Day in the Life: What is it you do, exactly?
Have you ever wondered what exactly a Community Relations Director at an ALF is? No? Well, stop reading then.
I tried to pick a day where I'm doing more than just typing away at my computer and document it for you. The following is a chronicle of a Thursday:
8am-ish: Good morning! Driving into work - that's my facility (don't worry, the brake light is always on. Yes, dad, I'll get that looked at).
8:05am: My office door. The sticky notes are things that I'm thankful for - I'm posting one a day as a 'Thankful November' challenge to myself. A few residents have added notes, too, which is fun. I typically spend the first hour or so of work answering emails, checking my calendar, planning out my day, and following up with staff (and sometimes residents) about sentinel events from the night before.
9:14am: One of my residents stopping by to say, 'good morning.' Despite the fact that she can almost always be found in the morning sitting in a chair right outside my office, she rarely greets me first thing, so this was a special occasion. She also stated, 'I just finished going to the toilet; I'm very lucky!' Good morning, Tracy.
9:30am: Daily Stand-Up meeting for department heads. We discuss current happenings in the building, what we're each doing during that day, and share any other pertinent (and sometimes not pertinent) information. My office is typically where we hold the meetings because I have the most chairs (not visible in this picture - my side table with a few more chairs). The flag is from a Flag Day promotional event we did, and the stacks of papers really are organized, but I know they appear otherwise. The Keurig and space heater are my most-appreciated items.
10:30am: Heading out the door to do an assessment. Before any resident can move into our building, I conduct an assessment to make sure that they're ALF-appropriate, and to determine what Level of Care they are (essentially what services we will provide/charge them for). The main focus of my job is to keep our building full, so I do assessments pretty frequently. It can be difficult to determine an elderly person's needs when you don't come from a medical background, but I'm getting better over time. I used to just nod, smile, and write down the phonetic version of whatever medication or disease they named to ask my nurse about later. Now some of the more common names are familiar to me, and I know what follow-up questions to ask.
11:40am: Swinging by the local Fred Meyers on my way home from the assessment to pick up a few Thanksgiving gifts for some of our referral partners. My Executive Director and I plan to distribute them to some of our resident's Primary Care Physicians to thank them for all they do.
12:50pm: Back at the office. Time for a quick lunch at my desk. Steak, potatoes, and an apple (not pictured due to being ravenously ingested prior to the picture) make up a pretty typical lunch for me.
1pm: Conference call - who doesn't love those?! Me. I don't. Anyways, as you can tell from this picture, I use way too many sticky notes. And there's my wonderful space heater again. I share an office thermometer with my 33-week pregnant boss, and she has a fan in her office opposed to my space heater.
1:30pm: Listening in on Food Forum, where our residents have half an hour to meet with our Chef and our Lead Server to talk about the last month's menu, and give suggestions/ideas for the coming month. Fortunately, our Chef is amazing, and there were far more compliments than complaints this month.
2pm: Back from Food Forum, and a resident dropped in to chat. These little drop-ins can last anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes, and I never know what they're going to be about. Usually it's nothing to do with me, but I listen anyways. Mostly because they stand in my doorway so I can't leave...
2:11pm: Working on inviting folks to our Thanksgiving luncheon. The menu makes my mouth water!
3pm: Another office, another conference call. Making myself at home on my Executive Director's desk..shh, don't tell.
4:35pm: Why is it that whenever I need to leave right at 5pm, every resident needs something from me? One resident needed help ordering a bunch of steaks (who knows?), and then this resident came into my office needing immediate assistance with managing her Facebook.
4:50pm: Trying to get wrapped up for the day. Organizing my to-do list for tomorrow on yet another sticky note.
5pm: Gym clothes on, bags slung over my shoulder, waterbottle, coat, and lunch sack in hand - it's time to call it a day and rush off to the gym in time for the 5:30pm class. Then tomorrow we start all over again!
Thanks for following along! I'm sure this didn't really clear up exactly what it is I do, but now you have a snapshot of a day in my life. No two days are ever the same, but today was a pretty good example of the on-the-go, fluxcuating life of a Community Relations Director.
