Mandy Harfst

Review of Christopher Heights of Northam...

Do you really want your loved ones taken care of s...

Do you really want your loved ones taken care of somewhere where hardworking employees are disposable? Let me tell you a story about a hardworking blonde girl who worked at the front desk at the very height of the pandemic. (TLDR: I worked extremely hard at the height of the pandemic, got very sick because of the job, and was stabbed in the back).

I started at Christopher Heights Noho on April 3, 2020 when the pandemic was at it's very worst. I was the full time front desk receptionist, and worked 40 hours per week. I was the first point of contact and as such, I kept people out when needed, I spent 8 hours at front desk I could seldom leave for safety reasons to keep covid at bay, while dealing things far beyond the scope of my job. I was the one yelled at by callers because they couldn't come visit, I was the one who was yelled at when people couldn't sign up for activities due to capacity, I was yelled at when people didn't get things when they wanted exactly when they wanted it. That was part of the job though. I did the job extremely well, and both staff and residents were very pleased with my work. They told me so all the time.

Then I got sick. The two and a half months of spending 8 hours a day playing security, referee, customer service agent, activities coordinator, clerical assistant, mail sorter, shop assistant, editor, and listener to the lonely residents broke me. I ended up hospitalized after the stress of it all right after the director, Michael Taylor, was fired for not being perfect during the pandemic and not bringing in enough money.

The worst part? With no director, and no receptionist (that was me), I had no point of contact when I was hospitalized because I was never informed of call-in protocol. I kept them updated from the very first day I got to the ER. I had planned to come back. So many of my calls went ignored. I decided it wasn't for me, but then thought that since they needed the help, I would be willing to do part-time, but this wasn't good enough for them.

I saw another position at a different Christopher Heights that was part-time nights and figured it would be perfect. Less stress, and I even had people to speak of all my hard work since the at Northampton knew the Webster Director! How perfect!

But I was stabbed in the back by the very people I had given up my time, efforts, and sanity to help in the midst of a deadly pandemic. They told the new position that I wasn't rehirable because the leaving process didn't go smoothly. Why? Because my calls were never returned, I could never get a hold of the new director that they didn't even have until after. When I spoke to someone I was lied to over and over again. At that point all I needed was a letter saying that I had quit. One sentence in length with a signature, but they couldn't do this one thing for me. Even after having my therapist, outreach worker, DMH worker all reach out. I had to FIGHT AND FIGHT for a one sentence statement and had NO PERSON TO CONTACT. The only contact I had was Jerry, one of the people who was seldom there, and she either dodged my calls or lied. How could an off-boarding process be smooth when there is nobody there and no procedure in place?

Essentially because I had a disability and needed them to work with me, like I worked with them, they blacklisted me.

Anyways, if you send a disabled family member where they don't even value disabled workers then you are setting your family member up for trouble.