To feel deflated after a charity xmas do hearing a paid worker saying it was a 'free lunch' for them?

[YNK]

I had an injury and joined a great charity group a few years ago to meet for coffee once a week and to enjoy activities and support each other.

Some members are in residential care due to the severity of their condition so they are always accompanied by carers, others have fully recovered.
Members pay for activities and weekly meetings and pay happily and willingly for the chance to meet and socialise.

Some members have suffered and been compensated legally for injuries caused and many are now financially secure and if assistance is provided, I feel this 'them and us' divide is hurtful.

After a very nice xmas lunch, as we were leaving a group of paid carers could be heard saying it was at least a decent 'free lunch'

I feel grubby now and I'm thinking of leaving the group - AIBU?

Some people have got no tact. I'm not surprised it made you feel like that. Just try and remember they were there to support the people that the charity supports rather than being the subject of the support. I don't suppose that the carers free lunch is what the charity supporters thought they were donating to but if they facilitated the actual beneficaries of the charity being there then I guess that is an incidental cost. Very rude even true.

I'm not sure I understand why carers who OP doesn't know would feel honored to be invited to this lunch?

And why when one carer makes a remark, the OP is then thinking of leaving the group, even though this carer isn't affiliated in anyway with the group and OP hasn't even seen them before?

And why OP is expecting these carers, who again she doesn't know, to be invited as friends. They aren't even her carers

It's a bit of an odd set up. The carers are nothing to do with the group and are there to support their client. It's a nice gesture to invite them but it's still a work lunch. It's a bit patronising to think a carer would be honored to be treated to a free lunch with essentially a load of people they don't know.

No, the Op has not explained herself well at all but if you think so perhaps you can enlighten us as to the meaning of this:

Some members have suffered and been compensated legally for injuries caused and many are now financially secure and if assistance is provided, I feel this 'them and us' divide is hurtful.

How are you understanding that?

If you are talking about the nuances in the kind of relationship between carers and the cared for then how does the OP understand them being as the OP is neither of those things.

I would say the OP's idea of carers and how they should be is the problem, it comes across from the OP as We paid for your lunch you ungrateful wretches.

A childcare worker providing childcare is only doing it because it’s paid work.

Do you really believe they would look after peppels
children for free?

Some members have suffered and been compensated legally for injuries caused and many are now financially secure and if assistance is provided, I feel this 'them and us' divide is hurtful.

This really confused me too.

Is she saying some members have a lot of money and those providing assistance (i.e. the carers) do not and she finds the divide hurtful?

As in carers should be grateful the members have money?

I was my husbands unpaid carer - wasn’t eligible for carers allowance because of our ages. I had to take him to things like lunches or he wouldn’t have been able to attend. I was never asked to pay for my meal and didn’t for one minute think someone would object. If you’re there as a carer most of the time you’re doing just that - toilet trips and feeding my husband was my first priority.

Your post makes me sad - I never for one moment thought I was freeloading but some people obviously see it that way. Maybe walk a mile in our shoes.

Of all the AIBU threads I have ever read on MN, this one really has to take the prize for being the most unreasonable of all time.

@Lifeasiknowitisout I know they are doing it for money. But can you imagine if a parent overheard a worker say well glad that its over and I can go home now.

Well I imagine 99% of us would say something like “I don’t blame you, I don’t know how you do it!”

You would actually be offended? You think people should look after your children for the privilege?

I take it you haven’t seen the DIL who’s about to go NC with all her in-laws because they forgot her wedding anniversary?😂😂😂

Roughly 1250 people so far have voted that you are unreasonable and you still keep doubling down.

Why even post in AIBU if you’re that entrenched in your position?

Of course! And give thanks each day at their luck of employment! Sticking to childcare example is it not more like teachers going to the panto with the kids and saying 'at least we got free tickets'?

But looking after other peoples off spring is work. I don’t think you’ll find a childcare worker who would do it for the pure love of wiping snotty noses and pooy bums and trying to stop kids eating/ sand/ paint/ toys all day.

i have 3 friends who work in 3 different nursery’s and trust me they all see it as work. They’re good at their jobs and nice to the kids, but they all say that the last couple of years cohorts of kids have been really tough and they’re all at the end of their tethers. So yeah, they def see it as work, even if they like some of the kids. It’s the same in care, you can like your service users, but it’s still very much work.

Based on some of the children I have met, I wouldn't do it for money, never mind for free.

Surely if you heard this you would laugh and say you deserve a big glass of wine after all that!!!!

I can’t imagine being offended that a childcare worked finds spending eight hours with small children exhausting and at times frustrating! They are human.

there is some silliness on this thread

I would not be offended but I think some parents would be.

😂 Oh dear!

I think some posters have misinterpreted what the OP said. It sounds as though the lunch wasn’t funded by the charity, or the carers’ employers - it was paid for directly by OP and her friends. My understanding is that they invited the carers at their own expense, not to provide care support but as guests, because they see them as part of the group, and to say thank you. Given that, while I do think OP is being a bit over-sensitive, I can see why she was hurt that what she saw as a gift wasn’t received as such, and was instead taken as something to be put up with for the sake of a free lunch.

"there is some silliness on this thread"
That's exceptionally polite to describe some of what's happening here, the OP set the tone with one of the strangest AIBU I've ever seen!
Edited to add I've just read @CornflakesOnTheSolesOfHerShoes' explanation, which makes the whole tale a lot clearer to me. Now I understand better why the OP's gruntle has been dissed.

I think she means it the other way round-

*Because of this overheard comment she now thinks the carers are looking down on the service users-

*She didn’t previously think the carers had a ‘them and us’ attitude, and for some reason she thinks that income disparity comes into it ie-

• she believes that the carers were looking down on the service users because they are poor disabled people (there is a common belief that disabled people who need carers are surviving on benefits, and that does mean some people look down on them)

*so she is pointing out that the service users are financially secure and therefore on the same level as the carers.

That was how I read it anyway.

They benefit from paid work and we appreciate their help, which is why we wanted them to have a nice time with us.

That's the comment which makes me think that actually the op looks down on the carers rather than vice versa. The carers are benefitting, they are lucky to have these jobs. Its an appalling attitude to people who are going to more than likely be worse off than the op.

OP, I'm a teacher. So I'm not a carer, but I'm in a caring profession.

For all of December, my every weekend is taken yo with things related to work. There's the school Christmas fete, the Christmas fundraiser, the PTA lunch, the school council lunch, the staff do, etc. I technically don't have to attend all those functions, but on another level I absolutely do.

I have children, and a fiance. I have elderly parents who may not see many more Christmas seasons. My oldest is at boarding school, and when she's home for the holidays I want to spend as much time as possible with her. My sister and nieces are only bearby for these few weeks outbofvthe year. I am grateful to be invited to events and they are also a drain on my time and energy during a very busy season. Both those things can be and are true at once.

It doesn't mean I don't love my pupils. I adore them. I am very happy to be their teacher. It does mean that I have a life outside of work and that every work event I feel pressured to attend takes hours away from time I could be spending with my family. But at least it's a free lunch.

Feeling a bond with colleagues at work is one of the best things about work no matter how much you earn. It makes a crappy job more pleasant.

But this is more than being expected to bond with colleagues, it’s being expected to bond with service users.

Thanks Treacle. It’s very strangely worded.