Bravo

For the purposes of this blog you must understand what a Bravo is from Hospice. A Bravo is something one employee can give another at any time they feel the other employee went beyond the normal day to day job to help a patient. At the end of the month all the Bravos are entered in for a gift card drawing. It's a great way to boost morale. I've thought it was a neat program all along.

With this said, my little pilot team ended today. I cannot communicate how difficult this pilot team has been, how many hours I have worked, or how much stress it has created. All seven of us pilot members said all day yesterday, we'll be done today. It was a really long meeting yesterday. At the end of the day yesterday they told us our meeting time today was changed to 12 instead of 1. All of us balked a little having to change patient visits yet AGAIN. But the executive people assured us this would be "fun" for us as we wrap things up for the pilot. I thought, okay, fun. Fun sounds good right now. I like fun. Six weeks ago I was a fun person. Cool. They reminded us again to come for our "surprise."

Last night I got yet another voice mail telling us to attend at 12 for a surprise. Then again, this morning a text message reminder. I was beginning to believe this might actually be fun.

Silly, silly, me.

Arrive at noon-Difficult due to clients

A lunch ticket to the cafeteria for free lunch- fine, it is noon.

Joined by "Big wigs" to come and eat with us pilot people- alright.

A thank you card- standard.

A Bravo for each us- priceless (no really priceless, it is worth no value).

And to think I worked 12-16 hours a day for the last six weeks to come in one hour early for a cafe meal, a card, and a bravo. If only they had told me to come in at one today. It would have stung a little less.

I did not expect anything. I'm a salary employee, I understand that I'll work for free most of my life when I'm salary. But, yesterday, they told us to come for a surprise. They said it would be worth my time. I sat and ate a cafeteria lunch while typing on my computer, listening to voice mails amidst the other pilot team members doing the same. Not fun. Then right before one they pass out said thank you cards and bravos. Although I am laughing inside, again, not fun. I'm still a bit shocked by it all. I'm tempted to complete a psychosocial bereavement assessment on myself after the let down from no fun.

My bravo says, "Allison committed extra time to help move the organization forward."

Wow. Extra time? That's how they define me putting my child to bed for nights on end and typing until midnight. That's what they call talking to my RN's and other staff attempting to calm all of us before yet another meeting? Extra time is what they call all the time my patients were not seen because I could not get there? Extra time is what they call changing how they want us to input care plans EVERY WEEK so I had to redo them again? Extra time? Extra?

How about a Bravo that says, "Allison committed all of her time, sacrificing time with her daughter and family, along with her sanity, only to realize that we really don't care about her input but for the purposes of PR we needed a pilot team so we could pretend to care."

Now that my friends, would be a Bravo worthy of being written in a employee file.

:-)

Video and such

Today has been very fun. In his quest to run the Marathon in February, Chris ran sixteen miles this morning. I'm very impressed. I also wanted to take Natalie to the zoo and I was quite sure he would not feel up to all that walking after all that running. So she and I ventured to the animal kingdom together. I don't know that we've ever had a whole day of fun with just us girls. Before we hit the interstate I stopped at the Starbucks drive thru (insert here an advertisement for Starbucks, everyone in the world must try their Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, I'm a big fan of pumpkin spice latte this time of year, but the hot chocolate beats it hands down). Anyways, back to sitting in the drive thru, I suddenly flashed back to girls days with my mom. If we were out of town together, it almost always included Starbucks. (of course now, Princeton, has a Starbucks). I loved my days out with my mom, I still do. I found myself today aching for her to join us on mine and Natalie's first girls day. However, KK is not real fond of zoos. She feels sorry for the animals in cages, so we'll keep her to the shopping days. All that said, I soaked up today. I watched Natalie as she yelled, "hey monkey" from the top of her lungs. I laughed in amazement when the monkey actually turned to look at her. She giggled and sat in awe during the train ride. She calls it the "chugga chugga choo choo ride." We looked at the water, watched the alligators, lions, elephants, we fed a giraffe, which has a really long tongue, and we got the giggles at lunch and couldn't stop laughing. It was a great day. It wasn't until leaving the park that I realized how much like me this child is. Natalie pulled herself up on a park bench and asked me to sit beside her. Then she said, "Mommy sit with me and watch the people." I love watching people, so I joined her. We sat there for a few minutes and took in the day. Our first girls day. I'm hoping for many, many, more.

The video is of Natalie enjoying her favorite book right now, Brown Bear. We took this video last week. She now has it completely memorized. She is growing...

Blues Clues

The adorable pumpkin hat is from Uncle DJ and Aunt Sarah...the blues clues costume brought shrills of joy from Natalie in the store when she discovered it. Whenever she puts it on, she quickly turns around and says, "See, my tail!"

A Happy Post

At the risk of my few readers thinking I'm depressed, I thought I should share some happy things for a change. These pictures are of Natalie getting ready for a birthday party. She is saying and doing more new things all the time. At Toys R Us yesterday she picked out the birthday present and card for her good friend, Parker. I told her that we needed to pay the nice lady at the counter before we could leave. Natalie promptly carried the card to the counter and said, "hey lady" to the cashier. The cashier looked a little shocked and then laughed really hard. This is my child. I hope you all have a great week!