of Nice Old Man,

This is not a senior daycare center. It’s not an arcade, and it’s certainly not a place to drop off your grandfather, who very obviously needs someone around as a near-constant aid. We can all tell that he’s had a stroke and probably has Alzheimer’s; he displays symptoms of both and he asks for materials on them. You keep dropping him off here, and all we can really tell is that you guys are not doing your job as caretakers. I don’t care how difficult he is to manage for you because it’s your responsibility to make sure he’s taken care of, not ours. We’re nice and we help him, but really, we don’t know what to do with him other than reference help. You leave him here for hours at a time, and I’ve never seen anyone accompany him; do you really drop off a man with movement and cognitive problems on the curb at our library? In the middle of a relatively busy downtown area of a smaller town? What the hell is wrong with you?!?

You don’t deserve to have such a nice old man as your grandfather, even if he is starting to have problems that come along with age. Someday, you’re going to drop him off here and somebody’s going to get fed up enough that we call the cops about an abandoned old man who’s disoriented; maybe then you’ll be publicly ostracized for putting your grandfather in danger on a regular basis.

No love,

Nashiitashii

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Have you actually seen them dropping him off or picking him up? Is it possible that he actually lives nearby and the library is the only place he can go instead of sitting in his efficiency apartment all day staring out a window? Because if he actually has caregivers who are dumping him to fend for himself all day, that sucks. I don’t know if you can call your senior social services provider to report that, because it doesn’t seem to reach the level of actual physical abuse, but that call is an option if you ever notice anything amiss on a more serious plane than just dropping him off.

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Quasi-related piggyback:

An old man who’s recently had a stroke frequents the library I work at as well. He doesn’t speak and he’s a bit of a jerk to the staff as he refuses to write down what he wants (his stroke did not affect his writing hand, he just doesn’t want to do it). He’d much rather flail his arms in every which and point into thin air to convey that he wants… something. It’s very hard to figure out.

He also has a card in his wallet that says “I’ve had a stroke and I can’t speak” that he shoves into our faces every time he comes in.

But I didn’t want to deal with all the flailing and wallet card so I kept pushing the paper and pencil towards him. He looked a little flustered until he got out his wallet card again, shoved it in my face and said (in perfect English, without any hint of a speech problem):

“This says I can’t speak! What’s your problem?”

The look on his face when he realized what he did was priceless and he’s now found a new library to frequent.

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Although he’s difficult to understand, I’ve had him tell me specifically that he needed to wait until his grandchildren come pick him up before; the last time I dealt with him before this episode, he didn’t have his library card with him and no identification whatsoever and said that he’d have to wait until his grandchildren picked him up. This is more or less where I’m getting confirmation that he’s being picked up and dropped off by other people at the library for hours at a time. Other workers have seen the guy’s caretakers, but I just haven’t seen them yet.

Justin_Bailey: That’s quite a funny story, and I can sympathize with you when it comes to the annoying older folks. We don’t get many of them in this area, but when we do, it’s where most of the snide comments about “where are my taxes going to?” and “why would I have to pay this?” in regard to fines. (Seriously, we’re lenient to the point where we don’t fine you until the book is a month overdue; then we send you a bill for the book with a processing fee tacked on. Library workers need to eat too!) The worst lady I ever got was one who balked at being billed, claimed she had returned them, didn’t listen to me when I explained to her our “claims returned” status option, and bitched about going to “the board” about it, even though she didn’t end up getting charged anything. After being a pain in my butt for ten minutes, she wandered off, felt embarrassed, and came up and apologized. At least she apologized and looked properly embarrassed about the situation.

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Yup. Being old does not give anyone a license to be an asshole.

Distinguishing the assholes, the people who take advantage of their situation to voluntarily abuse others, from people who actually have problems, is the key. I think of threads I’ve read here about people who have had personality changes and are abusive to their families.

There was a heartbreaking story in the Toronto Star on the weekend about a man who, one day, suddenly moved his family out of their house so that ‘the Martians could have a meeting there’. He ended up alone, living in a plywood box under an expressway.

What to do? I’ve heard of brain tumours causing such changes in personality. If your sweet loving wife becomes a violent harridan because of a brain tumour, is it her ‘fault’? Does that even matter? Surely people should still be held to the same standards of behaviour as before? What if they can’t maintain their behaviour of before?

I don’t know what should be the appropriate response in such situations. Maintain a standard of behaviour, and if you don’t meet it, out you go, regardless of reason?

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Nashiitashii I know you posted this as a rant AND I’m in an academic library, so my circumstances are a little different, but the first thing I’d do is make sure the branch manager (or whoever is in charge at the branch) is aware. If you want to ask people about options or opinions, you might try posting your question to the Publib list. It’s the type of question that does get asked there, and there are people who give good advice there (like all email lists, there are some who don’t, but…)

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[QUOTE=Justin_Bailey]
Quasi-related piggyback:
“This says I can’t speak! What’s your problem?”
You should have asked him if he could read either. :wink:

Old man with a stroke: $1200 taxpayer dollars.
Librarian wage/hr dealing with old man: $15.00/hr.
The look on the asshole’s face when he fucked up about the fact that he couldn’t speak: Priceless.

