I thought I had seen it all...

There was a knock on the door today at 11:20 AM. I opened the door and a woman was standing at the door giving me a very dirty look! She looked like she wanted to kill me. Huh! I had never seen this person before in my life. Why was she looking at me this way? Was it because I'm white and she's black? Was she a reverse racist? Was it because she was expecting to see Donna, not a man? But, why the dirty look? Well, I asked her if she was from the home health care agency, and rather than answer my question she just asked me if Donna was there and walked right past me into the kitchen. It turned out that she was the substitute aide for today. Donna's regular Thurs. AM aide had a dentist's appointment. No one from the agency called to tell us that a substitute was coming. Don't you think that on your first day at a new job the proper response when someone answers the door is to say "Hello, I am so and so"...or "I'm from the agency", or just plain "Hello"? If she showed up the first day at any other job and just stood staring at her supervisor with a dirty look, I don't think that she would last long. As it turned out, she was not a good aide, and she won't be back...at Donna's request! She was either high on drugs or mentally ill...or both! No matter what Donna said or asked of her she would break out in giggles. "Can you make me breakfast?" "Giggle, giggle..." "Can you help me straighten my pants leg?" "Giggle, giggle..." It went on this way for the whole time that she was with us. She would even break out in giggles when she was just standing or sitting alone doing nothing but waiting for Donna to finish whatever she was doing. Several times during the course of her stay Donna asked her, "What are you laughing at?" "I wasn't laughing", was her response, even though that was plainly not true! And I thought I had seen it all! I want to make it clear that I mean no disrespect towards people who have mental illness, if that's what her problem is. But Donna has a severe disability and needs very competent help, and this woman couldn't do the job properly...and that's the bottom line. I should mention that we had a different substitute aide for two other mornings this week and she was excellent. So, I guess we're batting 500.