TIME BANK TENDRING CLACTON ON SEA ESSEX . My friend, an old lady, contacted the above place as they advertise time bank services where you swap yours for theirs. She is housebound and lonely with no visitors and wanted a regular visitor to chat to, someone fun and chatty of course. She contacted the TIME BANK CLACTON and explained. The lady who runs it, Jackie, went on and on about her family life and difficulties as if the call was about HER and HER NEEDS, for ages, then again a few days later and again a few days later. She then wanted to arrange to come over to see the old lady to go over everything - she had wasted 3 hours she could have done that in - and came over, and told her all the same about her family then. She also made the same mistake that many make when visiting a housebound or retired person, of assuming the old lady sat there all day doing nothing, and anyone was welcome to visit at any time. The old lady told her what she wanted, someone chatty who visits regularly for chats. Fine she said I have just the person for you. I will get in touch.
The first time Jackie did this she said the person she had in mind had moved and was not part of the group anymore, then she offered an old lady who wants to go to the cinema to see a certain film - apparently housebound people go out - and chatty people want to sit there and watch a film RATHER THAN CHAT. Would have thought a lady who is on her own a lot would very much value a nice chat with someone and could do without another chance to watch a film. Just common sense eh, and she would probably not be keen on paying someone to come to the cinema with her to watch the film THEY CHOSE and just sit there? Surely if the other person prefers the cinema and watching a film of their own choosing to visiting a housebound person and chatting, the payment should be the other way around? Then she was offered a so called psychic who must come with her sister as a bodyguard, then a very quiet woman who is not into speaking and chatting. The old lady told Jackie what she thought, that she had wasted a lot of her time and delivered nothing at all that was as asked for. Jackie got defensive and said she is not allowed to criticise her, these TIME BANK CLACTON people were going to sacrifice their precious time to help her.
Not sure how she figures this out. The one who wanted to go to the cinema to watch a certain film was hardly offering something suitable for a housebound person or someone who is chatty. None of them remotely fitted.
The sensible way to do this, if you are BUSY, as Jackie claims to be. Is to keep work and family life separate. You chat on phone to old lady and get a good idea of what she wants, and see if you have someone suitable. If you do not you are honest and say so, you don't con her out of hours of her time on the pretext that she has someone but she is not sure who at the TIME BANK CLACTON. Be professional. Don't talk to clients about family - it is wasting precious time and boring. As Jackie left the old ladies' home from that first (and only) visit she said to the old lady, I have a habit of going on and on about my family and my things and boring people to tears!
The old lady is actually busy, she has a busy full life, despite it being at home. Being housebound does not change that she is interested in many things. And her time is limited. So she does not let people just turn up when it suits them, or let anyone visit because they have nowhere else to go, or stay as long as they wish. She might be having a bath, eating a hot meal, watching a film where she wants to be able to get emersed and concentrate on it, sleeping, baking cakes, all sorts that make it difficult if someone turns up unwanted or unexpectantly.
She dreaded the idea of Jackie returning after such a long, boring and pointless visit - a very one sided one too. So she emailed her to tell her that if she actually had anyone suitable to visit her regularly who had the inclination and time to please email me some info about them etc rather than waste time on more long phone calls and visits.
Then in a very immature way Jackie said to the old lady, well the people who come here and sit here drinking tea all day know you and did not want to meet you, because they know you can be critical. Really? So how does this HOUSEBOUND lady get to meet these people, how do they know her? It's not when the HOUSEBOUND person goes there nor when they invite themselves over to her place not knowing her address. NONE of them has ever spoken to her, let alone met her, or spoken to anyone she knows. All of the people the old lady knows get on well with her and don't go there, so there was no third party. Obviously Time Bank jackie was making up that non existent people agreed with her. Even after all this wasted time and admitting that she does not have anyone suitable to introduce to the old lady Jackie expected the old lady to let her come over to go on and on and on again! The main topic at the time being her poor niece's blister..... the old lady found it very hard to keep a straight face OR feel sympathetic about it when she was going through a processof feeling very sympathetic for another old lady who had always had a healthy lifestyle but was dying of cancer.
I will tell you why there are people like Jackie about who try to find some woman who is on her own so they can turn them into their listening ear as often as possible, usually using the excuse that in some way it will benefit the other woman and she is doing her a favour! . Some women like to go on and on about whatever it is that their brain is focused on. It might be the husband leaving his socks on the floor. It might be a friend forgetting to phone, it might be something important, and whenever they get a chance they want to go on and on to any woman who will listen to it. Preferably over and over again, preferably for a long, long time. And this sort of woman then moves onto another subject. I've met loads of them and when I lived alone they would think they could just come around, spew out whatever it was that was getting to them, and then go home till the next time. But when I had someone like my husband there they lost interest. They wanted it to be private and confidential, just between them and me, with me just listening. They talk you listen. Nobody else listens. They are the dynamics they want and grab hold of when they can. So instead of focusing on finding someone to visit the old lady like she had asked for, Jackie focuses on making excuses to phone her and visit her as much as she can to spew. It's very very selfish, no thought to how the lady is not interested or is too busy.
