When The Tough Times Come

SELLING OURSELVES SHORT

This is a tough time for all of us. Where I work everyone is stressed. Too much to do. Not enough time to do it.

Dilema

Unfortunately there is a dilemma. Managers and Administrators are judged by numbers. Did we have the right numbers. Did we reach our goals. How many things did we do wrong, is the paperwork up-to-date. Most managers have an impossible job! Some managers have 80 employees to review and they spend the weekends here and stay past 10 at night. They grow discouraged.

On the other side are the employees who are more often than not judged by what they did wrong rather than what they did right. It is an incredible feeling to have all the wrongs listed when we are reviewed. Many struggle all day to get everything done that is expected and some patient out of nowhere complains (yes, some patients complain) and we end up going in a ballistic nightmare.

On my desk is an icon of Saint John. I once stood in the cave in Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation while he was in prison. Isn’t it strange that while in prison he wrote performance reviews to seven churches with which he was familiar . You have done a good job in this and that BUT !!!! And to the church at Ephesus he said, “You have forsaken your first love.” And that is the problem with many of us. Often times the things we love the most and are best at are subjected to time lines and paperwork and trying to do the impossible. We could do a great job with 5 patients but 8 leaves us wanting. Or one patient takes up all of our time.

Well, I don’t think we will solve it unfortunately. Laura Babbage, a nurse, once sent me this saying which I keep on my wall by my calendar and read most day:

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays." (Emerson)

I once went to New York City and rode the bus to many historic places. One of the places on my list was Saint John’s Cathedral. Some consider it to be the largest Cathedral in the world. I remember the story of a bricklayer hired to work on Saint Johns. Of course bricklayers are judged by the number of bricks they lay each day. Whatever. Anyway, someone asked him when he had slowed to rest a minute, “What are you doing?” (Meant in a derogatory fashion of course) and he said, “I am building the greatest Cathedral in the World.”

And what are we doing (now don’t sell yourself short)? "Oh, I am building one of the great (fill in the blank)____________________________ in all the world, right?"

Bro. Dan