Ok, maybe not lazy but just like all her friends - addicted to texting and avoiding work as work is at every turn.
The young lady arrives late, returns Mel early and spends copious time texting. Today she took Mel in her car and left her there while she jumped out and paid her rent. I wondered if she writes down the mileage and whether she will claim for the journey to pay her rent! I was peeved when I heard Mel recounting today's time with her.
It made me think about the many times Merv's support workers have waited for me to leave before ringing their friends or family and having very long chats. I've walked in on numerous such incidents. The worst scenarios are where the support worker sits at the dining table doing her homework or other activity while Merv sits in another room watching inappropriate TV programs.
We all know it's not just support workers who are eager to keep their phones close at hand, talking, texting and checking whatever app is the favourite of the week.
A recent study went as far to say full time workers are often doing two hours work and wasting the other six hours. I think back to my employment days.
There are coffee machines, chats of variable length while pushing buttons and steaming milk, toilet breaks, friendly chats to other members of staff. Nothing to do with the job, social chit chat.
We talk at length to clients to whom we provide a service or product. We end the conversation with chatter of our footy teams, the weather, oh please not politics!
We bond, we take sides, we question and make judgement while our workload increases and forgotten.
Our schools have sorted themselves out. They collect the student's mobile phones before school returning them after the last bell. They are children and we treat them as such, as we should.
Adults? What is a solution or compromise here? No-one knows.
