Corporate Power Over Your Seniors

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

I'm in a senior assisted living complex in Portland, Oregon.  Incidently, it costs close to $8,000 per month, and we also just had a raise in our rent, since we have very small apartments here.  The majority of us aren't rich people, having to sell home and car and whatever we've saved for retirement to meet this rent along with our Social Security money.  

One thing we enjoy every morning is going down to our dining room and having that first cup of coffee.  I note that as seniors, many of us wake and rise at 5:00am, and get down to the dining room via the one elevator at 7:30 and get that hot cup.  

  These are starbucks coffee urns and they look just like our broken one.  I just heard one costs $3,000.  USA. 28th Jan, 2023. Starbucks coffee urns are visible in a hotel lobby in Walnut Creek, California, January 28, 2023. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Sipa USA) Credit: Sipa US/Alamy Live News.  

The past three weeks have been torture.  The coffee urn was not there, and coffee had to be boiled by the chef in many pots on the stove;  old fashioned camp coffee with grounds left in the cup coffee.  I've counted 12 days so far spread over these three weeks. One day we received about 1/3 Cup coffee for each of us.  A recent day turned out to have NO coffee at all.  I actually had to resort to using my MJB bag and hot water in the microwave.  It's not the same.

  We made coffee in our home on the stove with this percolator

                                                  

                  Some people had the fancy electric percolator later.  

The story behind this is that the old large coffee maker finally broke down and they had to contact Corporate who is in G-d only knows what state, and they sent out a broken coffee-maker.  Evidently they were not allowed to return it for a working one,  It turns out that they need a special man to plug it into the wall socket.  Now this happens to be the lamest excuse I've ever heard, in competition with 'my dog ate my homework," and I'm expected to swallow it.  

    Here's a picture of a restaurant's kitchen.  We are not allowed into ours here; federal sanitation laws, I guess.  

Also, information was told that the warmer used to keep food warm was broken down-thus many cold servings, and the oven hasn't been working correctly since the chefs have been here.  They thought these expenses had to come out of their small food budget for extras, since much of our food comes from Corporate who own many things, even like the spices in packets on our table.  They follow corporate menus as well to use the food.  Any good business would have an allotment of money set aside monthly for repairs, but they had no idea that they were not holding up the coffee; that they were not responsible for paying for the  coffee-maker out of their budget.  

Update:  14th day and the ice-maker broke  down today.  So did I laughing when we received word to be very patient.  

One of my friends mentioned that she was told about all the wires in the back of the coffee maker with one handling decaf coffee.  It takes a special person to hook it up.  Perhaps, but then he didn't come with the coffee-maker, so what good was the delivery without that special person?

15th day and we found the carafe of water left over from last night on our tables.  Of course, no ice in it. We did have a special surprise treat to eat with our boiled coffee.   

Here we are complaining and feel terrible hearing about the assisted living in Pennsylvania heated with gas that had a gas leak and when the man came out to investigate, it all blew up and many were killed.  We heard that about 165 were residents and they had 130 caretakers in it.  What a wonderful ratio!  But they had broken all the rules about the gas.  

Then there's the Ukranians, bravely defending their land and way of life being bombed by Russia.  Yes, we have had patience so far.