Author: mikemeyer949

Better

2:51pm in my office. My anxiety has subsided. For that I am thankful. I have been on video calls all day. That tends to put me in a bad mood. Now I am about to go into a meeting to discuss the new marketing plan. I either have to fully commit to moving forward or stop putting myself in situations where I fail.

Mindset

6:08am in the apartment. I had trouble falling asleep last night. No matter what I could not get comfortable. I thrashed around and changed positions until I finally fell asleep. I woke up late and didn’t get out of the house until after 5:30am. By that time The sun was shining. it was too hot and late to do the full route so the dog and I took a shortcut home. When we got back I fed her and gave her some water. Then I got myself something to eat and drank some water myself. Now I am on the couch with a cup of coffee and a toaster pastry writing this post. I thought about my mindset at work as I walked this morning. I tried to be objective examining my approach to this current situation. What fascinates me is how subtle thoughts pop into my head and trigger emotions. How I have a feeling and it evokes set beliefs. Basically I have programmed myself to expect certain outcomes based on previous experiences whether they are true or not. The perfect example of “self-fulfilling prophecy.” With the situation at work I want to lump my current circumstances in with other jobs from the last twelve years. I want to feel what I always felt; helpless, misunderstood, unlucky, under appreciated. But this is situation is different. In the past I was doing just sales. I had one job, grow the business. Get referrals. If I didn’t get that one result I was gone. This job I need to get results but I have something I didn’t have before. Control. I control what is being sold. Until now I was expected to get prospects and complete sales regardless if the offering was of value. It was frustrating and often hopeless. This situation is different. With control I have maneuvered the service in such a way to make it better. I have trained good clinical staff. I have hired good marketers to sell the product. The pieces are in place. Everyone wants results. I want results. I have done a good job with the shitty deal I have inherited. I have done a lot and continue to do more. The referrals, admissions and revenue are the lag measure. They are coming.

Check in

9pm in bed in the apartment. I grabbed burgers on the way home from work. The girls and wife were at an activity center. just me, the dog and the fish at home for almost two hours. I ate a burger and leftovers. I am stuffed. I watched some shows until they got home Then we played games as a family. Good evening all around. I am ready to fall asleep.

Big surf

12:45pm in my office. Eating lunch. The call went alright. My supervisor is frustrated. I don’t blame her. I shared what we are doing to control costs and increase business. We have a plan. We are doing it. Things are getting better. I have to catch myself and not own the bullshit. I walked into tough circumstances five months ago. It is not going great but I am not giving up. The last month and a half sucked. I admit the service failure in June and the sale of the company earlier this month lowered my energy. Today is the first day in a while I have felt focused and driven. I am ready to face the obstacles and find success. Staying in a situation like this is like surfing big waves. If you are able to ride the crest it can look amazing. Even be exhilarating. If can’t get get on top of things you will be torn apart. I got torn apart for a couple of weeks. Time to ride high again.

Work

6:21am in the apartment. Everyone is still asleep. I wish I was still asleep. I need more rest. I have been tired lately. Not sure what is causing it. Stress? Getting up too early? Distraction? I woke up an hour later than usual and still feel tired. I would have slept longer but the dog needed to go out. I took her for a walk, came home, made coffee, sat down and turned on the weather. Now I have time to gather my thoughts and write some things down. I am still examining what I consider my work/purpose. I am almost 50. As I approach middle age I know a job doesn’t define me. I am my own person. I set my own course. Like doing these posts. Writing down my thoughts. But these posts don’t fill my day. They don’t give me a battle, a game to win. I need an antagonist. Something to fight against and test my resolve. This job provides that. I wish it were going better. Being in business and not being successful sucks. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I took this job six months ago. I knew it was bad but it is even worse than I realized. This site is a mess. Our key referral source just sold us. No one wants to work. And half the people that show up don’t have the proper skill set. Some days I don’t know where to begin. everything I do to fix one problem uncovers more problems. Everyday is one step forward two steps back. No wonder I am exhausted. Tuesdays are the day I have one-on-one time with my supervisor. We have an hour phone call to go over key metrics. It isn’t too bad. My supervisor is nice. But she is frustrated like I am. We both want to be successful. We both want results. But we are struggling. I am not alone. other sites are struggling as well. I do not envy her job. We are part of a new company. We are under pressure to deliver. It is time to find our groove and get moving in the right direction. My call ends at noon. I will check in then and update how it goes.

Still on theme

6:39pm in the apartment. Picked up dinner for everyone, finished eating, now changing. I am still on the same theme today. My work history isn’t normal. No one should change jobs fourteen times in twelve years. No one should worry about being fired everyday. No one should have to give themselves a pep talk to get ready for work. I loved being a chaplain. I was empowered by the job. It wasn’t perfect but it was great as far as jobs go. It fit my personality. I hate operations and sales. I knew early I didn’t want to do operations. It wasn’t much longer I knew I hated sales. But work has a way of locking you in. Your resume shows experience in certain fields. Whether you like those fields is a different story. The immediacy of needing money and having a job override choice. Next thing you know you are depressed and stuck. I need to change.

Still play?

8:49am in my office. The referral from last night fell through. I am jaded. I knew something would go wrong. The patient had been put on palliative care with another hospice and the family chose to go with them. We went from an immediate need imminently dying patient to the admission being put off. Now it is gone altogether. Frustrating. Another set back in an already rough month. The question I have been pondering all morning is how long to still play the game? I think about the scenario of being a chaplain and my wife cutting hair. Find a small town, build a quiet life. Live simple. Her work is just as stressful. She does marketing for a pest control company. We both are beholden to numbers and financial results. Should we stop playing the game or keep going?

Journey man redux

5:47am in the apartment. Took the dog for a long walk this morning. We are both tired. I know I mentioned before that my post chaplain career has felt like being a “journeyman” professional athlete. I bounce from team to team. I seldom stay for more than a season. I am never settled, never at home. I have a particular set of skills that are valuable to a team. I fill a needed position. I show up, work hard and get paid. After a while the team management decides to go in a different direction or try something new. I update my resume, look for a new opportunity, get a new job and the cycle repeats. It hasn’t been terrible. I get to travel. I make decent money. But it is tiring not having a permanent job. I miss stability. I miss having peace of mind. I want to wake up and not feel like I am about to be fired every single day I go to work. How long can I continue to do this? Will I miss it when it is over? And most importantly, what is the alternative? What will I do if I am not doing this?

On call

10:52pm I’m in chandler. Sleeping in the couch. Girls are in my daughters bedroom. Wife and dog are in the master bedroom. I am administrator on call for work. We got a call around 8pm from a nurse practitioner for a STAT hospice admission. I spent the last two hours talking with my triage nurse and clinical director trying to get everything in place to take care of the patient. now the family wants to wait until morning. Frustrating from a care team perspective. Worrisome for the need of the patient. Luckily The patient appears to be comfortable and managed. We will do the admission in the morning. I appreciate the experience. I have to learn how to enter new referrals in the system and run eligibility. Skills I haven’t developed yet. This is a good life lesson. It is only when I am put in a moment of urgency do I realize what I don’t know but need to know. I will grow personally and professionally from this.