Tidbits from the Nuthouse

And by "nuthouse," I mean, "work."

Ever since Thanksgiving (which, for the record, was a tremendous weekend that recharged our batteries with family, fantastic food, and memories of why we're wonderfully weird together), it's been a full moon at work. Employees seem to get antsy around the holidays and act out. Just a few tidbits to share with you:

Last week, I had to suspend one of the paramedics for driving 60 mph in a 30mph zone (with no lights and sirens and they were not transporting a patient). It was reckless driving and gross negligence. When I confronted the leadfoot, he asked me how I knew. I responded that I SAW HIM on the road. Then I had the manager check the telenavigation, "black box" to see how fast he was traveling in the ambulance. Then he had the guts to tell me I was lying.

I was lying? Hmmm.

Another employee, newly engaged to one of the new nurse managers (who is a passionate pistol who gets things accomplished and I respect her), developed a God complex. Engaged to one of the hospital leaders and suddenly privy to some of the inner-workers of the hospital, thought he no longer had to listen to his own manager (and director). He fed me a few lines about how the department isn't notified of hospital events so they could participate (they are). But we then made him the "events director" in the department to charge HIM with educating everyone on the hospital's events.

You want it, you got it, buddy!

The last instance of weirdness was with the employee who brought, um, "literature" to work. Are you good at unscrambling words? He brought NORP to work (I'm not having *that* word on my blog). The manager called me early Thursday morning and asked me to come visit, for I had to see something. I argued that I couldn't; my morning was full of meetings at the other campus, but he should send me a picture. I figured someone was sleeping on the job or maybe did something great like vacuum the department.

My phone beeped with the picture's arrival. It was the cover of a provocatively-posed men's magazine. A text followed from the manager, "here's your pic. Can I scrape my eyeballs out yet?"

No joke.

Sighing heavily, I had the manager confiscate the "literature" from this employee's mailbox. This employee has had nine write-up's in the last two years and I needed a reason to term him. Unfortunately, I couldn't prove the NORP was his. But we did find that he falsified his time clock record the previous morning.

Bingo. Insert red shoes here.

Actually, since I was at an off-site meeting at St. Piggy's Hospital, I had the manager don his own red shoes to fire this employee. He texted me the progress throughout my meeting and it was done. And it was good.

I'm sorry; I don't like firing people. But they usually fire themselves and you're just carrying out the duty.

I'm hoping things settle down the next few weeks. I am in the midst of my three road trips in 11 days that will log me close to 1000 miles. The first road trip was phenomenal; I saw my buddy Joe and his tremendous Lean work at St. Piggy's. St. Fozzie's is so far behind St. Piggy's, but it gives me something great to shoot for. And the road trips give me a lot of time to percolate my ideas and turn them into some executionable options.

The next trip is to Muppet Corporate for a leadership enhancement program I was asked to join. It's a group of 20 of us from across the system and it has HOMEWORK (I have a paper to write for it!). We have a total of 10 two-day retreats up at corporate and none of us really know what to expect from this program. Retreat #1 is next weekend, coinciding nicely with Zibby and Libby's wedding. The following Monday, I have another meeting at St. Piggy's, where I'm somehow supposed to lead a corporate collaborative on wound care.

This is daunting. I'm not sure how I'm going to pull together 14 hospitals' clinical practices of in-and-outpatient wound care. I'll take tips if you have them!

Things are great, though, and I'm feeling blessed. When our housekeeper came on Thursday, she left a big box of homemade Christmas cookies for us. I sort of wish I could come home to homemade cookies every Thursday! That little surprise made us realize we should try out our free membership to Peapod. We end up buying the same lists of stuff over and over again; in the name of efficiency, this will save us time and energy and I'm stoked.

So how are things going in your nuthouse?

:)