“Monday Monday, can’t trust that day, Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be”
Oh yeah, I could just hear the Mamas and the Papas singing that song around ten o’clock yesterday morning in my head. It was just one of those days, nothing real bad, just short-handed and busy, very busy.
I am sure you have all been there, before you know it it’s noon and you are exhausted, yet you haven’t touched a thing on your desk.
I had only been to work for a few minutes when I realized what type of morning it was going to be. As a team we took our places setting up a plan on who would try to cover what so that we could focus on our main objective, the patients we serve.
When we broke for lunch and I had a few minutes to breathe, my mind started thinking back over the busy morning. Three people doing the work of 4 1/2 and we did a great job of it. Not one patient knew that we were short-staffed, and each one got the attention that they needed and deserved.
This caused me to think of an experience that a staff member and I had recently at a conference that was so different from what we had just pulled off.
After the conference one evening we walked downtown and found a nice looking restaurant, glanced at the menu outside and decided to go in. We sat at a table and waited for someone to come give us menus. We waited for 10 minutes before someone came over. We told them we wanted to order right away because we had an event to attend.
That didn’t happen, to make a long story short, it took forever to get a drink and then when we ordered we wondered if we would ever get our dinner. Once it did arrive it was only partially what we ordered, but told them it was okay because we had to leave. We couldn’t figure it out, it seemed like no one who worked there really cared and when they did come to the table, they were almost angry.
It wasn’t until we left that restaurant that we realized what the problem was (see picture above) How could we have missed this sign? Had we noticed it when we were looking for at the menu, I can tell you we would not have gone in.
I was proud of our team, we laughed, smiled and really enjoyed the challenge today. Not that we want to do this everyday, but it’s good to know that we can rise to the task when we need to and survive.
8/15/14
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