I love good metaphors and I've been thinking of writing about "a new coat of paint" and "what's in a name". But I have to throw the metaphors away because I'm carrying the weight of "telling people what they don't want to hear".
I've been on the receiving end of this before, but more often I've been the one telling. So, "your shift is changing", "your work assignment is changing" and "you're not performing your job well" has been my focus for a few weeks. Fewer than 20 of 115 have had to hear me say it directly, but it carries heavy on everyone.
Day care, second jobs, spouses, families, obligations - life. Number two. That's the unspoken truth of my message.
It's my job. It makes good business sense. Better utilization of resources. Consistent with strategic plan.
When did I become this guy?
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Zen Stories
What do patient satisfaction, motorcycling and competition have to do with Zen Stories? Short answer - I'm intimate with all three.
Long answer - I attended a "lunch and learn" meeting last week with a group of people seeking to improve patients' experiences at the hospital where I work. The theme for the hour was "Zen Stories" and was facilitated by a beautiful woman who works in the Lab as a phlebotomist. I won't retell the Zen Stories here but I will summarize that they all had to do with people being "fully present". We talked a lot about what "fully present" means and I think we reached consensus that, at least in the realm of patient care (customer service), it implies a singular focus and broad receptiveness to the reality of a shared now. We are asked to do this repeatedly throughout the day as we tend to one patient's needs and then tend to another patient's needs. The first patient never loses importance in our minds, but our conscious mind must continually re-focus on the "now" patient.
The motorcycle both allows and requires the rider to be fully present. Extraneous external stimuli are muted - phones, radios, snacks and beverages - but senses stimulated into awareness. Each deceleration, acceleration and curve; each stop sign, car, truck and deer requires that elapsed moments be allowed to flow into the past so that the present is the focus.
(Bad buddhism, bad Zen. Sorry)
And competition...
'Competing gives purpose to my training and allows comparison of my efforts with those of other men. It’s also a relief not to be typecast by Parkinson’s. There’s no “PD” placed after my name on the whiteboard in the list of competitors. There’s no-one telling me to “rest if you feel tired.”'
This comes from a post on Stumptuous.com. Here's the link: http://www.stumptuous.com/shaky-man-in-the-gym-2-keep-on-shakin
"PD" is Parkinson's Disease. I think this gentleman gets the same thing out of competing that I do. Read this story and the shaky-man-1 and you'll learn of a man improving his future by focusing in the now, and by refusing to adhere to the tenets of his pathology.
Peace man.
Long answer - I attended a "lunch and learn" meeting last week with a group of people seeking to improve patients' experiences at the hospital where I work. The theme for the hour was "Zen Stories" and was facilitated by a beautiful woman who works in the Lab as a phlebotomist. I won't retell the Zen Stories here but I will summarize that they all had to do with people being "fully present". We talked a lot about what "fully present" means and I think we reached consensus that, at least in the realm of patient care (customer service), it implies a singular focus and broad receptiveness to the reality of a shared now. We are asked to do this repeatedly throughout the day as we tend to one patient's needs and then tend to another patient's needs. The first patient never loses importance in our minds, but our conscious mind must continually re-focus on the "now" patient.
The motorcycle both allows and requires the rider to be fully present. Extraneous external stimuli are muted - phones, radios, snacks and beverages - but senses stimulated into awareness. Each deceleration, acceleration and curve; each stop sign, car, truck and deer requires that elapsed moments be allowed to flow into the past so that the present is the focus.
(Bad buddhism, bad Zen. Sorry)
And competition...
'Competing gives purpose to my training and allows comparison of my efforts with those of other men. It’s also a relief not to be typecast by Parkinson’s. There’s no “PD” placed after my name on the whiteboard in the list of competitors. There’s no-one telling me to “rest if you feel tired.”'
This comes from a post on Stumptuous.com. Here's the link: http://www.stumptuous.com/shaky-man-in-the-gym-2-keep-on-shakin
"PD" is Parkinson's Disease. I think this gentleman gets the same thing out of competing that I do. Read this story and the shaky-man-1 and you'll learn of a man improving his future by focusing in the now, and by refusing to adhere to the tenets of his pathology.
Peace man.
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