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Do you assume people will be honest or vice versa?

April 14th, 2015 at 01:17 am

I got the ok from my boss to work at home all last week so I could select and set up a home care agency to have an aide come in and look after my mother on a regular basis.

We had an in-home visit with the agency head and the aide they selected for us. It seemed to go well enough and she is scheduled to start this week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So I feel like I accomplished a lot.

I'm hoping this makes my mother feel less anxious about things and less inclined to call me every time she has a thought.

This past weekend, I took her to a memorial service for a friend of hers who died just short of her 100th birthday. Shortly after I got home after dropping her off, I get a message on my machine from my mother saying can you please help set up the new answering machine I bought for my phone. Pull my hair out time. It's always something, and no matter how much time I spend helping her with stuff, there's always more.

I suggested this is the kind of thing the aide can do. I arranged for the plumber's return visit to coincide with the time the aide will be there tomorrow as well so my mother won't have to deal with the plumber alone.

I tried to get my mother to move her many little jewelery boxes from out of plain site on her bedroom dressers to somewhere hidden. I said I'm sure her aide was honest and trustworthy, but there's no need to put a temptation in front of them. My mother said she doesn't like to assume the worst in people and didn't want to move her jewelry boxes. I did get her to pick out a few of her more valuable items and we hid them together under some clothing in a drawer.

I must confess that when she wasn't looking, I fished out a few more items I know to be valuable and took them home for safekeeping. Hopefully we can fully trust the aide, but if we can't, we would otherwise learn the hard way and the items would never be recovered, so why take a chance? I actually wish I could take more jewelery home for safekeeping as my mother has some lovely pieces, but I'm afraid my mother might notice and say something. As it is, I doubt she will notice the missing items I have taken, which just goes to prove my point: if the aide did ever take anything, she's never know it and that would be that.

Then today my mother tells me about some letter she has concerning property tax relief, which says you have until May to file, yada yada yada. I told her to save it for me til I could read it myself. She's filed in the past and you have to refile every 2 years. This is a big deal as it saves her a lot of money. After I hang up from her I check my emails and I find one from her outlining what the form says. In it she wrote that the filing deadline was May of 2014. So who knows if my mother took care of this...last year....or not. Yet another thing I have to look into, in addition to getting a grab bar installed in her shower and replacing the broken lower lock on her entry door.

Sunday was a day I had all to myself. I enjoyed it very much as it was a gorgeous day and I spent several hours gardening, doing general cleanup in the yard. So nice, and soon the daffodils and tulips will bloom.

Today I walked 40 minutes at lunch and another 25 minutes after work, as a stress reliever.

5 Responses to “Do you assume people will be honest or vice versa?”

  1. snafu Says:
    1428975382

    You might feel better checking with the home care agency to determine if they require their aides be vetted by police and be bonded. If mom has valuable jewelry, it's important to set them out on a plain, dark piece of fabric and take photos for both, insurance and peace of mind. We've a rider on our household insurance for valuable [named] jewelry and there doesn't seem to be an added cost on the statement. If they haven't been appraised in the past 10 years, you might watch for seasonal promotions, sometimes around Mother's Day.

    Would it help to keep a running list of 'mom' chores, and keep telling her that you've added the most recent requests to the list? Would it upset your mom if you delegated tasks appropriate to her job description to the aide?.
    ...just random thoughts

  2. DecisiveParadox Says:
    1428985976

    Unfortunately I have learnt that even honest people, with enough temptation or just a bad day, can steal.
    Remember, only people you trust can betray you.
    I have lost count of the amount of business dealings, family transactions and investments people I know or know of have had go bad because someone at the opportune moment decided to be un-trust worthy.
    When my wife an I were in our early 20's we go invited in a real estate deal with her parents. they are extremely wealthy (close to 10 million) and we were extremely close. we gave them everything we had. 15K at the time. 18 months later the deal closed and our split was 45K.
    It never arrived. They flat out told us no, they were keeping it. we still have not spoken to them 7 years on. My wife was devastated, these were her loving supportive parents and they stole every sent we had saved.
    Why would people worth multiple millions steal 45K? I have no idea. They other partner in the deal was her brother and they paid him out.
    We Consider ourselves lucky though. we trusted them so much we would have given them every cent we had. now we have a lot more saved than back then so, by comparison it was a cheap lesson that even those closest to have a point they will steal.

    Bye

  3. LivingAlmostLarge Says:
    1429011461

    pretty honest see my blog for recent craigslist experience.

  4. CB in the City Says:
    1429017660

    I would push your mother to be careful with the jewelry, as you are doing. I'm pretty sure a babysitter stole a diamond ring from me -- unfortunately I didn't miss it until it was way too late to do anything about it.

  5. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1429055129

    I'm glad you had Sunday to rest and rejuvenate. It sounds like you really needed the time and space.

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