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At one corporation where I temped, one of the team members took time every afternoon to pull up Jason Mraz's bouncy tune, "I'm Yours," on YouTube (on the company computers) and call out "Chair dance!" We'd be literally rolling, spinning, and swiveling our desk chairs around the room to the music. Data entry is one of the most monotonous jobs in the world - it was a nice, fun little energy boost that woke us all up during the afternoon "slump."
Expecting a worker to be nothing but a total drudge on the job is a recipe for receiving a resignation.
Many people who hire home care agencies have never had the experience of being managers. They [people who hire home care agencies] either mistakenly assume the home care agencies are responsible for telling the home caregivers how to do their [home caregivers] jobs or they [people who hire home care agencies] expect the home caregivers to tell them [people who hire home care agencies] how they [home caregivers] are supposed to do their [home caregivers] jobs. Many home caregivers take advantage of this and may even expect it after awhile.
Think about it. How many times do you see others using the Internet for non-work purposes while they are working? The only times I've seen this done is when people have desk jobs and they answer the phone or text to give a short reply or tell the person they will get back to them during the next break.
These are the main issues I have found with allowing caregivers to use their phones as entertainment during work hours:
1. Paying insufficient attention to the patient (which can be very dangerous for the patient depending on the circumstances).
2. Encouraging the patient to sleep during the day, which is contrary to what the patient should be doing, especially if s/he has Sun Downers or sleep issues.
I, myself, have never asked home caregivers to do light housework because my MIL was very difficult to take care of. But light housework is typically included in the job description of home caregivers. This can include doing laundry for the patient, going food shopping for the patient, or preparing food for the patient.
BTW, it sounds like you are doing the right thing. Caregivers should be allowed to be on the phone only during their breaks (except if they get an emergency call or text of course).
You are kidding, right? Gosh, I have never been in an office environment where this is not happen extensively. I've done it myself. Others go out on a smoke break; I check the latest answers on my current favorite discussion board. Some people read the Wall Street Journal on their lunch break; some people check their emails.
I have seen this constantly since I encountered my first PC at work, in the early 1970s. Some companies are very lenient about this. Some have strict rules, but they only enforce them if someone is accessing porn or something like that. Some companies have fairly strict rules and they enforce them strictly.
How many cases of this have I seen, since I've worked with corporate computers? I don't know, but certainly more than a thousand.
I know it still goes on because I get personal messages and emails from people during their normal work hours. I assume they are on a break and they are using their personal devices.
Of course demstress's home is not a corporate office, so I don't know that any of this is relevant, but the answer to your question is yes, this happens all the time in Corporate America.
If you click on the wifi icon on your device or laptop, you can see a list of everyone whose wifi is "in range" of your laptop/device.
The icon will look like this, if you're not familiar:
cdn2.iconfinder.com/data/icons/flaticons-stroke/15/wifi-rounded-3-512.png
or:
simpleicon.com/wp-content/uploads/signal.png
The wifi accounts you see listed belong to your nearest neighbours' home/business internet accounts, or to nearby smartphones that are being used as wifi hubs (meaning they're using their phone data plan to connect other devices to the internet), or to nearby devices that have a wifi stick (a USB plug-in similar to a flash drive, but for accessing the internet anywhere, like you would on a smartphone). If any of these wifi accounts are not passworded, you could connect to the internet through them. And if you can see their account, they can see yours.
(I actually shared a wifi account with a neighbour in my building for a few years - half the cost for each of us! It worked through two concrete block walls.)
Bottom line if you don’t want to give her the password offer to set it up for her and you enter the password on her device.
From experience, good, loving caretakers are to be cherished. They are much more than just an employee. They are the person with whom you are entrusting the well being of your loved one.
I take care of my wife and use the internet to check on meds, nutrition, and often just stuff that interests me such as home building, garden plans, etc.
I would go nuts if my only outlet was the inane stuff on daytime TV.
The wifi access will not allow her to access your computer, only those things that interest her from her smart phone or tablet.
We live in a whole new world and she is worth keeping them by al means input the password for her. Once she has connected one time her device will “remember “ your wifi while in your house or
patio.
My CGs have use of my Wi-Fi. They have even looked up info for me. No one in this area expects them to be on their feet working at all times. Besides being a companion, and letting me have time out of the home, they do some light housework, like cleaning my aunt's bathroom, changing her sheets, making her lunch, vacuuming the area she uses. This helps me, but I really want them to assure her safety. She has fallen, and now she's doing some odd things that probably come from the dementia. One CG also drives her to get her hair done (that got her out of the house so I could clean my oven, and air the home.) Driving and cleaning cost extra.
If my aunt is napping, I expect CG to be awake and alert enough to respond. If she reads or checks emails, no problem.
I do not think it is fair to have a caregiver start dusting, doing laundry, or anything else. A contract should have been signed stating what the duties are. Believe it or not, in a lot of areas housekeepers make more money than caregivers. I used to clean houses and one of things that used to make me boil was I contracted to do certain chores. Then, in a month or so, the homeowner would try to add cleaning windows or doing personal laundry. For the same amount of money of course. More than what I contracted for. I quit a couple of jobs because of that.
BetseyP