Pros
It’s honestly such a pleasure working for a non-for-profit after working for private companies. It’s very apparent that Stone Belt prioritizes the well-being of clients and ensuring they are being taken care of properly and enjoy themselves. Most of the shifts are just spending time with them, which makes the work seem informal and breezy. The clientele is amazing. I love all of my clients and I enjoy seeing them when I come into work. The work is not very difficult, if you enjoy social work and unpredictability. I know this is not a plus for everyone, but I love the chaos of a full house of clients at dinner! Helping clients clean themselves and doing house cleaning chores are not too bad and only a small part of the day all in all. Lifts are available for those who can’t physically pick someone up on their own. Pay is decent, and benefits are available at only 32 hours a week. Plenty of hours are available. It’s easy to move up as long as you’ve worked for a few months and show interest in open positions. Changing positions, changing houses and clients, and changing schedules is very doable. Flexibility is a major plus for me.
Cons
A lot of the cons end up being the fault of our market economy and not so much the fault of this particular company. Stone Belt is, after all, a non-for-profit, and gets most of its budget from the state and donations. The biggest problem overall is the lack of good staff. Most of the staff is alright, a few are truly great, and many are really awful. I’ve seen some genuinely terrible people get moved up to management positions just because nobody else could take the gig. The amount of people that get hired and leave within the first month or so is staggering. Because the free market incentivizes people to work as little as possible because they’re only there for a paycheck, a LOT of the staff is really lazy. Expect to do a lot of work while other staff look at their phones. Expect people to constantly be late without calling. Expect to have staff leave early to avoid helping for activities, cleaning up, etc. The “training” you go through is incredibly useless. The mostly arbitrary rules and guidelines imposed by the state are good ideas in practice but unhelpful at work. Most staff skirt around them. And the rules imposed by the company itself are laughably unenforced. Staff will talk about personal and client information as if clients cannot hear them or understand them. Another key aspect lacking in this business is ableism- something the company *should* care about, but isn’t reflected in what I see clocked in. Staff are not penalized for being rude to clients, and many of the rules regarding client living is condescending and demeaning. This reflects in a poor attitude among the staff regarding clients.
