Maybe I should just leave Care and become a Bike Courier instead

is what my salary said to me the other day

I know how to recognise a stroke. How to guide someone through a panic attack without saying a word. How to sense when a person is nearing their final hours — and how to stay, quietly, fully present.

I’ve learned to speak softly while standing in a body that can barely hold itself upright. To have difficult conversations with families gripped by fear. To de-escalate without backup. To function on too little sleep, in rooms where dignity has already begun to fade.

All of this is part of the job. And most of us do it for less than someone delivering groceries.

As nursing care assistant I earn between €14 and €22 an hour. That includes nights, weekends, and holidays. It includes writing reports, care plans, end-of-life support, and aftercare for the bereaved. It includes shifts where someone dies — and you can’t stay, because someone else has just soiled themselves.

It includes the evenings I came home and couldn’t speak. The showers where I cried without knowing why. The moments I thought maybe I couldn’t handle it, when really it was the system that never made space.

And then I see an advert for bike couriers: €19 an hour. Flexible hours. No medical knowledge required. No deaths. No moral injury. No broken system to carry on your back.

And I ask myself: what does this say about us? What do we value? What are we willing to pay for?

This isn’t about belittling delivery work. All work deserves respect. But if care — literal life and death — is worth less than delivering a phone charger, that tells us something.

It shows that we value what can be measured, not what cannot be replaced.

Care isn’t efficient. It’s not scalable. It can’t be timed in minutes. And that’s exactly why it’s paid so poorly.

We live in an economy that rewards speed, visibility, control. But what happens when the carers leave?

They leave. More and more of them. Some burn out. Others go quiet. Some stare out of windows on their days off, afraid to go back.

And some — like me — start calculating. How many more years can my body take this? How long until I disappear completely into the work?

This isn’t just about money. It’s about recognition. About the right to exist. About being seen by the system you keep holding up, even when it keeps looking away.

I still believe in this work. But belief alone isn’t enough when the system has stopped believing in you.

Care for the ones who care — or don’t be surprised when the next courier at your door is the same person who once held your father’s hand as he was dying.