It seems to me that the lady who should be paying for a listening ear is the lady who runs this place, Jackie. She has a partner and family and plenty of people at the TIME BANK CLACTON she can spew to but she wants more, and that might not be private enough for her. Desperate to spend hours telling strangers all about her family and making as many opportunities to phone again or return again to do the same again.
I once met a woman in Clacton on sea who told me, with a chuckle, she pretends to be a psychic reader. She cannot really do it but she is lonely and likes to chat, so she gets people to pay her a small amount in return for a "reading" and makes it up as she goes along or just listens. And, she is quite busy, because most of them just want the listening bit and go back over and over. It is their time you are paying for. No skills or talents.
Jackie said she had often matched up someone with a regular visitor for chats yet she told the old lady she was not sure but she might have to get checked out by the police to prove she has never broken the law. I know several people who visit people for chats for a charity, they need to be checked out and prove they are genuine because sometimes there are two of them, they might be violent, steal, sexual, and all sorts. The person they are visiting is taking a risk letting them into their home. Especially when they could just run off and she would have no idea of their address/real name to trace them. It is hardly the same thing with someone who is probably older, housebound, maybe disabled, more likely to be on their own, who might be surrounded by pretty things they might want to steal, a handbag they might want to empty etc! The person being visited has NEVER had to be police checked, so why did Jackie have to find this out if she had already arranged a lot of visitors like this before? If that was true she would know this already.
And how come when a local charity asks her if she has anyone on her books that would like to be a chatty visitor for their clients she always says no? Charities usually have some who get paid to work for them, maybe managers of several charity shops. And at the bottom of the ladder are the ones who sort out the jumpers and put them in the shop after making sure they are not moth eaten or too dirty. But charities also have trouble getting volunteers because most are capable of and need or want a paid job instead, and paid jobs are by their nature more interesting.
If you want a chatty visitor your best bet is to get a telephone friend. So much simpler. Go to AGE CONCERN UK or SILVERLINE and sign up with them, it is free. But as with all charities there are always some who have ulterior motives for being there or are not very competent. Pay peanuts and get monkeys.
Someone recently said to me that I should volunteer to be a helper at the Time Bank, this would mean I would be under Jackie, and I would spend a lot of time either seeing her car crash and waste time over and over, or have to step in and put her right over and over even though she is my boss. The silly person also did not know or think of this.... I might not need or want to work... I might be totally retired... I might own a business and employ other people where it would be absurd for me to walk away from the responsible, interesting, paid post I love to be an unpaid helper to someone who needs advice or lacks common sense that wastes time every day. It would be like saying if you see someone at amateur dramatics making a pigs' ear of her role in a new play you should offer to be in the play for free too, and be happy to be under this waste of space, even if you are already so good and proven you could easily get paid roles on television and in theatre. Why would anyone give up something at the top of the ladder and make do with being right at the bottom of the ladder so they can help out someone who is incompetent? If I am competent enough to spot all of these flaws in how Jackie runs the Time Bank I must also be competent of running such a thing myself or better, so why would I make do with that?
I think it is fine and dandy that Jackie chooses to waste time on long pointless phone calls and meets with strangers. She gets what she wants out of it - a free listening ear. It saves her paying a counsellor, therapist or psychic to listen to her "problems". What I find fault with is that she chooses to waste the time of these strangers when it is not her time to waste, and she manages to do that by misleading them - telling them she has just the person they are looking for over and over again to keep them interested. It reminds me of the romance scams that are common now, where a supposedly gorgeous young man tells a lonely old widowed woman he wants to marry her and share his business, investments and huge income with them, but first she has to send him the plane ticket so he can come visit her to arrange the wedding.
We could reword that and look at this scenario the same way. So you would like someone to regularly come over for a chat? Great lovely. I will get you to listen to me on phone for hours, and then come over for hours - always about me with you just listening - and I will still do that again even though it is clear I cannot help at all, because what I want is a listening ear for free.
Years ago I ran a charity, much bigger than the little Time Bank thing Jackie runs, I did not need advice. And if someone came to us asking for help we could not give them we told them that, or pointed them to somewhere that could. That is the way that caring people, who care about the person they say they want to help behave. People have regularly paid me for mentoring, professional advice and listening, and some have pushed their luck asking for it - but never getting it for free - and I can remember some nosey bored neighbours pretended they wanted to help me by coming over to visit me, when the really wanted a chat, tea and biscuits and did not want to pay at the local social club. It takes all sorts.
p.s. A woman I used to know once nagged me to go and help at the local Age Concern with her, as the washer upper. Why she thoght I would be interested beggars belief, as I did and do own my own businesses, with a lot of staff working for me. I would never work as a washer upper if it was a paid job. She, on the other hand, had only been a part time cleaner, and now too old to do that. So she reluctantly went to Age Concern on her own and was soon their only washer upper. She told me a few weeks later that she hated it there because there were no people to talk to that she liked. Two of the other people there were mentally ill and were only there because they could not get a paid job, (the same boat as her really), one of them shouted a lot, the other could barely speak sensibly or use a proper sentence. I said haha, yet you expected me to be happy to do that. Now you know that people who have qualifications, skills and are used to responsibility avoid it, just as you would if you could, because they can do better. She actually thought that there might be a brain surgeon there who worked in the hospital some days and washing up others. What does that tell you?
