This post was written weeks ago and somehow didn’t get published. I thought I’d still post it but with the update that i did find someone from a pa finding agency and whilst not perfect it did go OK. I’m not sure how long she will stay but I’m hopeful I can make it work in the medium term and get some stability. Keep fingers crossed for me please.
7 months of recruitment and counting. 7 months and I am now on to PA 14. Some awol, some dismissed, some redundant, some moving on to new jobs or study, some unsuitable. Some lasted a 2 -7 day trial, some for months.
There’s reasons why there’s been so many, but it does sound bad doesn’t it? Factor in that 5 of those PAs are my new team (one left to recruit) and it’s a little better. Reality is I’ve had temp after temp. People unsuited to the role, who could only do it short term, or who were not interested in the role as it changed when my funding did. That’s 7 months of looking for someone to meet my basic needs, often at the last minute . 14 people I’ve had to find, meet and train. 9 times I’ve had to deal with someone leaving or worse to take action against them to end their employment. All in 7 months! Thank goodness I’ve had help. I’ve not done any in person interviews. At first I did things by email but then I switched to someone doing a phone interview on my behalf.
4 -5 of those months were spent not knowing what my budget was so having no choice but to use temporary workers before switching to a more permanent system.
Now I have to find someone by next week. I’m getting feedback that people are seeing my Gumtree adverts come up over and over again and assuming that I can’t retain staff. The ads have been up since August when I began looking for permanent staff. I guess they’ve been up 3 months now and so people must be wondering how many PAs I’ve gotten through since then: one a week? One a month? ….I feel so defensive about it – that I don’t want people to think I’m so awful people run away. I can’t post the reason it didn’t work out with the two people I trialled on my blog obviously but it wasn’t my fault. Sometimes job trials just don’t work out.
I don’t have the energy to heal. I’m continually having to work in recruitment, training or management. Then when I’m not I’m full of adrenaline or anxious so not resting. It’s no wonder my health has gone so downhill.
I’ve decided to come off my clonazepam. I’ve been tapering a bit too fast and having some nasty withdrawal symptoms so am now going to go more slowly (whilst aiming for weeks to months rather than years) . I’m shattered but have so much to do. I feel like I work from home and never get a day off. The only days I get off are the ones even I just about crash and can’t do any more.
Wake me up when my recruitment is sorted? Wake me up when this year ends?
beyond bed 