Let's talk about the 'f' word.
No, not that ‘f’ word. I’m talking about FAILURE. Let me sum up for you quickly why this word is on my mind. The main role of my job is to keep the census of our building up, and right now, it is down, waaayyyy down. Down enough that extra letters are required for emphasis on the word ‘way.’
I’m new at this building and in the industry. Nine months ago I hunted this job down, fought tooth and nail to get it, and now I’m failing at it. Care staff hours are being cut (we, like all ALFs, staff on PPD or Per Patient Day, so essentially based on facility census), and that means income is down, and maybe even Christmas is going to be smaller, all because I can’t fill our building.
Does that sound a little too dramatic? It might be – there are a lot of factors that are out of my control (holiday season, rooms out of service in our building, over-saturated geographic area, lack of training, etc), but it feels like it’s my fault. Ultimately, maintaining census is my job, and I’m failing at that.
This past Monday I was at work for almost 13 hours, which would have been a personal record, and while my feet were tired when I got home, my spirit wasn’t. Why was that? I was working all day, and I’m a failure – how could I not be exhausted?
Monday night I’d arranged for a local Boy Scout troop to come in, and they sang songs, performed skits, and made ornaments with our residents. I watched the faces of my seniors light up as the young men talked, laughed, and sang with them. Some of my residents have wonderful, involved families and friends, and some have not had so much as a single visitor as long as I’ve known them. Later that night and the next day, I had multiple residents and family members thank me for arranging such a fun event, and when one scout and his father were walking out Monday night, I heard the scout remark, ‘Dad, that was so cool!’
I’ve received some great compliments from families I’ve worked with as I’ve helped them find a home for their mom or dad. I’m never meeting a family on their best day; something has to have gone wrong (99% of the time) in order to make them realize that their parent/s need more help, and that they need to move into a home. I met with one gal multiple times before she chose us as the future home for her mom, and she took very detailed notes every time. The last time we met, she sorted through the pages of her notebook and told me, ‘I want to show you something.’ Not only had she taken notes on the communities she had visited, but also on their location, staff, commute time, I mean everything. And scrawled on the side of the page where she’d written about my community she had a small note that read ‘Tracy, Comm. Rel. Dir. Young, energetic, awesome, FIRM HANDSHAKE.’ I was so flattered that after she left I copied down her notes and taped them to my computer. She chose us for her mom because she thought we were the best fit and could provide the best community for her, and part of that was because she liked me. She liked me!
It all comes down to perspective, of course. You could sum up my job in one line of numbers and say I’m failing, and lately, that’s how things have felt. Or, you could sum up my job in a hundred moments with families, residents, and anyone who comes into our community; the little things they’ve said, or the hugs I’ve received. I guess I’ll pour myself a hot cup of coffee, straighten my name tag, think of all those moments, and keep doing the best I can.
