Dusting Off Old Skills

Recently I was able to make use of skills I previously demonstrated at work.

This past Friday, my mother-in-law was told by the rehab facility that they would be moving her out of her private room into a shared room because they needed the private room for another patient. Of course, this upset her. Who wants to spend 24/7 side by side with a stranger in a small room? Married couples have a hard enough time sharing whole houses. (Other married couples, of course.)

My sister-in-law was at a conference that day, and Dave was traveling and in meetings. He texted me and asked if I would mind making a phone call or two.

By noon on Tuesday, my mother-in-law was in a private room at another facility.

After getting my mother-in-law settled on Tuesday, Heather popped in for a visit. Her first question to me was “Did you yell at anyone today?”

This is similar to the way I operated at work. I was adept at identifying action steps and would take them at a rate that often made others uncomfortable. And I would occasionally yell at them.

Now, yelling at people is obviously not good, and it’s something I’ve consciously been working on avoiding. But moving too quickly without getting buy-in is also not good. And it would be nice to have an understanding of why the end goal you are trying to achieve with those actions steps is the best end goal to be shooting for. Or at least have an end goal in mind and why it’s a good end goal. And maybe ask a question or two along the way.

Me? I just like taking action steps.

Now, I did get Dave and Debbie’s buy-in through texts. As soon as one of them responded with a yes, I was good to go. Dave asked me if I had asked about doctor authorizations, medications, and transportation.  But those questions were well outside my narrow (okay, laser-like) focus. My one question tended to be “What do I need to do next to make this happen?”

But I am proud to say I didn’t yell at anyone.