No nostalgic feelings here: I was conscripted when I was 19 and did my alternative civilian service in a home for Alzheimer patients for roughly a year. Although I was not directly involved in care (I managed the kitchen, gave food to the patients, did smaller repairs, cleaned), it was, by a large margin, the hardest job I ever had. It was the first time I became clearly aware that there is a part of the population that cannot even publicly complain about their workload because they are too tired in the evening to even hold a basic conversation.

Although the home looked nice and clean, and there were some sweet moments, the place in general was crazy and frightening to newcomers and visitors. Patients wandered off through the fire exits, they fought with each other, they died, they went to the toilet in the corner of their rooms, they were sexually interested in each other, grabbed breasts and ran around naked, they fell and injured themselves, they got panic attacks because they wanted to go home, because they suddenly thought they were in a bomber attack on Berlin in 1944 and had to go to the bunker - I could go on and on. One patient, a sweet old lady, was convinced that I was her fiance who died during their flight from Danzig in 1944. After a few weeks, she was convinced I had an affair with another woman, and her feelings towards me became more hostile. During my first week, an old, huge WW2 U-boat sailor became convinced he was in a bar fight and started attacking people. We had to lock him into his room.

My major responsibilities, lunch, breakfast and dinner, were usually complete chaos: imaging a room full of adults who behave like 2 year olds. They tried to eat their drinks with a fork, fell into their soup plates, threw their food onto the floor, complained about the food, refused to drink, cried, choked on the food, wandered off, all while a single patient who didn't even recognize her son anymore loudly proclaimed poems she learned in school as a little girl.

Dealing with relatives was also challenging, because they usually refused to accept the state their loved ones were in. We had one wife who repeatedly wanted us to get her husband to read Plato and Aristotle again, because "he loves doing this". But her husband, a former professor, couldn't even read or write his own name anymore and was mainly interested in trying to get female patients naked.

Other highlights include the time I confused the liquid for our industrial dish washer with a container of hand soap (they looked exactly the same) and flooded the entire kitchen and dining room with a 10 cm carpet of foam. Also, I once worked the late shift for 11 days straight, without a single free day in between. I am sure that wasn't even legal. Afterwards I couldn't remember what I did on individual days, it somehow all blurred together.

All for a pay of around 300 EUR per month (40 hours/week, back in 2007). I was so glad when it was over. But the experience greatly helped me in my later jobs, to put the workload into perspective. It was a humbling experience.