I've been pounding the keyboard for the last couple hours, trying to dig out of Email Hades, while Jack's put on an acoustic guitar concert. "One," "I'm Yours," and "Hotel California" never sounded better- he finished HIS big go-live today and is celebrating his new found freedom from the confines of his office.
It's all about attitude, right? So instead of focusing on the litany of CRAP that happened today, I instead choose to focus on the funnies. I offer you this picture that my Diabetes Center manager randomly posted all over the Center on the same day we had our big go-live and a new doctor starting:
He added a little Post-it with "3" on it, suggesting that our last velociraptor attack was on Friday.
I was chatting with our IT support staff in the break room and one of them looked quizzically over my shoulder and asked, "Is that a dinosaur?" Thinking it was some announcement about Franciscan leadership or the annual HIPAA education, I shrugged it off. Walking through the practice, I saw three more dinosaur signs. Arriving back at my office (in a busy hallway of Administration, I might add), I saw another dino sign. I couldn't help it, I laughed until I cried.
I love how my great managers know when I'm really struggling and they somehow buoy me with laughter. Like the time another manager squeezed pixy stix under my office door and still another manager "pranked" me with a fake emergency that ended up being a surprise party. While it's risky, I like being vulnerable with these people; I think it's okay that they see the real me and see that I struggle with stuff, too.
It's the same with "the awesome people," the core group of directors at work who get each others' backs. As soon as I sent out the termination notices on Friday evening, I immediately had six directors call me and offer to do whatever they could to help. THAT is friendship.
That's why I am taking time out of the longest work day in recent history to record some of the gratitude I feel in a very dark, bleak, scary, and overwhelming situation. It's so overwhelming that my CNO gave me carte blanche to clear my schedule for the rest of the week so I can, well, not die. I only have 29 meetings this week, a road trip, and a presentation in front of all the system CEO's, COO's, CNO's and VPMA's next Tuesday at Muppet Corporate. It's been a dream of mine to present to that group and it's finally happening- but I'm too stressed to even worry about the presentation yet. Figure I can do that the night before!
It's all about optimism, right? I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about this whole situation with the manager I fired on Friday. He wrote a letter to a Board member, assassinating my character and leadership style. Every where I look, I find another deficiency in his work. I feel bad; this shouldn't have happened...but last time I checked, grown men didn't need babysitters.
I also chose to IGNORE the frustration and crap of Friday by working on ethics papers for 12 solid hours over the weekend. I had to write three ethics papers and I FINISHED decent drafts of them all. Another hour or two and I'm done. Halfway through this master's degree! That was enough to really lift my spirits; those papers were the biggest monkey on my back. My pastoral theology class is over and I'm now onto a Church history class studying the Ecumenical Councils and their effect on the formation of the Catholic credo. I'm technically a seminarian now and I have the option of buying a shirt that says something to the effect of "I study theology and I'm cool."
Theology IS cool...but so is forcing yourself to laugh when it matters most.
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