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Would like to point out that people who are assholes when they’re old were generally assholes when they were young. :wink:

As regards the OP, sadly, I doubt whether there’s anything you, or even a Branch Manager, can do about it. It’s perfectly legal for this guy to spend the entire day hanging around your library if he likes, and if his grandchildren or other caretakers like, and as long as he’s not disturbing other patrons or peeing on the rug, vomiting on the chairs, etc. So you probably can’t do anything.

If he were obviously homeless and was obviously simply hanging out at your place during the day because he had nowhere else to go, you could roust him. But that isn’t the case here, since he’s been asking for books and DVDs, (IOW, using the library’s resources), and you know he has somewhere to go.

And reporting him to some social services agency wouldn’t do much good, because if he’s competent and coherent enough to be able to do things like request books, then he probably doesn’t come under the purview of some agency.

And for all you know, maybe he enjoys the opportunity to get out of the house for an entire morning. There may not be anything else to do at home, so maybe it’s not that his grandkids are dumping him and forgetting him–maybe he tells them, “Come back at lunchtime.” An elderly grandparent with stroke damage and Alzheimers (and if he’s at the library asking for books on Alzheimer’s, it can’t be very advanced yet) is still, at some level, your grandparent, and when he says he wants to hang out at the library until lunchtime, you may go, “…ummm…” but in the end, you comply, because after all, he’s your granddad, and he’s a grownup and is supposed to know what he’s doing, and it’s just the library, it’s not like he’s asking to be dropped off at the dog races.

And people with stroke damage can still express quite definite preferences; they don’t turn into senile, helpless vegetables just because they have movement issues.

I think you’ll just have to add him to your list of mental patients and kids that you say in the OP you don’t mind looking after. :wink:

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I think part of it is just that I feel worse for him because it seems like he wishes he had one of his kids or grandkids around to help him communicate. He really is very difficult to understand, especially since he comes in during the afternoon when it starts to get busy and noise happens. We’re not an old fashioned public library with an agenda to keep it quiet enough for a pin to drop, but we don’t let people wander around shouting either. It’s just that his voice is about the volume of a whisper and he doesn’t enunciate well. ::shrugs:: At least he’s a nice old man, and I like helping him.

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**

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Nashiitashii: Your heart is in the right place – and if in fact you’re being used for adult-care services by insensitive pricks, you may have grounds for anger.

But based on my own experiences as the only member of my generation in a family who had all but one seen 40 come and go when I was born, it’s vitally important for them to retain as much independence as possible as long as possible, before surrendering to the need for caregivers. It may well be his choice to “go to the library by myself; I don’t need you holding my hand. I can get what I want, with the librarians’ help!” And people who love him enough to allow him that degree of dignity will let him as long as possible.

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snerk That’s excellent.

In a related irritation, my uncle – a retired fireman in his 60s who made some very wise investments – lives in Florida half the year. He gets irritated by very elderly people who are always in a terrible hurry and get huffy if they have to wait thirty seconds. His favorite thing to do is to grandly sweep his arm over his body and say to the huffing octagenarian behind him, “You go ahead. I have all the time in the world. I’m retired.”

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And that, really, is all that’s absolutely necessary to keep hope alive in the world for one more day. Thank you.

He seems to have made a big impression after only two encounters, but I, as others have, wonder if perhaps you’re not underestimating him a little with respect to his abilities for cognition and self-direction. If his communication and movement are impaired, they may be presenting a false image of his true intellectual capacity. Heaven knows, not knowing how a DVD works is not evidence that he needs constant supervision.

I am well aware that America’s public librarians are the unofficial and uncompensated daytime guardians of every citizen who probably should be institutionalized but isn’t, and I can’t imagine, much less summon up in myself, the patience and courage and wisdom and humor required to be a caretaker of a temple of knowledge that has been converted into a bi-directional halfway house. So thanks again, and good luck, but be wary of projecting your feelings onto old people, even the infirm, who may be perfectly capable of feelings of their own.

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Back when I was in med school I did a couple of rotations at the VA, and every Thursday night and Friday morning we’d get a rush of what we called “pop drops”. People would bring their elderly dad or grandpa to the ER knowing that we couldn’t refuse admissions, claiming vague mental status changes or dehydration. The patient would check out fine, but by the time we finished the exam the family was long gone. They’d show back up on Sunday night or Monday in brand new T-shirts from Gatlinburg or King’s Island.

We actually didn’t mind this–they were easy admissions, and we recognized that caregivers need a break. Still felt a little used, though.

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It really had nothing to do with not knowing how a dvd works, but the content of the reference interviews. The guy has a lot of trouble finding words, although that may not necessarily be a symptom of Alzheimer’s, but looking disoriented a vast majority of the time doesn’t help his case either. The thing is, he spoke fluently enough for me to believe he wouldn’t have an ESL-related issue with vocabulary choice, so I assumed he probably did have some signs of it. It would just be easier to have someone with him that could understand him better (I’m sure there has to be someone who at least sort of understands him all the time) to make sure we’re responding to what he’s actually requesting; I do have a nervous “what if I’m hearing him incorrectly?” feeling when I deal with him.